Greatest aircraft "in-flight" memory

[Lonestar155]

Its Sunday evening and i thought i would post a really random thread. I was just thinking about the time i was sitting around San Diego harbor. The sun was setting and i remember watching S-3 Vikings and a few hornets performing touch and goes. What are some of your most memorable memories?

 

[H20man]

i used to live out in San Diego... i remember the S-3s coming into land while i was at the beach.... that darned whooping sound.

no seriously though, getting a sweet tour of the facilities at North Island, watching all the stages of the Hornets getting torn down and getting put back together.

Also playing with the F-18 simulator at Miramar.

 

[nittany03]

WOW. Holy cats! Glad to see you managed to get it down in one piece, Patmack. I hope I never have to deal with a prop spontaneously departing the airplane . . .

 

[nittany03]

As for me, my favorite memory so far was an evening last November (the 29th according to my logbook) while working on my Private Pilot rating during grad school. For those of you familar with the Pensacola area, my instructor and I had just left Peter Prince field in Milton and were flying westward over to Coastal for some soft-field landings. Flying over Spencer NOLF (or thereabouts), I saw the sun set. I mean it actually set; the last little bit of it turned red and slid below the horizon while I watched. Prettiest sight I think I've ever seen, but then again most things (besides women, cars, and other airplanes) look better from a few thousand feet up.

 

[VetteMuscle427]

This Saturday above the local airport....

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~cdiehl/charles_tube.mpa

Right Click and download... it'll play better

 

[Jaxs170]

Wow, so many to choose from: Aborted TO on a US Air DC-9 in Boston, the crazy drunk guy on an American DC-10 enroute San Juan-Boston (over the Bermuda Triangle no less), seeing the mountains of Alaska from 33000 while watching a Northwest 747 pass right underneath us, first flight of IFS (nearly puked my guts out), first solo in IFS, first T-34 flight, compressor stall on my 2nd form flight and PEL into Corpus, form solo, hitting 500 knots ground speed in the T-1, last flight of advanced watching an AA 767 pass 2000' underneath me while I was enroute to Minneapolis then passing 2000' under a United 757 enroute back to Vance.

I could go on forever, guess this just helps to show why being a pilot is to have the best job any man or woman could hope for.

 

[sonshine]

Dude, I would have to say my very first airplane ride when I was about 6. My family got to fly up in the bosses Astra to go pick up the new Falcon-50 he was buying and ride back in it. It was definitely love at first flight!

 

[E5B]

For me it was my first form flight. I was lead and shortly after the take off, I looked back to see if wing was in position, and I could literally see my pard's teeth. It's just not natural flying that close! At least thats how I felt on the first one....

Forms, both basic and cruise, were by far my favorite times in Primary.

 

[American_Ace]

When I was about three my dad brought me out on the flightline and an f16 pilot let me sit on his lap while they refueled his aircraft. He showed me all the instruments and that cool stuff. It's probably one of my earliest memories.

Also, this pales in comparison to the military pilots, but on my first solo in a c172 I was trying to land before a storm (I know I was stupid to be in that situation) and the wind switched from fifteen knots straight down the runway to a fifteen knot 90 deg xwind while I was flaring. Fun times.

 

[bunk22]

Let me see..........I would say it would be when I crashed. I still have nightmare's, waking up in a sweat as I relive the aircraft spinning out of control off the runway. A port engine flameout at 100' AGL at Choctaw was a good one. Landing on the boat Case III in a rain squall off the waters of Vietnam, breaking out at the last second to (I do mean last second) for a _HCAW_ \AR for the OK 3. My legs didn't stop shaking for about 10 minutes on that one. Flying at 300' AGL at 300 KIAS over Eastern Pakistan during OEF in the mighty Thunder Pig to avoid whatever bad things the few bad guys out there wanted to throw at us. The Hornet was probably meant to go 300 knots at 300 feet, not my plane. Spending almost 16 straight hours in the cockpit of the C-2 during the same time period (OEF), without getting out of the airplane. My first night trap....wait.......no....flying/instructing in the right seat for a CAT I's first night trap with absolutley no horizon. That'll put hair on your chest. Fun stuff.