“I’ll slow down… just hop out.”
Techie is going to be travelling later this week, and for most people, this wouldn’t be all that big a deal. Where Techie lives, however, which is also where I grew up, flying in and out can be a bit of a nail-biting adventure. Living in the mountains, it can be quite tricky for the pilot to successfully land a plane without, you know, accidentally bumping into a mountain. There’s a saying in my hometown that planes don’t so much land there as they do experience a semi-controlled mid-air collision with a planet. Basically the pilots have to dive over the mountains at a runway and pull up just in time to set the wheels on the ground.
It’s probably not helped by the fact that Techie isn’t going to be using the proper regional airport in the next town over; rather, he’s using the tiny municipal airport which consists of little more than a shed with a vending machine in it; the planes that land there, meanwhile, are basically 15-passenger vans with wings on the sides, so the whole experience is not for the faint of heart. The few times I’ve flown in there, I’ve found it to be a hell of a lot of fun, but looking around the van plane, I see that my sentiment is not necessarily shared with the entire passenger manifest.
What’s the scariest or most exciting flight you’ve ever taken?
Never had a real scary flight but … When I was 12, I got to ride with the traffic report/pilot for the TV station my father worked at. I sat next to him in his Cesna 172 and he walked me through all the controls. About an hour into rush hour, he told me to take the yoke. "Push it forward hard, pull it back and then turn right sharply" was his command. I was a pilot! It was one of the coolest things I'd ever done to that point.
Hey, I've flown in a Shorts Skyvan like the one pictured! One of the worst, noisiest flights I've ever had. Providence, RI to Boston (free frequent flier ticket).
Flying home from the USGP in 2000 I had a flight on Northworst from Ft. Wayne, IN to Detroit. It was on an original DC-9, NOT a MD-80. We had a 2 hour delay due to problems with the door. When we finally took off I'm convinced they flew low and didn't pressurize the cabin.
Any approach into Reagan National in DC is exciting following the twists and turns of the Potomac.
I love the approach to Reagan. It's one of the rare flights where I prefer a window seat.
On a 747 flight from Narita airport in Japan to Minneapolis we encountered turbulence so strong that the drinks carts went airborne with the flight attendants riding them like Slim Pickens on a nuclear bomb. Some overhead compartments flew open, dumping bags out on people's heads. Me and the guy next to me had to hold onto a cart while the flight attendants crawled back to their seats, occasionally going airborne and nearly hitting the ceiling. Only time I ever saw one of those old battleaxe American flight attendants openly scared – one of them even screamed and cried. Then for the next twelve hours I had to listen to static at full volume from a blown speaker above my head.
You should have shouted, "Hey, where's my damned drink!" when she was airborne, just to show your sympathy.
Thanks for the laugh. I would have stabbed the speaker with one of those terrorist-proof wooden spoons.
The scariest flight? All of them. I absolutely hate to fly. I think that my main problem is that I don't know the pilot, his skill at flying, what kind of mood that he is in today, or even if he's sober. I'll rarely ride in a car with a driver that I'm uncertain about, much less strap myself in an oversized cigar tube to go 5 miles up in the sky with a bunch of noisy, smelly strangers who insist on talking to me.
Agoraphobia doesn't help either.
But I do love aircraft.
Sober pilots?[youtube 8hL6nXfBhj0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hL6nXfBhj0 youtube]
Pilots who are also comedians are the best. from Monty Python.
[youtube YEIB4baOSd8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEIB4baOSd8 youtube]
Still one of the best…
On our delayed honeymoon my wife and I flew to Belize just south of Mexico. Instead of taking the 2 hour boat ride from the mainland to our destination (Caye Caulker) we found out for a few dollars more we could fly to the Caye in 20 minutes. We boarded the plane with some other tourists and started to take off. Just as we were getting to full speed in our 7 passenger plane, something hit the prop and then the wing. The pilot immediately powered down and taxied back to the terminal. I thought there goes the time we saved with this flight as we will have to switch planes, but no, the pilot quickly got out, did a quick visual, kicked some tires and we were on our way again.
There was a huge sigh of relief from the other passengers as we touched down at the island my wife and I were staying at. The relief was short lived however, as they realized this was not the island that they were staying at and they had one more leg to go.
