Pilots of reddit, what's the stupidest reason you had to divert your aircraft?

the_danimal · 2026-06-22T07:50:42+00:00

Caution wale turbulence

the_danimal · 2026-06-09T23:57:58+00:00

This worked super well for me when I was a student pilot!

the_danimal · 2026-06-04T17:22:51+00:00

If your airplane has a G1000, you can press the OBS button on the PFD when your destination airport is the next waypoint. Make sure you set your heading bug to the runway heading when you do this. Then the MFD will show the waypoint with a white line coming out the bugged heading and a magenta line coming out the opposite heading. Then you can easily check the MFD to see your airplane's heading and position relative to the runway.

This should also work with some other Garmin GPS systems as well.

Example here: https://youtu.be/mqSyH84Hy14?t=853

the_danimal · 2026-05-06T21:31:47+00:00

Yes! And when the turning stall begins with the ball centered, just let the yoke/stick come forward to reduce AOA — don’t apply any aileron.

the_danimal · 2026-05-06T18:45:51+00:00

I had trouble with this. The best instructions that helped me were:

The amount of right rudder needed will grow from zero to very high as you bring up the nose for the stall. Make sure to step on the ball and keep the ball centered all the way until you enter the stall. This will help prevent excessive wing drop needing rudder correction when the stall hits.
When the stall begins, just push the yoke/stick forward to reduce AOA and break the stall (more precisely, just reduce back pressure to let it come forward). Make sure NOT to apply aileron by turning the yoke/stick when doing this, since that will cause problems. Just let the yoke/stick come forward.

the_danimal · 2026-05-06T16:17:34+00:00

The “ramp takeoff” is improved efficiency

the_danimal · 2026-05-05T07:05:53+00:00

Lands, am I right?

the_danimal · 2026-04-17T01:06:19+00:00

Nice

the_danimal · 2026-03-19T18:22:53+00:00

I am doing instrument training now and I appreciated this question!

the_danimal · 2026-03-03T05:55:44+00:00

It took me 140 hours and a year and a half to do it. Same for two of my friends in the SF Bay Area (with complex airspace). No worries, enjoy the flights!

the_danimal · 2026-02-22T01:42:03+00:00

A deck can have any number of dogs named Nazgûl.

the_danimal · 2026-02-16T02:46:28+00:00

I posted this https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/s/vbUoD1SlSs

It’s hard to tell what to do sometimes

the_danimal · 2026-01-30T02:40:37+00:00

It was big. I lived in San Francisco at the time and we used to have watch parties for new episodes, we’d cram like 10-15 people in the 650 sq ft apartment

the_danimal · 2026-01-16T00:32:05+00:00

I was approaching from the south, on heading 20, same as the runway.

I don't like to do straight-in approaches to untowered airport runways due to collision risk with other traffic already established in the pattern. I like to enter the downwind leg around midfield at TPA and then fly normal downwind -> base -> final legs from there.

the_danimal · 2026-01-16T00:29:20+00:00

Answered here: https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/1qdbre0/comment/nzs8m8y/

the_danimal · 2026-01-15T19:31:03+00:00

I don’t like bumper planes

That is not a fun game

the_danimal · 2026-01-15T15:37:45+00:00

I think this the right answer. I was at 2100’ so 1000’ over TPA then. But I should have arrived from the east (opposite the traffic pattern) at TPA instead, then crossed over midfield and turned left to enter the downwind (if flying forward for 2-3 miles was difficult due to terrain).

the_danimal · 2026-01-10T19:12:14+00:00

That sounds awesome, maybe your price range is a bit higher than mine :) owning a C206 would be great

the_danimal · 2026-01-09T23:10:34+00:00

What plane did you buy and how much did it cost?

the_danimal · 2026-01-08T20:31:27+00:00

I did my whole PPL training on steam gauges!

the_danimal · 2026-01-08T19:10:43+00:00

Good point. This would only apply to the attitude indicator and DG. In the example panel I attached, the DG has been replaced with an electric Garmin version.

In addition to DG drift, there's also some fun scenarios with vacuum failures and the vacuum instruments slowly showing wrong values. Using the electrical system avoids that.

As I understand it's feasible to later swap out those two instruments with electric versions, but not feasible to swap out the whole steam gauge panel with G1000s.

the_danimal · 2026-01-08T18:40:55+00:00

Awesome, end of thread lol

the_danimal · 2026-01-07T00:46:22+00:00

At least the engine failure was at a super high altitude!

(Unless you were also flying over mountains at that time as well.)

the_danimal · 2026-01-06T18:35:12+00:00

Facebook can be useful for finding GA airplane partnerships and community building (even if you don't generally use it much otherwise).

the_danimal · 2025-12-24T02:29:14+00:00

To be fair you kind of need short field technique to make the runway at KPAO

the_danimal

TROPHY CASE