“My Autopilot isn’t working” Pilot can’t Fly IFR! #atc #aviation

LMAO at the controller in the background.

The guy has his own Notam

when the deviations are so bad the controller becomes concerned with your health.

WAAAY back in the olden days of coding, we had the phrase "GIGO" Garbage In, Garbage Out. This applies to autopilots as well. They will only work as well as the inputs they receive.

Same recommendation for both Pilot and ATC. STOP! Stop fking with the A/P and Nav! Fly straight and level and simply request a safe heading and attitude. “CKB App, N1234, request a Vector for time. Navigation malfunction.” and you should get back… “N1234, fly heading 180, maintain 7000.” ….read back “Heading 180, 7000, N1234” And DONE, now fly the Fing airplane and calmly try to work the problem while flying straight and level. And ATC. STOP! Stop jabbering at him, he’s clearly task saturated and unable to handle his airplane. Give him Vectors and tell him to fly straight and level. Then ask for his intentions and or if he needs assistance. He had already clearly left his route or assigned heading. Scolding him is not helping to resolve the situation.

I like this controller's patience and willingness to try and understand the pilot's situation

As a Commercial/Multi/Instrument rated pilot, stories like this always worry me mightily. When you're in IMC doing everything right and guys like this are aviating with you in the soup, it's impossible to know what's ahead, behind, above or below you and avoid them. You're at the mercy of these loose cannons.

Like 1 minute into this exchange I would have gone "6ZW, I am declaring emergency for you, I'll give you no-gyro radar vectors to XYZ, just look at the artificial horizon and try to make shallow turns. Stop right turn now. [...] Stop turn, go straight and level..." and I would not care too much about an exact altitude as long as he is well above obstacles and terrain.

Patience of an oyster. That traffic controller is why I trust our system. You KNOW he was getting traffic the f*** away from that guy.

This is what happens when you’re allowed to take an instrument checkride with the autopilot.

Single pilot IFR can be exhausting. It's easy to get task saturated very quickly. Just yesterday I was flying IFR from the coast to Spartanburg SC. I was actually going to try to break off and get over to my home airport if there was enough visibility and a high enough ceiling but I decided to just land there and have my wife pick me up. I set up and briefed the approach for runway 23, but the latest weather showed that 05 would be better. In a very short time I had to change things around quite a bit. It's necessary to talk oneself down from a high anxiety state and take a deep breath and think through what needs to be done. I was able to cancel the prior approach in the GPS, and reload the opposite runway while descending. I was not yet at the initial approach fix so I did have some time. I have an autopilot but I fly most of my approaches by hand so that I maintain proficiency. I think he got disoriented and depended too much on his autopilot and we have seen disasters from that before. Thank goodness he didn't get into a death spiral. However, he was not on the approach, and was in the en route phase of his flight. He should have been able to fly straight and level without the autopilot. Just trim it up a bit and relax, fly straight and level and plan from there.

Shocked the pilot didn't get into a graveyard spiral. Equally surprised controller didn't get more assertive since it was clear that the pilot didn't recognize the gravity of the errors. Disregard, he did a bit later on. Pilot needs a 509 ride real quick. There is zero sense of accountability and he ignored 80% of the controller's calls.

A perfect example of how anyone, with enough money and the right connections, can get a pilots license.

From the book "The things I did on my last day of being IFR-rated"

It's a rental. Maybe AP disconnect broken, so it was fighting him. According to the internet, which is never wrong, it has a GNS430. Maybe he accidentally hit the CDI button and was working off the VOR needles instead of the GPS and didn't know it. That's happened to me more than once, though I caught it pdq. I'm guessing low time IFR pilot in an unfamiliar airplane.

Is it just my imagination, or is everyone getting less competent at everything lately?

The FAA should implement higher language standards for pilot certification. Many times when I'm flying I can't understand a word some pilots say talking to ATC, frustration and confusion arises and that has proven dangerous more than once.

As much as I agree how everyone judges this guy for his incompetence, I feel for him. Being in IFR annd so confused must be scary af. I hope he really takes some IFR lessons before attempting to IFR again. This must have been really nerve wrecking. You can hear it in his voice.

I would be wanting to look at his licence and ratings, and if he is qualified a word with his instructor/examiner.

There seems to be an over-reliance on the autopilot generally among US pilots. IFR demands hand flying skills! When I did my IFR training, many decades ago now, it was ALL done hand flying! If you cannot hand fly IFR you have no business flying IFR!