Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

[bassman284]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

Probably spotted a hot tub full of frolicking babes.

 

[erwinner]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

I went up in a 6 seater Cessna to shoot a promotional video and before landing at our first stop we had to make quite a few circles while the pilot tried to figure out why his left landing gear indicator light wasn't indicating. (it was just a loose connection)
The landing coming back was quite exciting as he wanted to land on a runway that wasn't being used so he'd have a shorter taxi to his hanger. Got hit with a pretty good crosswind right before we touched down and it sent the nose gear into the pavement pretty hard! Very exciting!!! But I had full faith in the pilot as he is a Air Force vet, current major airline pilot, and has logged 1000s of hours in his little Cessna.
I love small aircraft.
And boats!

 

[waterinthefuel]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

I'm a pilot. The phenomenon you saw was what draws pilots to general aviation, freedom of flight. He can do what he wants once the tower is closed.

He could have been up for a million reasons, but the wonderful thing is he was up there. He was high....without drugs.

Thank you Wilbur or Orville!

P.S. Just for the record, no tower will put a single engine Cessna pilot into a 45 minute holding pattern at night. He was doing free flight, especially since the tower was closed. And he wasn't knocked out, a plane like that without an autopilot would crash quickly even if properly trimmed. With an autopilot it would fly for a long time until running out of gas. It would not circle overhead for 45 minutes.

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

Runway lights are generally pilot controlled.

Yep, that's the case with this airport.

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

Mile High Club????

In this case, more like the 700 foot club...

 

[Don S]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

Yep, that's the case with this airport.

Things fail. You don't know why he was flying like that, but you do know for sure it wasn't something like that?

Call the airport and ask if they know anything about it.

 

[southkogs]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

Too dark to see anything more than a silhouette and the lights. Don't think it was a search either, no spot lights on the plane, and when that sort of thing is going on there is usually 1 or 2 state police helicopters doing the work.

Not precisely what I meant. The searches I mentioned would be mostly electronic/radio, not employing lights. There's even an option (though I don't know of any reason this would happen at night) where an aircraft would orbit on station to aid radio transmissions on the ground. There's a whole pile of reasons that a plane might fly that kind of pattern.

Heck, if you can afford AVgas right now - you can afford to do whatever you want with it!

 

[Fleetwin]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

A friend of mine and I once had to circle like that once to wait for the dang geese to wander off the runway. The runway was a float plane canal and we were in a Cessna 206.

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

Things fail. You don't know why he was flying like that, but you do know for sure it wasn't something like that?

Call the airport and ask if they know anything about it.

Well.. Other part that I forgot to mention was I have a police scanner that also does ham, weather, marine, and air. I turned it on and let it scan all the air stations, and not a peep out of anybody except the occasional crackle from something far off. I would think he would probably be barking at someone if something was up with the runway lights. I did also try to call the airport too.. no answer. If he couldn't land there, his next closest place he could land would be at Beverly Municipal, which is probably around 7-10 miles away. He was heading in the right direction for that.

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

I'm a pilot. The phenomenon you saw was what draws pilots to general aviation, freedom of flight. He can do what he wants once the tower is closed.

He could have been up for a million reasons, but the wonderful thing is he was up there. He was high....without drugs.

Hey, I'm all for it! Just was a little concerned that something was going on.
The one time I've been up in a comparable plane, we did it in the day light and only did a half a dozen or so circles to take some photographs.
I'm fortunate enough to have a neighbor in Maine who's a doctor, and makes big bucks. He took me up on his plane after doing a little work on his Ski Nautique. First photo is his plane which he has since started to rent out, and has bought a float plane with lotsa grunt (lucky guy). Second and third photos are of our shore line. The square dock to the left is for out right-of way beach. Fourth picture is Naples causeway with the little stripseparatingg Brandy Pond from Long Lake.





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[oops!]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

i can think fo several reasons.....he could have been "under the bag" going for his imstrument licence...

If you fly a cessna at the correct rpms....adjust your trim just right.....the plane will circle perfectly level...you can take your hands off the controls... and it will circle...this is using prop thrust to start circling.

If the pilot is trying to get used to vertigo......this is also a good way to do it.....

When a pilot flys into a cloud.....he cannot see the horizon.....his body tells him that he is flying all cockeyed....his instruments say different....It is a really unsettling feeling....if the pilot adjusts and corrects so his body feels normal.....the plane is now in a death spiral attitude... keep making adjustments.....and you will impact the ground very hard.
one of the kennedys crashed and died this way.

flying under the bag....means a big canvas bag over your head...you cant see anything.....you have to trust your instruments, and shake what your body is naturally telling you.

