Your best aviation memories.
Discussion
Lots of “stick in the mind” aviation moments.
Being out playing with the lad from next door on a sunny spring day in 1969 when one of the Harriers involved in the 1969 Transatlantic air race came screaming low overhead our house in West London on its way to/from Paddington.
Again, standing in our back garden waiting for the Trooping the Colour flypast to fly over in June 1969, to be greeted by the fantastic sight and sound of 16 x shiny Lightning F.3’s from Wattisham leading Concorde prototype G-BSST at what to small child seemed like tree-top height but was undoubtably 1000ft or so. Will never forget that.
Again, same year, on holiday at a caravan site on a hillside near Swanage, the first time I heard the Vulcan ‘howl’ when Vulcans on bombing practice on the ranges in Poole harbour would appear very low from behind the hillside on climbout from the bay behind on full power – the caravan used to shake and rattle with the vibration from the noise
September 1974, Biggin Hill Battle of Britain Display and watching Flt.Lt. Pete Chapman wring the neck out of Lightning F.3 XP696 in one of his final aero’s displays. Never saw a better Lightning aero’s display until watching the display by Flt.Lt. Mike Thompson in F.3 XP753 at the BAe Hatfield families day in July 1983, just a month or so before he was killed in it flying into the sea off Scarborough.
May 1986, RAF Mildenhall Airshow and seeing the infamous SR-71 double flame-out during its final banked pass.
Feb 1991, and driving with my Dad down to the peri fence of RAF Fairford to watch a flight of heavily bombed-up B-52’s crawl into the sky on their way to give someone a bad day in Iraq.
Being at Duxford in 1991 for the first ever public display of Me109G ‘Black Six’, fabulous sight and sound, and one that as a kid growing up would never thought I’d see/hear.
September 1992, hearing a loud and very un-airliner jet noise at work and looking out of the 5th floor window of our West London office to see a Russian Tu-22 Backfire bomber flying low overhead on its way to the Farnborough Airshow. Growing up in the cold war, the thought of ever seeing a Russian nuclear bomber flying low over London was unthinkable other than if WW3 had broken out.
Flying in a Cessna floatplane to get/from Matamanoa Island of the coast of Fiji in 2003.
Flying floatplane taxi’s around the South Pacific Islands – what a cool job to have I thought (the now ex-missus wasn't as keen on that seaplane trip though -)
Hawaii, 2005, sitting in the front seat of a Eurocopter helo next to a native Japanese-American pilot and flying from the North Shore of O’ahu along the route and at the same height as the incoming Jap aircraft did on their way to Pearl Harbour.......a slightly surreal experience indeed.
A sunny day in California in May 2007, and in the space of a few hours , taking a flight over San Francisco bay in a B-25D Mitchell and then again in a B-17G Flying Fortress.
Being out playing with the lad from next door on a sunny spring day in 1969 when one of the Harriers involved in the 1969 Transatlantic air race came screaming low overhead our house in West London on its way to/from Paddington.
Again, standing in our back garden waiting for the Trooping the Colour flypast to fly over in June 1969, to be greeted by the fantastic sight and sound of 16 x shiny Lightning F.3’s from Wattisham leading Concorde prototype G-BSST at what to small child seemed like tree-top height but was undoubtably 1000ft or so. Will never forget that.
Again, same year, on holiday at a caravan site on a hillside near Swanage, the first time I heard the Vulcan ‘howl’ when Vulcans on bombing practice on the ranges in Poole harbour would appear very low from behind the hillside on climbout from the bay behind on full power – the caravan used to shake and rattle with the vibration from the noise
September 1974, Biggin Hill Battle of Britain Display and watching Flt.Lt. Pete Chapman wring the neck out of Lightning F.3 XP696 in one of his final aero’s displays. Never saw a better Lightning aero’s display until watching the display by Flt.Lt. Mike Thompson in F.3 XP753 at the BAe Hatfield families day in July 1983, just a month or so before he was killed in it flying into the sea off Scarborough.
May 1986, RAF Mildenhall Airshow and seeing the infamous SR-71 double flame-out during its final banked pass.
Feb 1991, and driving with my Dad down to the peri fence of RAF Fairford to watch a flight of heavily bombed-up B-52’s crawl into the sky on their way to give someone a bad day in Iraq.
Being at Duxford in 1991 for the first ever public display of Me109G ‘Black Six’, fabulous sight and sound, and one that as a kid growing up would never thought I’d see/hear.
