Zero/Zero Approach in 1965

[Colonel Sanders]

Had this emailed to me:

http://www.backcountrypilot.org/forum/v ... f=1&t=8770

Remember, a really great pilot always figures a way out. Or,
loans me his P-51D.

-- cut --

Zero/Zero by Charles Svoboda

It happened sometime in 1965, in Germany. I was a copilot, so I knew, everything there was to know about flying, and I was frustrated by pilots like my aircraft commander. He was one of those by-the-numbers types, no class, no imagination, no “feel” for flying.

You have to be able to feel an airplane. So what if your altitude is a little off, or if the glideslope indicator is off a hair? If it feels okay then it is okay. That’s what I believed. Every time he let me make an approach, even in VFR conditions, he demanded perfection. Not the slightest deviation was permitted. “If you can’t do it when there is no pressure, you surely can’t do it when the pucker factor increases,” he would say. When he shot an approach, it was as if all the instruments were frozen – perfection, but no class.

Then came that routine flight from the Azores to Germany. The weather was okay; we had 45,000 pounds of fuel and enough cargo to bring the weight of our C-124 Globemaster up to 180,000 pounds, 5,000 pounds below the max allowable. It would be an easy, routine flight all the way. Halfway to the European mainland, the weather started getting bad. I kept getting updates by high frequency radio. Our destination, a fighter base, went zero/zero. Our two alternates followed shortly thereafter. All of France was down. We held for two hours, and the weather got worse. Somewhere I heard a fighter pilot declare an emergency because of minimum fuel. He shot two approaches and saw nothing. On the third try, he flamed out and had to eject.

We made a precision radar approach; there was nothing but fuzzy fog at minimums. The sun was setting. Now I started to sweat a little. I turned on the instrument lights. When I looked out to where the wings should be, I couldn’t even see the navigation lights 85 feet from my eyes. I could barely make out a dull glow from the exhaust stacks of the closest engine, and then only on climb power. When we reduced power to maximum endurance, that friendly glow faded. The pilot asked the engineer where we stood on fuel. The reply was, “I don’t know--- we’re so low that the book says the gauges are unreliable below this point. The navigator became a little frantic. We didn’t carry parachutes on regular MAC flights, so we couldn’t follow the fighter pilot’s example. We would land or crash with the airplane.

The pilot then asked me which of the two nearby fighter bases had the widest runway. I looked it up and we declared an emergency as we headed for that field. The pilot then began his briefing.

“This will be for real. No missed approach. We’ll make an ILS and get precision radar to keep us honest. Copilot, we’ll use half flaps. That’ll put the approach speed a little higher, but the pitch angle will be almost level, requiring less attitude change in the flare.”

Why hadn’t I thought of that? Where was my “feel” and “class” now?

The briefing continued, “I’ll lock on the gauges. You get ready to take over and complete the landing if you see the runway – that way there will be less room for trouble with me trying to transition from instruments to visual with only a second or two before touchdown.” Hey, he’s even going to take advantage of his copilot, I thought. He’s not so stupid, after all.

“Until we get the runway, you call off every 100 feet above touchdown; until we get down to 100 feet, use the pressure altimeter. Then switch to the radar altimeter for the last 100 feet, and call off every 25 feet. Keep me honest on the airspeed, also. Engineer, when we touch down, I’ll cut the mixtures with the master control lever, and you cut all of the mags. Are there any questions? Let’s go!” All of a sudden, this unfeeling, by the numbers robot was making a lot of sense. Maybe he really was a pilot and maybe I had something more to learn about flying.

We made a short procedure turn to save gas. Radar helped us to get to the outer marker. Half a mile away, we performed the Before Landing Checklist; gear down, flaps 20 degrees. The course deviation indicator was locked in the middle, with the glideslope indicator beginning its trip down from the top of the case. When the GSI centered, the pilot called for a small power reduction, lowered the nose slightly, and all of the instruments, except the altimeter, froze. My Lord, that man had a feel for that airplane! He thought something, and the airplane, all 135,000 pounds of it, did what he thought.