Just as a side note.......They took 50 student pilots and placed them in a simulator.... gave them a "fog or cloud scenario" all of them crashed.....all of them. The longest one took just over 700 seconds. Shaking the vertigo feeling is very important.

 

[Philip_G]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

I'm a pilot. The phenomenon you saw was what draws pilots to general aviation, freedom of flight. He can do what he wants once the tower is closed.

He could have been up for a million reasons, but the wonderful thing is he was up there. He was high....without drugs.

Thank you Wilbur or Orville!

P.S. Just for the record, no tower will put a single engine Cessna pilot into a 45 minute holding pattern at night. He was doing free flight, especially since the tower was closed. And he wasn't knocked out, a plane like that without an autopilot would crash quickly even if properly trimmed. With an autopilot it would fly for a long time until running out of gas. It would not circle overhead for 45 minutes.

Tower wont put anyone in hold because thats not what they do. Approach or center most certainly would especially if someone went in to a nonradar airport on the approach and forgot to cancel effectively closing the airport down to ifr traffic until they're located. Or he could be practicing adjusting the outbound legs to get a perfect 1min inbound leg.

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

i can think fo several reasons.....he could have been "under the bag" going for his imstrument licence...

If you fly a cessna at the correct rpms....adjust your trim just right.....the plane will circle perfectly level...you can take your hands off the controls... and it will circle...this is using prop thrust to start circling.

If the pilot is trying to get used to vertigo......this is also a good way to do it.....

When a pilot flys into a cloud.....he cannot see the horizon.....his body tells him that he is flying all cockeyed....his instruments say different....It is a really unsettling feeling....if the pilot adjusts and corrects so his body feels normal.....the plane is now in a death spiral attitude... keep making adjustments.....and you will impact the ground very hard.
one of the kennedys crashed and died this way.

flying under the bag....means a big canvas bag over your head...you cant see anything.....you have to trust your instruments, and shake what your body is naturally telling you.

Just as a side note.......They took 50 student pilots and placed them in a simulator.... gave them a "fog or cloud scenario" all of them crashed.....all of them. The longest one took just over 700 seconds. Shaking the vertigo feeling is very important.

Thanks for the info Oops. Funny what happens when one of your senses is knocked out of the equation. Very interesting to say the least... BTW Congratulations on your promotion.

 

[DaNinja]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

Many reasons for a pilot to choose to orbit for a while.

For example...RogersJetboat, do you live near Lawrence Muni or maybe Plum Island?
There's an instrument approach into Beverly that includes a holding pattern in lieu of procedure turn up by Lawrence and it's missed approach procedure is a direct flight to hold at a Navaid around Plum Island.

I've worked at entering and flying holding patterns for hours sometimes.
And then again, I've orbited for a while just trying to figure out where the heck I was or work out a commo issue.

 

[southkogs]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

And then again, I've orbited for a while just trying to figure out where the heck I was...

"I dunno Bob, that really looks like Flat Creek Road, but I can't tell from up here. Is there a McDonald's at that intersection? Or is that off Northfield?"

... aaaahhhh, using the "live map" at 1000ft. Done that before :facepalm:

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

I am with Ooops on this one. When I was training to be a pilot, I did a lot of training "under the hood" as its called where I am from. I also did a lot of traing doing turns in the shape of a a square. May look like I was circling from the ground.

 

[DaNinja]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

"I dunno Bob, that really looks like Flat Creek Road, but I can't tell from up here. Is there a McDonald's at that intersection? Or is that off Northfield?"

... aaaahhhh, using the "live map" at 1000ft. Done that before :facepalm:

We ferried Cobras from California to Texas back in the early 90's. I'll admit that on a couple of occasions, we dropped down and circled to read a water tower or a highway sign. :redface::facepalm:

The aircraft that we were delivering had all navigation equipment removed because they belonged to the unit and weren't part of the turn-in. Nothing but a pencil and a sectional.

 

[Philip_G]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

flying under the bag....

how can you see the instruments with a bag on your head?
in my years I've never heard it anything other than under the hood

 

[DaNinja]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

how can you see the instruments with a bag on your head?
in my years I've never heard it anything other than under the hood

Learning to fly Apaches, the bag was one of the phases that stopped, or postponed, most students.
The entire back cockpit was blocked off or "bagged" while you learned to fly with the night vision and symbology in the right eye display.

Even flying Hueys in the instrument phase of flight school, I think my windshield was blocked, "bagged", and I was under a hood.

 

[Philip_G]

Re: Airplane acting oddly last night over the house, any pilots out there?

guess the army can't afford foggles.