September 1992, hearing a loud and very un-airliner jet noise at work and looking out of the 5th floor window of our West London office to see a Russian Tu-22 Backfire bomber flying low overhead on its way to the Farnborough Airshow. Growing up in the cold war, the thought of ever seeing a Russian nuclear bomber flying low over London was unthinkable other than if WW3 had broken out.
Flying in a Cessna floatplane to get/from Matamanoa Island of the coast of Fiji in 2003.
Flying floatplane taxi’s around the South Pacific Islands – what a cool job to have I thought (the now ex-missus wasn't as keen on that seaplane trip though -
)Hawaii, 2005, sitting in the front seat of a Eurocopter helo next to a native Japanese-American pilot and flying from the North Shore of O’ahu along the route and at the same height as the incoming Jap aircraft did on their way to Pearl Harbour.......a slightly surreal experience indeed.
A sunny day in California in May 2007, and in the space of a few hours , taking a flight over San Francisco bay in a B-25D Mitchell and then again in a B-17G Flying Fortress.
aeropilot said:
Lots of “stick in the mind” aviation moments.
Being out playing with the lad from next door on a sunny spring day in 1969 when one of the Harriers involved in the 1969 Transatlantic air race came screaming low overhead our house in West London on its way to/from Paddington.
St Pancras, but yes very cool: https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2012/10/26/when-a...Being out playing with the lad from next door on a sunny spring day in 1969 when one of the Harriers involved in the 1969 Transatlantic air race came screaming low overhead our house in West London on its way to/from Paddington.
tuffer said:
aeropilot said:
Lots of “stick in the mind” aviation moments.
Being out playing with the lad from next door on a sunny spring day in 1969 when one of the Harriers involved in the 1969 Transatlantic air race came screaming low overhead our house in West London on its way to/from Paddington.
St Pancras, but yes very cool: https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2012/10/26/when-a...Being out playing with the lad from next door on a sunny spring day in 1969 when one of the Harriers involved in the 1969 Transatlantic air race came screaming low overhead our house in West London on its way to/from Paddington.
Was having a long conversation with a new starter at work first thing this morning about their options of travelling to/from Heathrow via train so likely had Paddington station on the brain from that....(this getting old lark is no fun
)
This brought back lots of happy memories, mainly in the US:
1997 being on the last flight of a Delta L1011 from JFK to LAX - three hours on the ground with a mechanic digging around under the co-pilots seat to sort an electrical glitch. Stewardess said "this plane has been flying with us since before I was born - its going straight from LAX to Nevada to get broken up…". I got straight off and flew out the following morning
Flying in a Northwest 757 from John Wayne Airport in Orange County back to New York - stunningly clear day and the pilot broadcast his ATC conversation into the cabin saying that he had permission to fly a long loop over the Grand Canyon - incredible
1981 school trip to Russia, flying the first IL86 out of London. One of the overhead bins fell off on take off (it didn't just open, the whole bin fell down) and a steward then spent the next 10 minutes just holding it up in the air until we got to cruising altitude
2009 hitting severe turbuluance in a US Air A330 from Gatwick to Charlotte NC - in an instant the whole thing went crazy, people and stuff flying around the cabin. I met the pilot by the baggage carousel afterwards - (his words) "Christ that was scary…"
Last summer - the funniest 14 minutes of my aviation life flying from Denver to Aspen. The pilot's intro "for those of you that haven't flown this route before, please tighten your belts as fast as they go and don't be concerned with all of the jumping around". He was true to his word
Twin Otter sea plane from our Maldives island back to Male during a tropical electrical storm
The only 'controlled scary' thing I've done was take three of my kids up with a former Royal Navy test pilot in his JetRanger, performing evasive manoeuvres over the Somerset countryside. My wife was watching down below when the pilot decided to auto-rotate down to meet her - I could hear her screams from 1000ft up!
