Possible Pilot Deviation Poll

[201er]

Have you ever been issued a possible pilot deviation? Was it just a friendly chat, chew out, or did it lead to FAA action?

[McMooney]

yes, it was a friendly chat WITH the FAA involved

[N201MKTurbo]

Another poll would be.

Have you ever done one and not been caught.

[201er]

11 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Another poll would be.

Have you ever done one and not been caught.

Do you mean issued a phone number but didn't call? Or going NORDO to the point they couldn't issue one in the first place?

[midlifeflyer]

Not sure how to answer. I did have a pilot deviation and ended up in  a discussion with the FSDO,. But since I was NORDO at the time, I never received a Brasher.

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Another poll would be.

Have you ever done one and not been caught.

That's why God gave us ASRS!

 

[N201MKTurbo]

2 hours ago, 201er said:

Do you mean issued a phone number but didn't call? Or going NORDO to the point they couldn't issue one in the first place?

You didn’t say NORDO. You said deviation. Missed an altitude or a turn or clipped an airspace or flew to the wrong waypoint? You know any number of stupid pilot tricks. 
 

The more you fly the better you get, but it also gives you more opportunity to screw up. We would all like think we are perfect, we are not.

[hubcap]

I have a buddy that took off VFR from an uncontrolled field during a Presidential TFR a couple of years ago. He flew VFR cross country to his destination and was given a phone # to call when he reached his destination. The FAA made him take several hours of refresher training with a CFI in pre-flight planning.

[N201MKTurbo]

57 minutes ago, hubcap said:

I have a buddy that took off VFR from an uncontrolled field during a Presidential TFR a couple of years ago. He flew VFR cross country to his destination and was given a phone # to call when he reached his destination. The FAA made him take several hours of refresher training with a CFI in pre-flight planning.

Seems like a reasonable penance for his sin.

[Pinecone]

I had an issue that did not result in a Brasher, but the controller reported it.

I was cleared by tower to take off, then turn to 060.  At least that is what I heard and repeated.

When I was turned over to approach was upset as he expected me at 360.  No Brasher.

Several months later I got a letter about the incident.  It said they looked into it, it was not a big deal, but don't do it again.

[Shadrach]

17 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Seems like a reasonable penance for his sin.

I don’t know if it’s reasonable.
 

If you’re a sitting member of the US senate, you can land on a closed runway (NOTAM’d) with maintenance personnel present and have the same penance. 

I for one have grown weary of the swaths of airspace restrictions for whichever solipsistic, narcissistic “public servant” has ventured outside of DC. 

The only thing these TFRs have successfully accomplished is enforcement action against boneheaded pilots.
Stop a Cessna from landing on the Whitehouse lawn? Nope.

Keep a Gyrocopter from landing on Capital hill?  Nope.

I suppose they are useful in giving military aircraft some low speed, intercept, practice. Which is good given that their radar apparently doesn’t pick low up speed GA aircraft.

[N201MKTurbo]

2 hours ago, Shadrach said:

I don’t know if it’s reasonable.
 

If you’re a sitting member of the US senate, you can land on a closed runway (NOTAM’d) with maintenance personnel present and have the same penance. 

I for one have grown weary of the swaths of airspace restrictions for whichever solipsistic, narcissistic “public servant” has ventured outside of DC. 

The only thing these TFRs have successfully accomplished is enforcement action against boneheaded pilots.
Stop a Cessna from landing on the Whitehouse lawn? Nope.

Keep a Gyrocopter from landing on Capital hill?  Nope.

I suppose they are useful in giving patrol aircraft low speed, intercept, practice. Which is good given that their radar apparently doesn’t pick low up speed GA aircraft.

Whether you agree with the TFRs or not. (I’m with you on that) It is still our job as a pilot to obey them. I doubt he violated the TFR just because he didn’t like it.

[N201MKTurbo]

2 hours ago, Shadrach said:

I don’t know if it’s reasonable.
 

If you’re a sitting member of the US senate, you can land on a closed runway (NOTAM’d) with maintenance personnel present and have the same penance. 

I for one have grown weary of the swaths of airspace restrictions for whichever solipsistic, narcissistic “public servant” has ventured outside of DC. 

The only thing these TFRs have successfully accomplished is enforcement action against boneheaded pilots.
Stop a Cessna from landing on the Whitehouse lawn? Nope.

Keep a Gyrocopter from landing on Capital hill?  Nope.

