Describe your first ever jet flight.

[beet1e]

Include type of plane, airline (if applicable!), where from and where to, approximate date etc.

Mine: Iberia Airlines (Spain) on a Caravelle from London to Palma (Balearic Islands), April 1965. I was about 10, and was on my parents' passport! Even though London Heathrow is now the busiest airport in the world, back then the arrangements were a bit haphazard. Check-in was in central London - an office in Cromwell Road, Knightsbridge. Having checked in, we were taken on a converted London RouteMaster bus out to the airport, about 15 miles away. The bus towed a trailer which contained the passengers' luggage.

London-Palma is about 1000 miles, and the flight time was a whisker over 2 hours. The food on Iberia was - erm... - well I suppose it was OK - except that I got a salad and sprinkled sugar over it! That was the day I learned the Spanish words sel & azucar - meaning salt and sugar, respectively.

Now I really wanted to be cool by coming down the aircraft steps at the front left side onto the tarmac, with my raincoat over my arm - just like Roger Moore in The Saint. I didn't get my wish. We had to disembark via a door at the very back.

Even though this was back in 1965, we still had to pass through a security frame which checked each person for the presence of metal.

The return flight was on an old Vickers Vanguard operated by BEA. 4 props, and a journey that took 3 hours instead of 2. The jet age was just beginning!

[NUKE]

My first flight was in Los Angeles around 1971.  My dad was the pilot.....I was about 6 or 7 and it was around Thanksgiving.

We flew over our house in Long Beach. I don't remember the plane, but it was a small single engine rental.

He later bought an Aero Commander.

[VWE]

Great thread for Straiga... I wonder which story he'll tell as his first jet fight... Hmmmm?

[NUKE]

whoops......sorry Beet.....I didn't read your thread title fully. I described my first flight, not in a jet.

[Siaf__csf]

My first flight ever was a DC-8 at something like 1978 or so. It took me about 26 years before I actually flew in a prop plane. All the planes before that were jets. Airbus, DC8, MD-10, MD-11, DC9, 737-200-300-400 etc. God forbid I almost once had to fly in a Tupolev.

[Dago]

My first jet flight is as follows:

I was in the back seat of a modified two seat F16, secretly performing a mission for the CIA, making a low level attack on the motherland and central colony of the evil enemy lead by "scorpian".  My pilot, code named "Voss", a man of steel nerves and endless vision guided us to the target with the determination of a man destined to be regarded as one of the great patriots of our time, or of any time in recorded history.

As we approached the target, the god-like pilot held the aircraft rock steady through the incredible anti-aircraft defenses put up by the scorpian homeland defense forces, with their "stinger" style missles shooting off thier tail mounted launching platforms.  To meet up with one of those stingers on our inbound path would have guaranteed a painful death, unless of course we only took a hand shot in which case we would suffer greatly and find our email capabilities reduced to almost zero.

With steady nerve the pilot flew on, and I could barely contain my fear and overwhelming sense of dread as I manned the new chemical weapon dispensor, code named "Raid".  It was a one of a kind secret weapon designed in an insidious chemical laboratory and dispensed through an ominous black pressurized cylinderical container.

Approaching the enemy stronghold, and with our incredibly powerful and sophisticated radar, I was able to detect the leader, the queen, hidden under a large white linen cloaking device making her almost undetectable to the naked eye.  

Using our incredible speed, my cagey leader/pilot performed a low level "nap of the earth" pass over the hidden foe and the accompanying sonic energy, wintip vorticies and jetblast forced the invisibility cloak aside allowing me to dispense our entire contents of chemical agent upon the enemy "scorpian".

Death came quickly to the vanquished foe, and as the enemy resistance subsided allowing the forces of good to prevail, we returned to our base, and once again blended into the civilian landscape, playing computer games and waiting for the next call to save humanity.



Oh and I almost forgot, 1968, American Airlines, 727 Chicago O'hare to Mexico City.

dago

[Chortle]

I was 2 or 3 years old and tanked up on Gripe water, I literally had to be carried to my seat. I passed out before we left the ground in Ibiza and didn't wake till landing at Heathrow so technically it doesn't count.

[Masherbrum]

I was 24 and in 1997, I flew in an A300 (Airbus?) on Northwest Airlines from here in Detroit to Portland, Or.  My buddy whom I have known since the 7th grade (and a month prior to the accident, was named as my Best Man at our wedding a year later)was in a Coma for over one month.  Some drunk driver lost control of his lifted Toyota P/U. It flipped onto my buddy's Escort.  

He came out of the coma when I was out there.   Went back out there for our honeymoon and our 1st anniv.

Karaya

[Dago]

Originally posted by Masherbrum
I was 24 and in 1997, I flew in an A300 (Airbus?) on Northwest Airlines
Karaya

That would have been an A320.

dago

[Rolex]

I remember it being a BOAC De Havilland Comet about 1961-2. I was about 10 years old and traveling by myself. Got a left side window seat just forward of the wing intakes, a pair of tin wings, a trip up to the cockpit and a huge hard on from the stewardess in high heels and a tight skirt (I could see her knees!!) fawning all over me.

I forget the rest of the flight from National airport in DC to Toronto, but I read that I was darn lucky to survive considering how the Comet had a nasty habit of disintegrating in midair.

[Swoop]

10 years old.  Boeing 747 from London Gatwick to LAX, 30 min stop then on to Hawaii, another 30 min stop and then to Auckland, New Zealand.

27 hours.  Only 1 decent channel on the radio and the tape was a 90 minuter. Only one smegging film as well (Tarzan Lord of bleedin' Greystoke).

I'll never forget my first decent (into LAX), ears hurt so bad I was crying like a 10 year old.  By Auckland I'd gotton used to it.  These days I go almost completely deaf for 30 mins or so after landing.  

[Otto]

In 1976, a Boeing 707 (TWA), from Philadelphia to Los Angles.  Then a modified (Northwest) 707 (half cargo, half Passenger) to Anchorage Alaska. A (Northwest) DC-10 to Chicago and a B-727 back to Philadelphia.

[Nash]

When I boarded a jet for the first time, I had no idea what it was, nor where the hell we were going. The ride was heinous; the air pressure was killing me so bad I just cried my freakin' eyes out the entire time. Completely losing it, ballin' my eyes out... and LOUD. Then I had to go number two... but that was impossible to express to anyone... so I just 5hit myself right there in front of everyone.

What a nightmare that was.

[NUKE]

lol Nash!

[mora]

Finnair domestic in a DC-9-10 circa 1982. Second one was an Aeroflot Tupolev or Ilyushin, dunno which.