I never wanted to have to write this article. Who would? It was pretty clear from the start that I was cut from a different cloth. These were things that happened to others and would not, could not happen to me. But, in fact, it did happen to me. And it can happen to you. And I’m not talking about the onerous task of writing an article for a newsletter.

The past year had been pretty busy with work and I had definitely not found much time to fly. I work a full time IT job at Miramar College, and a 2nd job designing and maintaining an online sports registration system. I intended to go at least once a month, but didn’t always make it. At worst, I went every other month for currency. But two major sporting registration events in 2013 followed by a third registration scheduled to open Jan 3rd, 2014, my “day” job, the infernal holidays, two months of visiting parents and a girlfriend who, for reasons surpassing understanding, wanted to spend time with me conspired to keep me Earthbound for about four months!

Enough was enough. The registration system went online as scheduled on January 3rd, and I had a reservation the next day currency flight. I would leave Montgomery, do several touch & goes at Ramona and fly on to Carlsbad for lunch. I expected I would be a bit rusty, having done much the same flight in August and knowing that my first landing would almost certainly not be as smooth as my third or fourth, but I had plenty of time (all day, in fact), and would be sure to get at least one landing that felt as if I was landing on baby-bottoms before scooting off to lunch at CRQ.

I arrived at Montgomery Saturday morning, and went in search of my chariot, Cessna 1285U. A yellow and white 172M, it had just been washed and looked pretty clean both inside and out. For the price, I had expected some older internal gear, but was pleasantly surprised to see a GPS, and no extremely old abacus-style instruments. I did my walk around, topped the plane off, got the ATIS, ran down the checklist and got a clearance to taxi for a right down downwind departure. After the run-up, I got a “taxi into position and hold” clearance and shortly thereafter my flight into destiny began as I followed the Cessna ahead on upwind, crosswind and part of the downwind.

The initial phases of the flight were pretty smooth, my radios were all set up for Gillespie tower, then Ramona ATIS and tower, and I was feeling good that I was not “behind the plane.” At Cowles Mountain I advised Gillespie that I was crossing overhead at 3,000 towards Ramona, and they helpfully gave me some traffic advisories, including an “aircraft northeast of my position, type unknown” south bound at my altitude. I spotted him some distance off, advised the tower and got a frequency change for the Ramona ATIS, which reported winds “210 at 5” and the ever-present “birds in the vicinity.”

I switched to Ramona tower and pleaded for touch-and-go’s; Ramona responded “85-Uniform, say request.” Damn – I was sure I had said “Ramona Tower, Cessna 1285U over Barona, touch-and-go's, I have Yankee”, but I must have forgotten to ask for touch and go's. Or, as my ego tells me, they perhaps did not hear me correctly -- I hate it when I mess up radio calls. Anyway, none of the amazing warbirds at Ramona were scrambled to shoot me down for my offense, so I repeated my request for T&Gs. Ramona asked me enter a left base and contact them at 2½ miles. I began slowing the plane down.

At over three miles, Ramona called me up and indicated they had me me at two miles, and cleared me for a touch and go, runway 28 then left traffic. I know I was over two and a half miles thanks to Foreflight's new distance rings feature, but I dutifully repeated the clearance and dropped another ten degrees of flaps.

I executed the turn onto final pretty much perfectly lined up, but still a little bit high. I pulled the throttle to idle, dropped the flaps the rest of the way and trimmed the plane for 65 knots. Still high, I slipped a bit to drop some altitude and continued the approach. The windsock was about where I expected it based upon the ATIS (Yankee, 210@5), so just a little crosswind correction and I came down on the left, right and finally nose wheel and I began to screw up (actually, I screwed up before I took off, but I'll address that later).

Unfortunately, the wings did not come off the airplane at that point. It turns out that in a Cessna 172M (and, indeed, many, many other aircraft), the wings remain attached even though all three wheels are on the ground. Yet I essentially stopped flying the aircraft. I was now “driving” it with my feet and ignoring the “useless” yoke. As a student pilot, I often turned the yoke while taxiing, like a steering wheel -- I imagined the controllers in the tower pointing and laughing at me. I broke that habit by placing my left hand on the dashboard to keep from touching the yoke. In retrospect, that was a bad idea, as it turns out that the Cessna continues to be an airplane through all phases of operation up to and including tie-down, and it is important to always be flying the airplane. Now, I never have taken my hands off the yoke during a takeoff or touch-and-go, nor had I done so this time; but sadly, the yoke did become a very secondary control in an unconscious sort of way. Always fly the airplane!

The actual landing was mediocre at best. I felt a little wobbly and less-than-smooth applying the cross wind correction, but not extravagantly so. I landed a little long but still, not terribly so – it was on the runway and not in the Pacific at least. However, I was not flying the airplane any longer. I was on the ground, I was steering with my feet to keep it centered, but my hands were using the yoke more as a hand rest than an actual control. Further, I made an error while cleaning-up the plane -- I failed to raise the flaps prior to applying power.

