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What is your greatest flying experience?


mobydog

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Mine was downstairs under my own power between Christmas & New Year (stone cold sober). I think I put a dent in my kneecap because it hurt like hell for weeks, and I still can't get up using it as the lead knee :(

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Mine was downstairs under my own power between Christmas & New Year (stone cold sober). I think I put a dent in my kneecap because it hurt like hell for weeks, and I still can't get up using it as the lead knee :(

Part of the Joint Fleet Air Arm? Already got me coat on....

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- Being strapped into an RAF sea king, and being told by the Load master that the aircraft had been suffering engine trouble the week before and we were the test flight.

A similar thing happened to me at Myachkovo, near Moscow.

We were offered a flight in a Kamov Ka-26 - twin piston engines with a detachable passenger pod.........

day_01_06.jpg

After waiting for ages while the pilot kept throttling up the engines and shutting them down, we finally boarded for the 'test flight'

We sat in the back in the flimsy-looking cabin - and were asked to sit well forward 'for c/g reasons' :analintruder:

The thing rattled and shook as we took off - knowing that the detachable cabin is only held by four small bolts certainly concentrates the mind.

I didn't need a seat belt - my sphincter was gripping the seat cushion tightly!

Great experience though........ :thumbsup:

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All my greatest flying memories are holiday related. My top three are:

1st: Approach into Sucre, Bolivia on an LAB 727; incredible journey down twisty mountain valleys (no pictures - big mistake!).

2nd: Microlight over Victoria Falls

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3rd: Gobi desert, Mongolia

Mongolia040_zps131a1f04.jpg

Mongolia086_zps3ed8fd71.jpg

Cliff

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the best for me was doing some commercial photography from a gazelle, if you've never hovered 1000 feet up before its a ... err... new experiance! great fun after a while though, i can see why people get addicted to helicopters.

paul

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Went to Las Vegas in 1992,the pound against the dollar was very good,forked out £180 for the wife and me to go on a helicopter trip to the Grand Canyon.I sat in the co-pilots seat,flew over the Hoover dam,then down to the canyon,where the pilot landed the chopper on the edge of the ravine.Just awesome,and he piped 'Flight of the Valkeries' through the headset.Deffo a bucket list moment!

Dave.

This is so going on my bucket list

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Hello there, my best flight(s) have been in Nepal. Coming in to land at Lukla airfield near Everest was brill. In those days it was a rubble strip, angled at about 15 degrees uphill, with a rock wall that doubles as an emergency brake. Oh yes, and the wreckage of other aircraft that did not make it just off the runway on either side. When you fly off from there you just go downhill and fall off the edge.

Flying out of Tumlingtar (further east near Kangchenjunga still in Nepal) someone's super-duper do-it-all watch with altimeter showed us our highest point in the flight was where we took off and dipped into the valley, then we never got higher!

Ah... the memories!

Great topic, all the best, Ray

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OOFFTT

I've got a few but these are the most memorable:-

Back seat in an F16 at Cope Thunder in Alaska

Back seat in an F3 in Cyprus

Ramp riding on a Wokka in Iraq

Loads more but these are top

I think I've not done too bad for a Tanker Driver

My worst one was a tactical landing on a Herc into Basrah (only time I barffed on a plane)

Edited by mtd350
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Done loads of jump seats, helo flights, mil trips and spam cans but...

Best flight was the first time an ATC cadet flew me round the circuit from take off to landing at Little Rissington after I had taught him from scratch on a summer camp. That was a real high!

Best flight as a passenger - back of a Herc at 250 ft around the coast of South Georgia, with the ramp down taking photos out of the back.

Best of my own - my qualifying X-country from Kinloss to Wick to Inverness, managing to miss all the lumpy bits and weather en-route.

Peter

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I guess a Chinny doing low level silly buggers in Falklands was good for me, aerobatics in a AAC Gazelle was pretty mad, but a flight round the coast of Cyprus in a US Army UH-60 was mega.

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Mmmmmm done a few goodies..

In a training flight foe the Sumburgh coastguard S61 being winched onto a fishing boat and then back up again was cool but a bit smelly.

In a C130 chucking SBS out of the back off Portland walking around in the back with the ramp open with the pilot reefing it around in a really tight racetrack watching the waves move from top to bottom instead of left to right and the beating up a ship and standing on the flight deck looking up at the bows and the zoom climbing up and getting weightless at the top of the climb and the landing stood up between the pilots. That was great.

Few flight deck flights around Europe including BA and Ryanair.

The Dak out of Bournemouth about 25 years ago.

Helis out to various rigs in the North Sea.

All free too including Ryanair.

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As an ATC cadet way back in 1983, flew very low level in a 33 sqn Puma from RAF Odiham all the way to RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall and back again! Absolutely fantastic experience which I'll never forget. Another great experience was flying in the Chipmunk from RAF Finningley, particularly on one occasion when we were joined by a Buccaneer which briefly flew alongside us as it came into the circuit to land! Good times!

