I like the periodic confession threads .. I learn a bit from these. And
for some types of learning, repetition is good. :-)

My last stupid error was when I was a student (about two months ago)
landing a C172 dead stick with 40 degrees of flaps in. Oh yeah, and the
light crosswind. (Yes, there is a placard for this.) This was while
practicing for the checkride - the word was out that the examiner was
big on dead stick landings.

After getting it on the ground I was pretty happy. That's when I felt
my rear lift up and the nose start to head down. I don't quite know how
I danced through the swerve - I imagine it involved a lot of back
pressure and *not* touching the brakes.

After sitting at the FBO and thinking about it a few minutes I came to
the conclusion that the wind had shifted on me. The ASOS report was
close to an hour old and even though I flew the entire pattern 2 or
three times, I had not cross checked with the wind sock. My second
mistake was to not hold enough backpressure during the landing roll. My
third mistake probably was to have the controls in the wrong position
during taxi because I was unaware of the wind direction.

Neither error is a crisis in itself. In combination, I nearly had a
bent prop.

Lesson learned. I'm much more vigilant about cross checking the wind
sock when I'm on downwind and holding backpressure until the plane is at
safe taxi speed. I don't think the light crosswind was affecting my
elevator control, but that's been burned into the back of my eyes now too.


Mike (PP-ASEL)