Carb heat in, power in, the aircraft veered somewhat strongly to the left. I applied right rudder to correct. Realizing the flaps were still down, I reached over to bring them up. Before I had touched the control for the flaps, however, the world sped up considerably. The right wing suddenly and aggressively lifted, and the Cessna veered very sharply to the left. As if touching a red hot stove, my right hand recoiled instantly from the flap lever back to the throttle. The tilting continued, and ahead of me were the dirt and weeds on the left side of Ramona’s runway. There was a scraping sound, and I glanced to the left – the left wing was tilted crazily low – and thought to myself “the wing struck the runway.” The nose had pitched down at the same time as the sound, and then the Cessna thumped back onto the runway, all three wheels once again grounded. I was still on the runway, so I quickly straightened out to avoid getting any dirt or dust on the plane (it had just been washed, after all). The tower was on the radio with me a second later – “Cessna 1285U, state your intentions.” Though Ramona had not cleared me for “the option”, I decided to take it anyway, and told the tower than I intended to park at transient.

I have spent considerable time since trying the recall exactly what my actions were, but I simply cannot recall what my feet did, nor my hand on the yoke – there was little time for deliberation and well-reasoned decision making; my limbs were on their own for the time being. I suppose I’m lucky they didn’t take the opportunity to leave. To the best of my recollection, I pulled the throttle back as soon as I retrieved my hand from the flap lever.

During the taxi back, I begin to wonder if I had hit the prop as well. During the incident, I thought I had struck the left wingtip but as I taxied back, I wondered. The sound had been a scraping sound, consistent with what I thought a wingtip strike would be – not at all what I thought a prop strike would sound like. Still, I kept the throttle very low, and I begin the worlds-slowest runway exit. An aircraft behind me was asked to go around, a helicopter on the north taxiway was asked to stay out my way and a small child grew into old age. Afterwards, I wondered if the sound was so different from what I would have expected from a prop-strike due to my noise cancelling headset.

After parking the Cessna, it was instantly apparent that yes, I had managed to strike the prop. The outer few inches of the tips were curled. I parked the plane, and began a slow walk-around. To my surprise, there was no apparent wing-tip damage. I then began a series of calls that I never wanted to make. First to Dave Eby, who was helpful and polite, and didn’t call me any of the names I had been silently calling myself for the past ten minutes. Then I called the owner and the safety officer. All of whom were calm, polite and helpful. Very interestingly they all asked exactly the same first question: “Was there a passenger?” I imagine the legal ramifications for the club increase dramatically in that case. I briefly explained what happened, and they informed me of the process. Club guidelines are that after an incident, you are expelled from the club pending a reinstatement hearing. I was grounded.

I spent some time afterwards drawing diagrams of the wind and the runway and coming to the conclusion that during the “go” portion of the touch and go, the wind should have caused the right wing to lift, not the left. An Interesting, but not particularly relevant factoid, as the point is that I should never have stopped flying the plane. It led to me being in a position where the plane started to fly before I did, and the instant the wing left the ground I was already behind the plane. Another mistake I made happened before I began the flight. After four months without flying, I should have taken an instructor with me. When I was a new pilot, I had a personal minimum of one month. If I have not flown in over a month, I would take an instructor. I pretty quickly realized that this was a bit over-cautious, and I did not still need an instructor to hold my hand all the time. However, what I failed to do was reassess my minimums. I didn’t set a new minimum; I just threw away the old one. As a low-time pilot (I have 265 hours), my new minimum is going to be two months. When I get a few more hours, maybe I will reassess, but I will be sure to have a new minimum set if I do. Lastly, this could have been avoided if I had continued to fly more often.

During the safety hearing, a number of additional helpful tips were provided by various members of the board. For instance, it had never occurred to me to adopt a habit of making my first landing a full-stop. Had I done so, I could have done a mental debrief, had plenty of time to properly reconfigure the plane for takeoff and made a 2nd, better approach, and perhaps have avoided the situation. A good Idea I plan to adopt. It also became clear that the officers, instructors and other members of the club are a valuable resource as well. There’s a chance that if I had taken a moment to chat with someone – mention “hey, it’s been about four months, I’m going to go do this flight – what do you think?” – I may have gotten that golden nugget – “first landings after extended time off should be full stop”. I bet that if someone had even said “sometimes I forget to clean the plane up properly – flaps, trim, heat, etc. when I fly after some time off” it would have prevented this. On the flip side, if a fellow pilot ever comes up to you for advice, what you tell him or her could save them from some embarrassment or injury, or even save a life. Not to mention helping to keep the club costs down.