Your best aviation memories.

[Dr Jekyll]

Some of mine are:

Seeing Concorde over North Wales in 1969.
Seeing a Harrier hovering for the first time.
First flight in a light aircraft, a DHC Chipmunk at that, and included taking the controls.
Watching a pair of USAF Phantoms using Vulcan cannon at Holbeach range.
SU27 display at Boscombe in about 1992.
Flight BA001 LHR to JFK.
First solo.

[Gandahar]

I once got on a Jat airways flight in the late 70's/early 80's back from Yugoslavia to Manchester and having done the taxi to the runway the engines spooled up and then we suddenly taxied back to the apron.

Whilst this was happening the pilot said on the intercom

"Due to bad weather over Manchester we are returning to the airport"

which is the lamest excuse ever. As if. When we stopped a JAT mechanic onboarded and took a big tool kit into the cockpit, he looked the spitting image of Fidel Castro. He then left and the pilot announced " the weather over Manchester is a lot better"

As we took off almost the whole plane was holding hands and humming Kum ba ya. Incredibly it worked.

Edited by Gandahar on Saturday 25th March 18:57

[JagerT]

Vulcan scramble at an air display,must have been the 70s,3 or 4 were lined up alongside the runway and the crews were inside a wooden hut on the grass.Flare goes up and they all run hell for leather for the planes,all intended to be first up,the sound was deafening as they went up the runway one after the other.

[RDMcG]

(1) Flying in a Lancaster and a B25 one day.

(20 My very first trip in business class in a 747 a long time ago.

[tight5]

Standing on a carrier deck as 2 RN Phantoms came in and went out of sight going vertical when I was 8 or 9.

[silverfoxcc]

Mostly firsts at LHR seeing

First commercial Comet flight ( went by LT excursion bus from Tottenham Garage, where T1 is/was it was full of LT from all garages

First 747 arrival

first and last Concorde flights

First A380 arrival

Having a dump on a Frontier 737 over the Rockies when the seat belt light came on. Suddenly the toilet and its contents were going away from me at a rate of knots and i ws stuck on the ceiling. Then it got steady and i followed everything back down.....not a drop spilt!

[Simpo Two]

This thread probably needs to be divided into 'inside' and 'outside'.

Outside: A Lightning taking off from RAF Wattisham, c. 1977.

Inside: Pulling 4G in a looping glider; flying in the co-pilot's seat in a Turbo Otter floatplane in Canada.

[RDMcG]

Here is my not very good video of my Lanc flight...bloody noisy.........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu_MC7EyZ2o

Edited by RDMcG on Saturday 25th March 22:18

[Riley Blue]

Watching the Black Arrows loop 22 aircraft at Farnborough in 1958, seeing a Lightning stand on its tail and head for the stars, sneaking into the sand dunes at Donna Nook to watch fighters straffing targets on the beach, throwing up in a BEA Viking en route to Malta, seeing the world record breaking Lynx going like the clappers, laughing at a hovering Harrier blowing Britannia Naval College to the four winds and seeing the same at JHQ, Rheindahlen, standing on top of a hangar at RAF Laarbruch watching QRA Phantoms depart, rattling around the sky in a Tiger Moth - all of them have stuck in my mind for one reason or another.

Edited by Riley Blue on Sunday 26th March 07:50

[chilistrucker]

Concorde doing a low fly past over Brands at 1 of the first ever truck racing events was pretty special, it would have been early 80's and as a 12 year old fan it was a bit special.

Any Vulcan spot, and watching a B52 land at Mildenhall

[Leaky Valve Stem Seal]

Doing my first solo flight (in a motor glider), Vulcan at Leuchars in 1984 (before the more recent tame displays), and getting to play with the Jaguars during my trade training at Cosford.

[ctdctd]

Harrier hovering and bowing to the crowd at a BAE Hatfield open day in the early 80's
Vulcan XH558 flypast at Throckmorton Airshow 2015

[hutchst]

Being asked to pull over in a C150 at St. Augustine to let the two F14s behind me in the queue depart ahead of me.

[anonymous-user]

Flying a Spitfire (ML407) - the ultimate boyhood dream.
Doing my first solo - for pure adrenaline!
Flying in and out of grass strips all over the UK with my dad as a kid - just wonderful happy memories
Taking off from a beach on Fraser Island, Australia
Flying around Guyana (including over Kaietur Falls) and into a series of hairy landing strips in a dubiously loaded Twin Otter with an "eccentric" pilot and his mad wife. As the only one in the group with any aviation experience I was, rather unusually, the most nervous!

[Chuck328]

hutchst said:

Being asked to pull over in a C150 at St. Augustine to let the two F14s behind me in the queue depart ahead of me.

HA! I was building hours in Florida mid nineties. Nearly went into the the grass after landing there as I spent most of the way down looking behind me for the F14 that was number two to me!

At the time Grumman Aerospace had a facility there. Wonder if it's still is...

[Geneve]

First flight - DH Hornet Moth
King's Cup Air Race - White Waltham
Watching the Red Arrows
First Solo - fixed wing
First Solo -rotary
Flying Supersonic

[halfpenny43]

RDMcG said:

Here is my not very good video of my Lanc flight...bloody noisy.........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu_MC7EyZ2o

Edited by RDMcG on Saturday 25th March 22:18

Wow. Great experience.

[kurt535]

First solo in a Tiger Moth. i was crapping it all the way round the circuit.

[j4ckos mate]

Lightnings
Taking off from Mildenhall on the Monday
Up straight up, horizontally till we lost sight of them, ground shaking, coat cracking and vibrating

F104
Wgaf displayed a pair together.
The noise the speed of the things


Epic turbulence coming back from Tenerife
Cups in the air, kids spewing up, sensors going off,
Meal trolleys banging away, women crying,
Me and me and lad were buzzing, we found it really amusing

[hammo19]

Being dumped in undergrowth from a Wessex with a beacon and hiding so they could come back, find me and winch me up.
Running airside errands during a mock war at RAF Guttersloh with Harriers taking off and landing feet away.
4.5 hours of circuits in a VC10 at Brize Norton.
Synchro glider flying at RAF Manston
Flying in the cockpit of a BA Trident London to Glasgow and back
Seeing an A10 fire it's gun for the first time