1997 being on the last flight of a Delta L1011 from JFK to LAX - three hours on the ground with a mechanic digging around under the co-pilots seat to sort an electrical glitch. Stewardess said "this plane has been flying with us since before I was born - its going straight from LAX to Nevada to get broken up…". I got straight off and flew out the following morning
Flying in a Northwest 757 from John Wayne Airport in Orange County back to New York - stunningly clear day and the pilot broadcast his ATC conversation into the cabin saying that he had permission to fly a long loop over the Grand Canyon - incredible
1981 school trip to Russia, flying the first IL86 out of London. One of the overhead bins fell off on take off (it didn't just open, the whole bin fell down) and a steward then spent the next 10 minutes just holding it up in the air until we got to cruising altitude
2009 hitting severe turbuluance in a US Air A330 from Gatwick to Charlotte NC - in an instant the whole thing went crazy, people and stuff flying around the cabin. I met the pilot by the baggage carousel afterwards - (his words) "Christ that was scary…"
Last summer - the funniest 14 minutes of my aviation life flying from Denver to Aspen. The pilot's intro "for those of you that haven't flown this route before, please tighten your belts as fast as they go and don't be concerned with all of the jumping around". He was true to his word
Twin Otter sea plane from our Maldives island back to Male during a tropical electrical storm
The only 'controlled scary' thing I've done was take three of my kids up with a former Royal Navy test pilot in his JetRanger, performing evasive manoeuvres over the Somerset countryside. My wife was watching down below when the pilot decided to auto-rotate down to meet her - I could hear her screams from 1000ft up!
Living at Brize in the late 70's - Concorde was parked up there they day we arrived so got to have a look around the cockpit, remember a few Red Arrows displays there, watched from the footbridge that went over the road from married quarters to the camp.
Having a go in the VC10 (?) sim, as there was an access door through the gym (PTI Sgt) so my dad managed to blag me a go, managed to bounce it off the runway into the grass
Spent a day with the RAF Falcons doing landing drills.
I also remember a ride in a Wessex, can't remember where that was, but I remember it being bloody noisy!
Having a go in the VC10 (?) sim, as there was an access door through the gym (PTI Sgt) so my dad managed to blag me a go, managed to bounce it off the runway into the grass
Spent a day with the RAF Falcons doing landing drills.
I also remember a ride in a Wessex, can't remember where that was, but I remember it being bloody noisy!
Several;
- coming back into London from Oslo through some very active weather one night, barbs of static discharges about 15-20ft long were coming off the radome ahead of the aircraft. Also the flight deck windows were extremely active with St Elmos fire, the edges of the windows were glowing. That was the same flight when a birdstrike on departure from Oslo promptly removed one of the wipers and left bloody remains all over the windows.
- ambling about the south of England in a Tiger Moth on a summer afternoon, with a Chipmunk holding a tight formation on our right wing.
- hand flying an approach into Malaga from FL100, back in the days when we were allowed to fly hand-flown, raw data approaches.
- many clear nights on an arrival over London or Birmingham, absolutely fanstastic views of the cities lit up.
- some beautiful arrivals over the Alps on a clear evening, the peaks still snowcapped, opening up into the north of Italy to land in perfect warm, calm conditions into a sleepy Italian airport.
- Watching a Virgin A346 pass 1000' beneath, about 15,000' somewhere over Buckinghamshire. Again, perfect clear summers day, blue sky, green fields, massive bloody great red and silver Airbus...
- Calm evening approaches into Malta or the Canary Islands, lovely warm turnarounds with the window open.
- Flying around Vancouver Island, BC in the pointy end of a Turbo Otter on floats, delivering the mail to various inlets and settlements tucked away within the islands and waterways.
- Some of the trips from Phoenix to Tucson, aiming to be landing in Tuscon before the Arizona sun started heating things up by 0800...
- coming back into London from Oslo through some very active weather one night, barbs of static discharges about 15-20ft long were coming off the radome ahead of the aircraft. Also the flight deck windows were extremely active with St Elmos fire, the edges of the windows were glowing. That was the same flight when a birdstrike on departure from Oslo promptly removed one of the wipers and left bloody remains all over the windows.
- ambling about the south of England in a Tiger Moth on a summer afternoon, with a Chipmunk holding a tight formation on our right wing.
- hand flying an approach into Malaga from FL100, back in the days when we were allowed to fly hand-flown, raw data approaches.
- many clear nights on an arrival over London or Birmingham, absolutely fanstastic views of the cities lit up.
- some beautiful arrivals over the Alps on a clear evening, the peaks still snowcapped, opening up into the north of Italy to land in perfect warm, calm conditions into a sleepy Italian airport.
- Watching a Virgin A346 pass 1000' beneath, about 15,000' somewhere over Buckinghamshire. Again, perfect clear summers day, blue sky, green fields, massive bloody great red and silver Airbus...