Edited by sidewinder1
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Mmmmmm done a few goodies..

In a training flight foe the Sumburgh coastguard S61 being winched onto a fishing boat and then back up again was cool but a bit smelly.

In a C130 chucking SBS out of the back off Portland walking around in the back with the ramp open with the pilot reefing it around in a really tight racetrack watching the waves move from top to bottom instead of left to right and the beating up a ship and standing on the flight deck looking up at the bows and the zoom climbing up and getting weightless at the top of the climb and the landing stood up between the pilots. That was great.

Few flight deck flights around Europe including BA and Ryanair.

The Dak out of Bournemouth about 25 years ago.

Helis out to various rigs in the North Sea.

All free too including Ryanair.

The only time I ever got to the flight-deck was on a Ryanair BAC 1-11. The Captain was British, a former RAF Meteor pilot.

Joseph

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Back of a Sea King after failing to survive the 'Survival Exercise'! Went down with hypothermia and got picked up in a valley at the base of Ben Nevis. Probably the only time I have ever been happy to see a crab.....

Back of a Gazelle in Canada, nap of the earth flying (ultra low level at about 15 feet) in the low valleys of the training area, the pilot controlling the aircraft with a stuffed Wil-e-Coyote toy. Yes, I am serious. I was unbelievably exhilarated and totally terrified of what the muppet driving was actually doing!

Very low level on a Lynx over Wast Water, then just over the heads of the walkers as we pulled 4000 ft a minute climb up the valley, just skimming over the top. Then on northwards and along Hadrain's Wall, below the level of the wall and looking up at the walkers. I have a pic of Steve, one of my oppos, chucking his lunch in to his dry suit bag. We got so low the radar altimeter wasn't reading at all and we had to hop over the barbed wire fences at the edges of the fields. Mega.

And people wonder why I am so bored behind a desk.

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Trip in a Hunter T7 from Boscombe Down.

Low level SF Herc trip around Scotland

8+ hours in a Shackleton AEW2

First time aerobatics in a Chipmunk T10

Barrel rolling in a Canberra T4

Being shot at by an F-4 in a target tug Canberra B2

Turbo Otter Vancouver Harbour to Victoria Harbour

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1982 got a nimrod flight from St Morgan to take low level pics of Russian war ships in the Med as we flew around the ships the AA missles followed us around. Will never forget that trip 16hrs even got to fly it not bad for a 13 yr old kid.

regards Glenn.....

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low level in a puma ,escorting prince edward and his missus (deffo more fit in the flesh,so to speak!!) we were flying over

northern ireland ,along a river ,when a swan went flying under us ,we where looking down on it ,it was looking up to us

(often wonder what went through its mind?) got clagged in and lost visual with the V.I.P helicopter ,had to fly along a road

till we found a road sign, B.I.T.L.H.S (guess the acronym!!) got his maps out ,figured out where we where ,off we

went ,never forget the faces of some of the drivers as we hovered over this roundabout.can still remember it vividly

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low level in a puma ,escorting prince edward and his missus (deffo more fit in the flesh,so to speak!!) we were flying over

northern ireland ,along a river ,when a swan went flying under us ,we where looking down on it ,it was looking up to us

(often wonder what went through its mind?) got clagged in and lost visual with the V.I.P helicopter ,had to fly along a road

till we found a road sign, B.I.T.L.H.S (guess the acronym!!) got his maps out ,figured out where we where ,off we

went ,never forget the faces of some of the drivers as we hovered over this roundabout.can still remember it vividly

Bloke in the left-hand seat?

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Hello everybody!

I have no personal experiance to fly an aircraft, but I`m a good passanger. My best Trip was to the United States in 1986. I fly from Rhein Main Air Base in a C-5 Galaxy to the Whiteman Air Force Base. Stop over was, when I remember in Biloxie. Long, long time ago. My Brother of Law, a former USAF Member has to checked out if I could fly with the USAF and it was possible for family members. The flight himself was great, loud and the seat in the wrong position and three times the same food, but a reel adventure. In the rest of my live I take some flightsas a passanger in a Tristar, Airbus A330, A340 to the Philippines, an A319 and of cource some flight with the workhorse of the most liveries, the 737. That`s all. My dream is to be a copilot in a Jet. Regards, Udo.

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My only flying experience was courtesy of my mum and dad for a 21st birthday surprise.

They had arranged for a passenger trip in a DH Rapide, although only a half hour trip,it is one thatI will never forget

Derek

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My only flying experience was courtesy of my mum and dad for a 21st birthday surprise.

They had arranged for a passenger trip in a DH Rapide, although only a half hour trip,it is one thatI will never forget

Derek

that was my first flight, from biggin hill years ago.

paul

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