I suppose they are useful in giving patrol aircraft low speed, intercept, practice. Which is good given that their radar apparently doesn’t pick low up speed GA aircraft.

If you wanted to crash your terror Cessna into the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, there would already be a Cessna bug splat on the side of the containment building before the pilots at Luke AFB even got to their supersonic airplanes.

[Rick Junkin]

26 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

If you wanted to crash your terror Cessna into the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, there would already be a Cessna bug splat on the side of the containment building before the pilots at Luke AFB even got to their supersonic airplanes.

Back when all this first started we were flying CAP for all of the presidential TFRs, and there were established CAPs around the country to immediately respond to interlopers into other TFRs. Once the airborne alert went away, Rich is right. For most TFRs, unless there are ground defenses set up to guard them (and don’t rule that out!) the attack would most likely be over before ground alert fighters could be scrambled. They’d all have to be the size of a presidential TFR to allow enough time for an effective airborne response. And that would be ridiculous.

TFRs now, aside from the DC and presidential movement ones, have taken on the same kind of effectiveness as TSA. Their value is debatable, but it gives the American people the appearance of their government doing something to protect them. The other piece is the ROE for engaging an aircraft that violates a TFR. Ross’s examples stand as evidence that no one wants to be held responsible for shooting down a civilian aircraft. And those aircraft went into the most sensitive areas in the country.

Cheers,
Junkman

[Mooneymite]

After landing, I got a call.  There was an investigation.  ATC made a mistake.  Case closed.

[Shadrach]

3 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Whether you agree with the TFRs or not. (I’m with you on that) It is still our job as a pilot to obey them. I doubt he violated the TFR just because he didn’t like it.

Agree it is our duty to gather all necessary information to conduct the flight safely and legally. My point was that violating a VIP TFR is far less egregious from a safety standpoint  than landing on a NOTAM’d closed runway with a big white X painted over the numbers and favoring one side of the runway to avoid hitting maintenance personnel with your twin Cessna. Yet the penance was the same. except for that if you violate a VIP TFR, your record can never be expunged. Deliberately land on a closed runway with people on it? That can be expunged in five years

Its good to be connected…

I say this as someone who is grateful for everything that Jim Inhofe has done for GA. Of all of the things he’s done, I wish I could say setting a good example was among them.

[Shadrach]

2 hours ago, Rick Junkin said:

Back when all this first started we were flying CAP for all of the presidential TFRs, and there were established CAPs around the country to immediately respond to interlopers into other TFRs. Once the airborne alert went away, Rich is right. For most TFRs, unless there are ground defenses set up to guard them (and don’t rule that out!) the attack would most likely be over before ground alert fighters could be scrambled. They’d all have to be the size of a presidential TFR to allow enough time for an effective airborne response. And that would be ridiculous.

TFRs now, aside from the DC and presidential movement ones, have taken on the same kind of effectiveness as TSA. Their value is debatable, but it gives the American people the appearance of their government doing something to protect them. The other piece is the ROE for engaging an aircraft that violates a TFR. Ross’s examples stand as evidence that no one wants to be held responsible for shooting down a civilian aircraft. And those aircraft went into the most sensitive areas in the country.

Cheers,
Junkman

Absolutely true for the Cessna at the White House. However, I think the gyrocopter that made it to Capitol Hill was undetected until it landed.

[MikeOH]

4 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

If you wanted to crash your terror Cessna into the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, there would already be a Cessna bug splat on the side of the containment building before the pilots at Luke AFB even got to their supersonic airplanes.

Turns out, no real difference (2.4 inch deep 'splat') if you choose to use an F4 Phantom going nearly 500 mph:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5IymYOeiSc

[M20F]

1980 something newly minted PPL flew at night with a friend for lakeshore tour.  Got lost and remembered DPA VOR so I tuned it in overflew ORD then overflew DPA to the VOR.  Then I turned around to fly east back to 06C.  I reminded myself that I would enter DPA’s so better call them.  Tower advised a few folks have been looking for me.  Called the # on an payphone and whoever the person on the other end was couldn’t have been better.   
 
My friend who was along for the ride never realized anything was going on.  He bought me a couple beers afterwards as my reward for giving him the ride.   

[Fly Boomer]

31 minutes ago, M20F said:

never realized anything was going on

That is a great story.

[N201MKTurbo]

11 hours ago, MikeOH said:

Turns out, no real difference (2.4 inch deep 'splat') if you choose to use an F4 Phantom going nearly 500 mph:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5IymYOeiSc

A friend of mine was in TV production and filmed an industrial show at Palo Verde before it was fueled. He got to go into the containment building and even got to look into the reactor. They had the head off for eventual fueling. 
 