“Five hundred feet,” I called out, “400 feet……..300 feet…….200 feet, MATS minimums…….100 feet, Air Force minimums; I’m switching to the radar altimeter ……..75 feet nothing in sight……50 feet, still nothing….25 feet, airspeed 100 knots,”

The nose of the aircraft rotated just a couple of degrees, and the airspeed started down. The pilot then casually said, “Hang on, we’re landing.”

“Airspeed 90 knots….10 feet, here we go!”

The pilot reached up and cut the mixtures with the master control lever, without taking his eyes off the instruments. He told the engineer to cut all the mags to reduce the chance of fire. CONTACT! I could barely feel it. As smooth a landing as I have ever known, and I couldn’t even tell if we were on the runway, because we could only see the occasional blur of a light streaking by

“Copilot, verify hydraulic boost is on, I’ll need it for brakes and steering.” I complied.

“Hydraulic boost pump is on, pressure is up.” The brakes came on slowly---we didn’t want to skid this big beast now. I looked over at the pilot. He was still on the instruments, steering to keep the course deviation indicator in the center, and that is exactly where it stayed.

“Airspeed, 50 knots.” We might make it yet.

“Airspeed, 25 knots.” We’ll make it if we don’t run off a cliff. Then I heard a strange sound. I could hear the whir of the gyros, the buzz of the inverters, and a low frequency thumping. Nothing else. The thumping was my pulse, and I couldn’t hear anyone breathing. We had made it! We were standing still!

The aircraft commander was still all pilot. “After-landing checklist, get all those motors, radar and un-necessary radios off while we still have batteries. Copilot, tell them that we have arrived, to send a follow me truck out to the runway because we can’t even see the edges.”

I left the VHF on and thanked GCA for the approach. The guys in the tower didn’t believe we were there. They had walked outside and couldn’t hear or see anything. We assured them that we were there, somewhere on the localizer centerline, with about half a mile showing on the DME.

We waited about 20 minutes for the truck. Not being in our customary hurry, just getting our breath back and letting our pulses diminish to a reasonable rate. Then I felt it. The cockpit shuddered as if the nose gear had run over a bump. I told the loadmaster to go out the crew entrance to see what happened. He dropped the door (which is immediately in front of the nose gear) , and it hit something with a loud , metallic bang. He came on the interphone and said “Sir, you’ll never believe this. The follow-me truck couldn’t see us and ran smack into our nose tire with his bumper, but he bounced off, and nothing is hurt.”

The pilot then told the tower that we were parking the bird right where it was and that we would come in via the truck. It took a few minutes to get our clothing and to button up the airplane. I climbed out and saw the nose tires straddling the runway centerline. A few feet away was the truck with its embarrassed driver.
Total damage---one dent in the hood of the follow me truck where the hatch had opened onto it.

Then I remembered the story from Fate Is the Hunter. When Gann was an airline copilot making a simple night range approach, his captain kept lighting matches in front of his eyes. It scarred and infuriated Gann. When they landed, the captain said that Gann was ready to upgrade to captain. If he could handle a night-range approach with all of that harassment, then he could handle anything.

At last I understood what true professionalism is. Being a pilot isn’t all seat-of-the-pants flying and glory. It’s self- discipline, practice, study, analysis and preparation. It’s precision. If you can’t keep the gauges where you want them with everything free and easy, how can you keep them there when everything goes wrong?

[Slappy the Squirrel]

Cool story, definately a lesson to be learned there for young new pilots.

But besides all that... And not to take away from the point of it.... But why did he hold for a full two hours over Germany only to shoot an approach in zero/zero..... You would have thought there would be an airport within 2 hours flying that wasn't zero/zero? Wouldn't you?

In any case, good post.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Cool story, definately a lesson to be learned there for young new pilots.

But besides all that... And not to take away from the point of it.... But why did he hold for a full two hours over Germany only to shoot an approach in zero/zero..... You would have thought there would be an airport within 2 hours flying that wasn't zero/zero? Wouldn't you?

