As soon as I got near the tops of the trees I felt the lift reduce and the stall horn began. The controls were sluggish and I knew instantly that I needed to lower the nose to prevent a stall. I lowered the nose and tried to nurse it back up, but very quickly realized something needed to be done as the runway was reducing and I didn’t feel comfortable in the lift being generated being able to take me over the trees.
Cessna 210 cuts off another plane on the runway
As I released the brakes to start my roll forward I saw an airplane taxiing at high speed past me on the right and then in front of me onto the runway. There is no way he could have not seen me. He had to taxi forward of my position and around me in a very tight area to avoid striking my wingtip or going off of the narrow 40-foot-wide runway.
Stearman narrowly avoids mid-air with banner tow airplane
I realized that I had made a mistake. Even though I had visually cleared the area in front of me, I should not have flown a shallow, wings level, straight-ahead descent. I should have made one (or more) S-turns during the descent to scan for traffic ahead and below my flight path.
Rough engine, flat tire end flight
I will use the lessons from this flight for myself and all future students for the purpose of discussing complete airplane maintenance with airplane owners (especially new airplanes), what to do when engine becomes rough, and procedures to follow with a flat tire.
A banner pilot’s dangerous habit
The banner towing pilot has a dangerous habit of flying through the traffic pattern. Earlier that day another pilot had a near miss with the same aircraft at the same location.
Another close call at an unsafe airport
ZZZ is in need of a Control Tower. It is an unsafe airport with the type of flight operations and how much activity there is. There seems to be close calls for various types of events nearly every day.
CFIs anger hangar owner
Five days later we start hearing from other pilots how “pissed off” a hangar owner is that we used the taxi lane in front of their hangar adjacent to the taxi lane.
Pilot feels pressured to conduct ferry flight
“I shouldn’t have let the plane owner and mechanic pressure me into going when we suspected that the engine driven pump was ‘weak.’ Ironically, the owner has the fuel pump sitting in his house so he knew it was having problems and failed to tell me before I flew five hours over water outside of gliding distance of land.”
An increasingly dangerous traffic pattern
“It seems like the traffic pattern at LMO has become increasingly dangerous. Many instructors have had near misses with other pilots not making calls or entering the pattern however they wish.”