- Calm evening approaches into Malta or the Canary Islands, lovely warm turnarounds with the window open.
- Flying around Vancouver Island, BC in the pointy end of a Turbo Otter on floats, delivering the mail to various inlets and settlements tucked away within the islands and waterways.
- Some of the trips from Phoenix to Tucson, aiming to be landing in Tuscon before the Arizona sun started heating things up by 0800...
I'm not an airplane buff, and it's not an old memory, and probably not that impressive to most in here, but sitting in the cockpit of a brand new 747 during takeoff and landing was pretty special for me in the current age of all the restrictions. I absolutely loved it, a real special experience.
eglf said:
Being part of the team which had to recover a Russian Sukhio off the end of the runway
at Farnborough Airshow in the 1990's
Got there to the end of the runway where it came off, asked someone if they were rehearsing what would happen if a plane went off the end, only to be be told "no, a plane went off the end!"
Sitting on the ramp of a Merlin next to the Loadie flying at night over Basra (Iraq) on an IRT shout watching Basra Palace getting attacked with tracers flying each way before Artillery was called in to land on the river scaring the locals away while we were held several miles off to one side waiting to land to pick up a casualty from an earlier mortar attack. During the pick-up there were a few loud-ish bangs and the LAIRCM system popped off a few flares as we left which eject with a pretty loud "BANG" for extra "WTF was that" giggles
Turns out the pilot, Flt Lt Goodman, won a DFC for that sortie although the DFC write-up makes it sound much more spectacular than it it actually felt to me in the back (plus a few things were slightly wrong regarding the timing of events)!
http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibi...
Turns out the pilot, Flt Lt Goodman, won a DFC for that sortie although the DFC write-up makes it sound much more spectacular than it it actually felt to me in the back (plus a few things were slightly wrong regarding the timing of events)!
http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibi...
IanH755 said:
Sitting on the ramp of a Merlin next to the Loadie flying at night over Basra (Iraq) on an IRT shout watching Basra Palace getting attacked with tracers flying each way before Artillery was called in to land on the river scaring the locals away while we were held several miles off to one side waiting to land to pick up a casualty from an earlier mortar attack. During the pick-up there were a few loud-ish bangs and the LAIRCM system popped off a few flares as we left which eject with a pretty loud "BANG" for extra "WTF was that" giggles
Turns out the pilot, Flt Lt Goodman, won a DFC for that sortie although the DFC write-up makes it sound much more spectacular than it it actually felt to me in the back (plus a few things were slightly wrong regarding the timing of events)!
http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibi...
What Badge/Trade were you?Turns out the pilot, Flt Lt Goodman, won a DFC for that sortie although the DFC write-up makes it sound much more spectacular than it it actually felt to me in the back (plus a few things were slightly wrong regarding the timing of events)!
http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibi...
A few.
Farnborough. 2000. Was working on a stand, and as I lived locally, popped in a few days before to collect my security pass.
Was standing outside a portakabin, and someone mentioned that a Luftwaffe Eurofighter was due.
A few minutes later, someone pointed out a smoky trail in the distance, which I found surprising. As it got closer, it was not one, but two aircraft. The Eurofighter, and the smoky F4 that followed him down to about 500 feet before powering away.
13th July 1985. RAF Greenham Common. The one and only time I have seen a Lightning in the air. Magical. I can still feel it in my stomach!
Summer 1976. Standing on a school playing field watching a succession of (7?) Concordes delivering to Heathrow. Arriving for the first time.
24th October 2003, seeing the remaining serviceable aircraftr arriving for the last time.
Farnborough. 2000. Was working on a stand, and as I lived locally, popped in a few days before to collect my security pass.
Was standing outside a portakabin, and someone mentioned that a Luftwaffe Eurofighter was due.
A few minutes later, someone pointed out a smoky trail in the distance, which I found surprising. As it got closer, it was not one, but two aircraft. The Eurofighter, and the smoky F4 that followed him down to about 500 feet before powering away.
13th July 1985. RAF Greenham Common. The one and only time I have seen a Lightning in the air. Magical. I can still feel it in my stomach!
Summer 1976. Standing on a school playing field watching a succession of (7?) Concordes delivering to Heathrow. Arriving for the first time.
24th October 2003, seeing the remaining serviceable aircraftr arriving for the last time.
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