In any case, good post.

It is a good story and reminds me about the old saying that every pilot will earn their entire lifetime salary in one 2 minute period at some point in their career, but I was thinking the same thing about the 2 hours of holding. My fervent hope is that I never get into a position where there are no options. 30 + years of flying and so far I have never totally been backed into a corner, I hope to retire with the record intact.

[robertsailor1]

Quite the story

[trampbike]

Awesome story. Thanks for posting it.

[Colonel Sanders]

all of the instruments, except the altimeter, froze. He thought something, and the airplane, all 135,000 pounds of it, did what he thought.

I climbed out and saw the nose tires straddling the runway centerline

An aircraft is an extension of your body. You control it to within
one inch of where you want it to be, and that's what this pilot
could do.


PS My only criticism of the above is that he should have taxiied off
the runway, even if he took out a landing light and got it stuck in the
mud, because someone else might want to use the same runway,
with horrific results if it wasn't moved from the runway.

Pilots are famous for making bad, high-risk decisions like this. Let's
say you are faced with two choices:

Door #1: a survivable option incurring a known, certain amount of
damage (like taxiing blind off a runway), guaranteed no injury, or

Door #2: a range of choice, from zero damage (no one else lands
on the runway) to fatal (someone else lands on the runway,
destroys both aircraft, involving fatalites.

The fascinating thing about the psychology of pilots is that we rarely
will choose door #1 - we always roll the dice and choose door #2
and risk fatalities, because of the possibility, however faint, of escaping
clean.

I would humbly opine that if you are the sort of person who would
never choose door #2, you probably won't choose to be a pilot. Or
if you do, you won't be very happy (why?)


In the situation above, the pilot choose to not risk getting his aircraft
stuck in the mud off the runway, and instead gambled on a tenerife-style
collision, if someone else tried the same thing he did (zero/zero landing).

If I can teach you one thing in 2012, is to consider door #1, at some
point in your career. Too many times I see pilots taking on very high
risk, that they often don't comprehend very well, when there are other,
much safer options.

I would far rather see you bend a little tin, than be dead.

Aviation is a harsh mistress. It handsomely rewards the skilled and
competent, and brutally punishes the others, in a rather medieval
manner, entirely anachronistic to our fisher-price, rounded-corners
world. You might quite reasonably find that frightening. I find it
fascinating, which is why my normal solo takeoff involves a half-roll
to the inverted at 80 mph.

Like aviation, I dearly love motorcycles and software development,
because they similarly provide considerable gain (in the context of
an amplifier, such as a transistor or op-amp) in respect of operator
ability - I might hasten to add, in both directions.

In all three activities, there can be no posing, no fakery, and I really
like that authenticity. However it does come at a terrible cost.
A friend of mine - taught him to fly tailwheel - was just killed riding
a motorcycle in Australia. So long, Nik.

PPS If you are a pilot, please be careful on your motorcycle. This
guy went to the moon and back, and guess how he died?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad#Death


This guy was an incredible pilot - I might add that all of the Lycoming
powered composite monoplanes are direct descendants of his famous
Laser - and guess what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Loudenslager

[lownslow]

Colonel, I normally agree with you but in this case Door#1 is a done deal once you choose it where Door#2 will let you change your mind at any time. I would argue the right choice was made.

LnS.

[Colonel Sanders]

I would argue the right choice was made

The important thing is that you are aware that there are
two choices, and that you are consciously choosing one,
with full knowledge of the possible very high downside risk.

Too many pilots think, "That could never happen to me!"

But my point is that many aviation fatalities in the past could
have been avoided if that pilots had chosen Door #1 (certain
non-fatal cost) instead of Door #2 (variable cost, from zero
to fatalities).

Interestingly, nearly all pilots if asked, will tell you that they
are "above average", which is a statistical impossibility. IMHO
only if you are a subtantially "above average" pilot, should
you be considering door #2. Pilots on the left hand side of
the bell curve should be seriously considering door #1.