Never had a scary flight on an airplane. The most exciting must have been when i got to visit the cockpit on a Spanair flight as a kid. Though i was so young i barely have any recollection of it. I remember it about as well as shaking hands with Jimmy Carter on the market square in Helsinki, my parents tell me it happened but i just have a sort of blurry image in my head.
The most annoying flight i've been on was another Spanair flight, good weather and perfectly clear skies. We were about to land in Spain but there's some traffic so the pilot says we'll circle the field for half an hour. A mother of a small child gets hysterical and starts screaming "we're goin to run out of fuel! we're all going to die!" and of course her child starts screaming and crying.
I've flown once. From Detroit to some armpit town in FL (Tampa?). Hated every one of the 180 minutes. Turbulence. Then had to fly back. Had vertigo for a MONTH.
NEVER FLYING AGAIN.
Flying just gives me really bad gas.
Flying around Sweden in the winter you get some flights that take off on snow and land on snow, nearly always on airfields with military aircraft. Anyhow, its Sweden and Swedish pilots, all will be well. So not scary , after the first time.
Most exciting might have been taking off behind a flight of National Guard F-16s. I think it was somewhere in Ohio.
Toledo, OH. Home of the 180th Fighter Wing and shares the tarmac with commercial flights. I grew up there.
The fighters do a fly-over on opening day for the AAA baseball team, whose stadium is smack in the middle of downtown. Therefore the fighters are just about weaving in and out of the buildings at <200'. Which will scare the ever-living-shit out of you if you're just driving around downtown mid-afternoon on a Friday.
I started to image how one would pee strangely on a plane, but I had to stop myself.
Using the galley instead of the lav should do the trick.
Ha! Thanks
I've never really had a bad experience but want to share something I found fascinating.
My cousin is an engineer and test pilot for an airplane company that starts with a B and ends with an oeing. I forget how we got on the subject but he told me "yes, that happens a lot. So often that there's an abbreviation: CFIT. Controlled Flight Into Terrain."
I haven't flown since. (puts on dramatic face but really just didn't have the need to.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFIT
Most exciting: front seat of the Goodyear Blimp, around age 12. Yes, it even edges out my Mile-high Club initiation (which did not happen at age 12, but if it had, certainly would have beaten out the blimp experience).
Scariest: When I landed the plane earlier this year. I figured the instructor would show me first, then have me repeat. Nope, he trusted me with both of our lives. Once we touched down, but before we had slowed all the way down, I forgot that all steering on the ground is done with the rudder pedals, and couldn't immediately figure out why the yoke stopped working.
I might be slightly bored so i translated this Finnish sketch into English.
[youtube HQ20sfCZSeA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ20sfCZSeA youtube]
Pilot calls wife:
Yeah hi, it's me. No, nothing special. But we have kind of a situation here. Yeah, a pelican went thru the turbine on approach. Yeah it's totally screwed up. But that's nothing, now it started snowing in Las Palmas… Yeah i know it's very rare. It's one of those inversions. No you wouldn't understand it. It's one of those metero.. meteo.. meteorologial things. Yeah. No i'm not drunk. You know, i'm a pilot! Oh i sound weird? Oh sorry i had my hand on the mic. Yeah it'll take at least a week, it'll be ordered from.. the turbine will come from America, yeah. I'm no God, i have no control over the weather! I'm a pilot. Yeah i am. Yeah of course i'm drunk! What of it? Of course i get drunk when the plane is broken and it's snowing! FFS… Well f*ck you too! Oh what the hell…
And now you dun gave me teh giggles…
A couple years after I got out of the Navy I was on a business flight into Denver on the middle of a pretty nasty storm.
No big deal though, I had spent the last 8~ years as a Radar/Air Traffic Control tech and was running the Air Traffic control procedures I had seen millions of times through my head… glideslope, centerline, rate of decent, final approach etc. I could hear the controller's calm steadying voices and remembered all the fantastic electronic aids the pilots had at their disposal, IFF, beacons/markers, approach and vectoring radars etc.
My only real concern was skidding in the snow from a gust of wind at the wrong moment, but figured at least it would be a fairly slow speed incident if it happens… I felt quite comforted by my insider knowledge as I stared out the window at the black sky, all streaky with with heavy snow when the marker lights flashed.
