Missing in Action :: Where's Wayne been???

Have you ever had those days when the universe seems to conspire against you, grounding your plans and testing your patience? Well, strap in and tune in, because that's been the theme of my life recently! I'm Wayne from Whiskey Alpha Pilot, and it's high time we caught up. I've been dodging business curveballs and wrestling with the British weather gods, which sadly means my trusty C172, and I have been spending more time apart than I'd like. 

Guess what happens when you post a video titled "How Not To Land"? You get a viral sensation and an avalanche of colorful commentary! I'll share the unexpected journey one of my YouTube flights took—from a few thousand views to causing quite the stir online. It's a wild mix of armchair critics, genuine concern, and a few good laughs. But here's the kicker: through it all, it's about staying true to the joy of flying and the community it creates. 

Flying is a case of ups and downs - lefts just not hit the ground on the downs

I'm a UK based private pilot (PPL(A), who started to learn to fly in my 50s. I passed (just), but every flight is a learning experience.

I currently own 1/5 of a Cessna 172 - but I am not sure which bit is mine.

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Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

Hello, it's Wayne here from Whiskey Alpha Pilot and I'm back. Oh, actually I'm not back, I'm just here sitting in a studio talking to a microphone, but things have been quite interesting over the last couple of months. Now, one thing I've been asked is where's Wayne been? Where have you been? I haven't seen any flying videos and the answer to that is yeah, I've been busy. Unfortunately, I have a real life, I have a business to run and I've been busy. I have a business to run and I've been busy. I just haven't had time to go flying.

Speaker 0: 0:27

And here in the UK the weather has been pans. At this very moment and this is a Saturday morning, end of April, it's a thousand foot cloud base at Elstree and it's been raining this morning and it ain't gonna get any better for the rest of the weekend. So, yeah, no flying poo. Anyway, kilo kilo is back from the annual. I have done a little bit of flying, mainly just to keep currency, because in the UK we have this CAA rule that we have to have at least three takeoffs and landings every 90 days to maintain currency, to be allowed to take passengers, and I've been maintaining that. But I just generally haven't been flying, mainly because of the weather and the fact that Kilo Kilo has been in for an annual. She's now back out. No massive issues, no big bills although I haven't actually been given a bill yet, but they didn't say that there's anything massive and she's now back at the airfield waiting for us to get in. Good news is I've got some flying booked and guess what? There's no Jack. Jack is not going to be here. Jack is not around on the first couple of flights. Hopefully I'll be flying with him at some point in the near future because it's great fun flying with jack. I will be going to private flyers. So if anyone's going to private flyer probably on the friday at high wickham, please, if you see me, shout, wave, scream you know the usual things, but be great to see you.

Speaker 0: 1:36

I've got a couple of people lined up to come and chat to and youtube. Youtube's gone a bit nuts. Recently. There was one particular video which was shot over a year ago about a pretty crap landing of mine coming back from Sandown where basically I managed to balls up a landing and did a go around and then I landed it on the second attempt. It was a reasonably hot day, but main thing for me was I was tired, we'd gone down to Sandown, we'd had a day on the beach and come back back and I was just tired and I was making mistakes. So I in the light of what I do with YouTube is I published a video entitled how Not To Land and up to about three weeks ago, that video had a couple of thousand views, usual sort of thing and then YouTube seemed to have picked it up and it's gone absolutely bonkers and I mean bonkers, bonkers from a few thousand to tens of thousands of people viewing it. It's just like whoa.

Speaker 0: 2:33

The problem is with more people viewing the video. You now get the trolls and the idiots come out. You shouldn't be flying. You're dangerous. You need to be retrained. I've had virtually everything.

Speaker 0: 2:43

One thing it has flagged up is people have an obsession with landing on centerline, and yet the centerline is a good place to land on it. It's a good place to aim for. However, firstly, elstree centreline's got quite a few potholes, so we tend to land off to one side. Secondly, I don't put a camera slap bang in the middle of the centreline of the aircraft. Therefore, when you have a camera off to one side, you're going to see a slightly skewed view the only time you actually see what the centreline is is when you're actually on the center line on the runway, and then you can sort of see where it is. And people have just become so obsessed with the fact that I haven't landed on the center line. My crosswind landing technique is crap. It's just like really guys, and actually some of the comments have become quite personal and guess what? They get blocked. Sorry, not gonna upset rubbish from people who just probably spend all of their time on flight sim From other pilots. Some fantastic responses, some fantastic comments.

Speaker 0: 3:38

You can always tell when someone's actually either a pilot or a particular instructor. 99 times out of 100, instructors will actually give you not just criticism but also positive criticism. So they'll go yeah, that you did wrong. However, this is how you can correct it. That's how you spot an instructor. Well, I'll rephrase it that's how you spot a good instructor, because even if you've got it wrong, even if you stacked it on the runway, I dare say a good instructor will turn around and go well, there were some positives. Yeah, you just stacked it into the runway, but your use of flaps was very good at that point. Yeah, thanks, I didn't stack it into the runway. I just had a crap landing and, yes, did the go around, landed End of story Safely on the ground. I made mistakes.

Speaker 0: 4:23

That was the whole point of me publishing the video. If people can't understand that, then maybe they shouldn't be flying either. It was how not to land and you've just proved my point. Anyway, that was. I thought I just needed to get that off my chest and publish the video, because he was just really, really mad. And the comments are still coming in. I've just seen one just popped in.

Speaker 0: 4:46

Now I have got some more flying lined up. I've got a video that I'm currently editing of a trip to snowdon, so hopefully at at some point in time I'll get around to finishing that. And yes, that's with Jack and that was from last year. And I've got also a review coming through because I did a course over winter period because there wasn't much flying going on with a great guy and I can do a little brief review of that course. So there is quite a few bits and pieces coming on.

Speaker 0: 5:10

But anyway, please, whatever you're doing, please criticise me if you wish. That is why I publish these videos and podcasts. If you don't learn anything from my mistakes, then there's not a lot I can do about that, but please listen to my other podcasts, watch my videos on the YouTube channel and if you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple, please consider clicking those star buttons and possibly leaving me a review. But anyway, please enjoy your flying. If you are a pilot, if you're learning to fly, please leave some comments. Love to have a chat to you. I'm now doing more and more podcasty things as well, so I'd love to talk to other pilots about their experiences. At the end of the day, there's two ways of learning. There's the mistakes that you make, but also there's learning from the mistakes that other people make, and they're cheaper because they made them, not you. But whatever you do, please enjoy your flying and fly safe. Thanks for listening. Bye.