[Shiny Side Up]

PS My only criticism of the above is that he should have taxiied off
the runway, even if he took out a landing light and got it stuck in the
mud, because someone else might want to use the same runway,
with horrific results if it wasn't moved from the runway.

Rarely does the world give one such black and white decisions to make. For example, there existed the possibility of getting stuck without sufficiently clearing the runway to make it safe for someone else to land. Since it was a fighter base, there were likely multiple runways, though it doesn't specify. Being controlled as well, one would hope that in such conditions if there was required an emergency need to clear the runway, they could find a way to drag the thing off the field - I suppose it might have been possible that some poor soul was out there in the soup also with a comm failure.

To finish, while your point is well taken, usually only in hindsight can one really weigh what was really the absolute best choice.

[robertsailor1]

Agreed

[trampbike]

Pilots are famous for making bad, high-risk decisions like this. Let's
say you are faced with two choices:

Door #1: a survivable option incurring a known, certain amount of
damage (like taxiing blind off a runway), guaranteed no injury, or

Door #2: a range of choice, from zero damage (no one else lands
on the runway) to fatal (someone else lands on the runway,
destroys both aircraft, involving fatalites.

The fascinating thing about the psychology of pilots is that we rarely
will choose door #1 - we always roll the dice and choose door #2
and risk fatalities, because of the possibility, however faint, of escaping
clean.

I would humbly opine that if you are the sort of person who would
never choose door #2, you probably won't choose to be a pilot. Or
if you do, you won't be very happy (why?)

Researchers Tversky and Kahneman summed this concept pretty well:
"People tend to be careful when seeking gains, but choose risks to avoid losses"


What option do you choose?:
1. I give you 300$
2. You have 80% chance of getting 400$ (20% chance of getting nothing).

Most people answer 1. They want to make sure that they will gain something, so they choose the less profitable option number 1. (option 2. has an expected value of 320$)


Now, what would you prefer?:
1. You lose 300$
2. You have 80% of loosing 400$ (so 20% chance of loosing nothing).

Most people answer 2. They do not want to loose anything, so they prefer to roll the dices and face and expected loss of 320$...


In aviation, we could argue that the second problem is of more interest than the first.

What would you prefer?:
1. You decide not to fly because of a safety concern (weather, airplane condition, your own physical condition -you're dead tired because of your ridiculous schedule-, etc).
With that decision you are loosing something: Your boss is pissed and threathens you, your custommers are pissed and treat you like shit, you have to sleep one more night away from home, etc.
2. You decide that you are good enough to face the adverse conditions and you take-off. Now the loss is not sure, there is a pretty reasonable chance that this flight is going to be routine. However, your decision to take-off might cost everyone on board and some people on the ground lives'.

By reading the accident reports, we can easily figure which of the 2 options is too often chosen.

[shitdisturber]

Cool story, definately a lesson to be learned there for young new pilots.

But besides all that... And not to take away from the point of it.... But why did he hold for a full two hours over Germany only to shoot an approach in zero/zero..... You would have thought there would be an airport within 2 hours flying that wasn't zero/zero? Wouldn't you?

In any case, good post.

Not necessarily. Going back to my days in Germany it was not all that unusual for the entire continent to go below minima! One incident in particular I remember occured just before Christmas in 91 or 92. The infamous fog started rolling in and we were the last airbase in Germany still open; we ended up with fighters from all over the country parked wherever we could find room for them before we too shut down. Thankfully everybody was on the ground by then! Our "guests" ended up staying with us for two weeks before it was good enough for them to go home.

[Colonel Sanders]

Widespread low celings can indeed cause havok. Has
Avianca Flight 52 already been forgotten?

[shitdisturber]

Since it was a fighter base, there were likely multiple runways, though it doesn't specify.

Most of the fighter bases I ever saw in Germany were single slabs of concrete. Although most of them were also designed so that you could use the taxiway as a runway in a pinch if your runway was cratered and the roads became the taxiways.