He was blown away by how thick the walls of the containment building were. He said if there was a nuclear attack, he wanted to be in that building.

Ive studied that plant extensively. I’ve twice been offered admission to the operator training class. I’m too old and it is too far to drive. Even though it would be cool to have your hands on the throttle of a 1,000,000 HP engine.  
 

If a terrorist wanted to kill the plant, they should aim for the diesel generators and the power lines leaving the plant.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

Ive studied that plant extensively. I’ve twice been offered admission to the operator training class. I’m too old and it is too far to drive. Even though it would be cool to have your hands on the throttle of a 1,000,000 HP engine.  

A buddy of mine is an operator there.   He had been a nuke operator in the Navy, then went to Palo Verde and eventually did all the training to be an operator.    It does not sound like a very good job other than the pay is good and it is secure.   Boredom and tedium are apparently a big issue.

 

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, EricJ said:

A buddy of mine is an operator there.   He had been a nuke operator in the Navy, then went to Palo Verde and eventually did all the training to be an operator.    It does not sound like a very good job other than the pay is good and it is secure.   Boredom and tedium are apparently a big issue.

 

Absolutely, the only time you get to do anything interesting is bringing it up after an outage. The rest of the time you are watching a bunch of meters hoping they don’t do anything.

I have a simulator for a GE BWR reactor. I have brought it on line about 10 times. I have never done it without getting an alarm. Usually for one of the monitors going out of range. It is because it is so boring. It takes a few hours to do it. As you are notching the control rods out according to the rod plan, you have to keep the neutron monitors between 20% and 80%. With the intermediate range monitor, it is just like changing the range selector on your voltmeter. When you notch the rods out, the neutron flux goes up, then settles down, then you notch it up again. If you are not paying attention and the reading goes to 81% of full scale you get an alarm. 
 

It gets more interesting once you are on the average power range monitor, then you can make enough power to spin the turbine and make sure the condenser is working and such, then sync the generator to the grid and close the generator breaker. Then you can notch the rods the rest of the way out. Palo Verde runs with all the rods out and controls the reactivity with the amount of boric acid in the primary water. This way the fuel rods react evenly. At least top to bottom. 
 

[hais]

How about a non-ATC violation? Crossing the border, I filed the eAPIS. I mixed up first and last name fields on the manifest form.

eAPIS was cleared as filed. I landed at KBLI to clear immigration, officer discovered the error, and I was promptly cited for "illegally transporting immigrants". Got a letter a couple weeks later from CBP. The fine: $50K! 

After a bit of crying and pleading they said they can waive if I can submit a satisfactory written procedure for preventing such mistakes. I sent one detailing how I would print the manifest, and with a pencil, verify all fields are correct. 

Couple months later, I filed another flight. While holding short waiting for take off clearance to KBLI, I got a call from CBP. Officer asked whether I noticed we are no longer allowed to put a "-" in the aircraft registration (used to be you enter C-ABCD, now just CABCD). It was a small note on the eAPIS I overlooked. I apologized, said I was holding short, and asked whether I should cancel. She said I can proceed. Upon landing, I got cited for "illegally transporting an aircraft". Since it was my second offense, they wouldn't let me off the hook. 

[MikeOH]

9 minutes ago, hais said:

How about a non-ATC violation? Crossing the border, I filed the eAPIS. I mixed up first and last name fields on the manifest form.

eAPIS was cleared as filed. I landed at KBLI to clear immigration, officer discovered the error, and I was promptly cited for "illegally transporting immigrants". Got a letter a couple weeks later from CBP. The fine: $50K! 

After a bit of crying and pleading they said they can waive if I can submit a satisfactory written procedure for preventing such mistakes. I sent one detailing how I would print the manifest, and with a pencil, verify all fields are correct. 

Couple months later, I filed another flight. While holding short waiting for take off clearance to KBLI, I got a call from CBP. Officer asked whether I noticed we are no longer allowed to put a "-" in the aircraft registration (used to be you enter C-ABCD, now just CABCD). It was a small note on the eAPIS I overlooked. I apologized, said I was holding short, and asked whether I should cancel. She said I can proceed. Upon landing, I got cited for "illegally transporting an aircraft". Since it was my second offense, they wouldn't let me off the hook. 

I have got to know...are you saying you had to actually PAY a $50,000 fine???  Or, is there a happier ending to this story?