Just then the plane hit a microburst and dropped like a rock. I instinctively grabbed on to the seat back in front of me with a small yelp. Couldn't help it.
The nice elderly lady beside me said "Don't sorry sonny, they have Radars" and patted my arm.
I inadvertently blurted in an awkward tone that sounded waaaay too much like Bobcat Goldthwait…
"I KNOW!!! I USED TO WORK ON THOSE RADARS!!!"
The old lady looked at me sitting there with wide eyes, claws clamped on to the seat in front of me, and her face went pale.
And boy, did it ever get suddenly quiet on that plane…
Haha, i got a good laugh when i imagined that. The poor old lady must have been scared witless.
Back when I was in the Army, in an airborne unit, we all got on the plane in Italy, where we were stationed, to jump into southern Germany for a month of training in the field. The Air Force never took a direct route, they liked to get their flight time in and they just loved flying nap of the earth, training to evade radar. Over and through the Alps. It's like being on a rollercoaster, but being jammed in a C-130 with like sixty other guys, all encumbered with seventy pound rucks, and whatever weapon you had. And, you can't see out, no windows. In mid flight, we'd have to struggle with donning our parachutes, which was always a real clusterfuck. Then, wait to jump. While the plane went up, down, sideways. Positive gees, negative gees. Well, when the first dude pulls out his bag and pukes, it starts a chain reaction. EVERYBODY starts puking. Terrible. Starts to stink. You can't wait to stand up, hook up, and get the hell out of the plane. Then, you get word that it's raining on the DZ, no jump, and you have to fly yet another half hour or so to wherever the plane has to land, and the Air Force for some reason loves to slam those C-130's onto the ground like a sack of shit, which makes everybody paranoid. Then, we'd load up into Deuce and a Halves for a long ride in wet conditions to finally get to the DZ, and start slogging in the mud. After all that, the worst commercial flight ever is no big deal at all.
Yup. This proves it. We had it easy in the Navy.
<img src="http://www.stripes.com/polopoly_fs/1.151432.1312769169!/image/3163270637.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_490/3163270637.jpg" width="500"> To put it in context, according to my buddy, you sit on this between the fuselage and all sorts of cargo while staring up at something like this just hoping all the straps hold because the plane is banked so severely rapidly spiraling down, then bump lands hard and fast. <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Stryker_MC_unloading_from_C130.jpg" width="500">
Yeah, we sat on web seats like that. Not the most comfy way to travel, to say the least. During a jump, usually no cargo, but more seats in the center of the plane, so you're looking at some other guy looking at you.
I know I'm late to the party, but for what it's worth they're more than 15 passenger vans. (Saab 340 to be exact) But also, I have to admit, the terminal shed doesn't even have a vending machine.
Never had any really scary experiences. Flying back into Sydney once in a 737, sitting directly over the wing, and feeling and hearing the flaps working during landing was slightly disconcerting.
This all reminds me of a story I heard once.
A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport. After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 293, nonstop from New York to Los Angeles. The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have a smooth and uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax… OH, MY GOD!"
Silence followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant accidentally spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my pants!"
A passenger in Coach yelled, "That's nothing. You should see the back of mine!"
OK, I'll bite.
Best flight: Transiting the States at F410 on a clear winter night with a comet (I've forgotten the name, late '90's timeframe) high in the sky. The coma stretched across most of the night sky. Amazing.
Worst: Been a few but here is one; Commercial flight from Beijing to the interior of China in a clapped out TU-154. The seats were like your old aluminum lawn chairs with nylon webbing and I swear the lavatory was made of plywood. If you flushed you could probably see the ground like a railway toilet. The meal was unrecognizable (grey mushy fish maybe?) and the Captain must have have been a retired PLA Mig driver, he yanked and banked the whole way to destination. Finally, turbine engines shouldn't vibrate that much!
It wasn't the engine's it was all "turbulence".
<img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6041/6322487262_57a669bea9.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Comet Hale-Bopp 1997"> Sweet story! I saw Hale-Bopp too, though from the ground in rural IL. It was really something. I was so long and bright, this photo does not do it justice.
Not in any way genuinely scary, but landing in Charleston, WV is a little bit like the experience you describe. The airport is on a plateau above the city. On approach, it looks like you are going to fly into the mountains, then suddenly a gap opens up and there is the runway.