Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: beet1e on June 17, 2003, 07:35:44 AM
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I'm interested to see the movements of our diverse community. What's the longest flight you have been on, and what was the point of origin and destination? What areas did it overfly? How great was the time change? What type of plane? Also what was the worst turbulence or scary moment you ever had on a flight? What was the worst airline food you ever had?
My longest - London to Singapore, 13 hours, 747-400. Time change = +7. Overflew about 10 countries. Iraq was right in front of us, but the flight doglegged around it and flew over Iran, but NOT Iraq! (1997)
Worst turbulence - New York to London, mid March 1999. There's wind that blows in the NE USA which they call the Nor-Easter. We must have passed through the middle of it. Damned plane (747-400) was shaking all over the place - not just for a few minutes, but for two hours.
Scary moments? Well none really. Flew on Garuda Airlines from Jakarta to Denpasar (Bali) one time. I was the tallest person on board - LOL. I didn't even touch the food. The scariest thing was that it was Garuda - lol - only a few weeks after that crash they had, caused by an ATC balls up. ATC told the pilot to "turn left, turn right now", by which he meant "turn left immediately". The pilot turned right, and flew into a mountainside.
Worst food? Possibly United airlines - before that employee ownership thing. After that, it improved.
Least legroom? British Airways - I avoid them whenever I can - only two trips in more than 20 years. Why can't they do what American did, and take out a few rows of seats?
Cheapest flight? London to Dublin on RyanAir - £1 LOL. The tax added another £25. Cheapest long distance - London/Newark (New York) - Virgin Atlantic, £145 inc. tax.
Diversion? On British Midland from Luton to Jersey. Fog at Jersey caused the flight to turn back to Luton after an attempted landing.
Ever lost luggage? Me, only once one Christmas Eve, flying into Newark. Even in America, clothes shops are closed on Xmas Day. So now I always keep a spare pair of underpants in my hand luggage - lol.
Best service? Singapore Airlines - very friendly flight attendants, pretty too! Best transatlantic? Virgin Atlantic. Toad-Air was OK too, but I was crushed when it was confirmed that Mr. Toad was not my chauffeur. :(
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I didn't read the post, but I imagined it was long winded, boring and somehow manages to self glorify in some way.
Carry on.
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you're a jerk nuke.
nice post beet1e! never really been scared on a flight, and i cant remember my longest! cheapest flight was London Luton > Amsterdam, we paid about £30, nice weekend break with my friends for my 18th birthday ;). Flight was a bit of a joke, we got on the plane, and by the time they served us a drink it was time to start the decent!
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Hrmm..lol
Longest flight (Northwest) Boeing 737: Florida to Detroit (two hours while they attempted to repair the brakes) (Flight took 3 hours) After 'they fixed' the brakes iut was on to Cincinatti another 1 1/2hrs. Total annoyance: 7 hours
The following week.. seems it must have been the same plane Because it never showed up..problem with the brakes. I got to fly home First Class on Delta, on Northwest's dollar. ( Really complained and refuse to fly Northwest till this day)
Roughest/Scary moment: 727 Florida to Bahamas. Thunder Storms plus turbulence. Plane dropped atleast 500-1000ft. We were given priorty landing. The plane was a mess..anything that was in the overhead compartments was on us or the floor.
Best flight.. 1943 SNJ-6 Navy Version of T-6 Texan
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Ok I will bite.
Worst flight. One time I booked an around the world ticket on KLM (paired with Canadian Airlines) Business Class. Pretty expensive at around 7,000 USD. The first leg starts in Jakarta and lands in Singapore, they serve a drink and offer a newspaper.
After a short layover the flight takes off to go to Thailand. I ask the cabin attendant for a new newspaper as I finished the one she gave me. She says "Sorry you are only entitled to one paper per flight." I said I did not want another drink or a meal or anything else just a $0.25 newspaper and she says No. And I am in freeking Business Class!
Ok so I fill in one of those forms that ask for your opinion on the service and 3 months later I get a reply and it basically says I was only entitled to one newspaper so the cabin attendant was right. This is not a bull**** story it is the truth, even though now as I look back I cannot belive it myself.
Later in the trip I am in Rio de Janero and the incoming flight from Santiago Chile is delayed. There terminal is pretty decrepid and I will have to wait 4 hours for the flight. I go to the KLM desk and ask politely if I can wait in their executive lounge. They tell me "Sorry only for First Class". Considering there were about 20 people total waiting to get on the flight I could not see the difference one passenger would make but after the newpaper incident I just resigned myself to the fact that Dutch People are all incredibly stupid. I go to the American Airlines counter and show them my Business Class ticket on KLM and tell them what happened and the guy gives me a pass to wait in their lounge.
I never flew KLM again. (And I flew tons over the next 5 years. My standard booking instructions were "Anyone but KLM" and still are to this day".) I have a few more stories about them from that trip but this is already too long.
BTW I flew Garuda many times (probably over 100) and have never had a bad flight. The old days when they allowed smokeing were bad as those clove cigarettes would almost gag you but once that stopped they were all great flights.
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Edit: Darn, BBS Search doesnt go back far enough
I can't find it, and hate to re-write it....but my scariest ride was when I was invited to fly in a DeHaviland Vampire (British 1950's era jet fighter)...and the guy, as it turned out, only had a few hours in it....and he wasn't having a good day that day.
This is a Vampire...one I flew in had Australian markings
(http://www.checksix.net/vampire.jpg)
Couldn't find the post so here it is in a nutshell:
I was active with the Civil Air Patrol and was asked to ferry down our new Cessna 172 to the open house/air show down to Owl's Head (small airport with museum on field). My friend Larry went with me, who was a KC-135 pilot.
Got there, walked the flight line and it was largely WW1 era stuff, an F-4U, B-17 and a few other odds n ends. Noticed a jet with a twin tail and singe engine...was checking it out since I hadn't seen one before. The pilot was cleaning the aircraft and we began to chat. He was very interested to see a "military" C-172 so I brought him over to see our underpowered, nose-heavy with redundant radios bird. I told him he had a nice plane and he asked if I wanted to fly the jet with him, as he is in the airshow to make a few high speed passes. SURE!
So...showtime comes and I meet him at the Vampire. Strap in, spool up and wait to taxi. I'm noticing placards all over the cockpit that say things like DO NOT GO TO THIS ## RPM and stuff. Its also really really hot outside, so sitting in a black jet and closing the HUGELY thick plexi on top of us isn't making things any better. With an old jet, high temp/humidity...I'm thinking this little beast is going to use a LOT of runway. Pfftt.....
My host, whom we'll refer to as Einstein, taxi's us out onto the runway and revs the jet up....in the DO NOT GO rpms. I check straps, make sure my feet are clear of obstructions and ejection handles, and prepare for a fun ride.
We barrel down the runway and surprisingly, he yanks the nose up quite soon. Then the nose bobs up, then down, then up....so we are sorta up in the air (ground effect) and Einstein yanks to retract the gear. Mid way thru the gear cycle, we THUD into the runway and are skidding....I see dust, smoke...wings wagging (I'm expecting a cartwheel).....aieee! The tree line is looming ahead and I decide "Thanks for the ride, gotta go" and yank the ejection handles....which simply break off the seat into my hands. Like a dog waiting to get smacked for crapping in the house...I'm waiting for some nasty explosion to shoot my arse through the canopy. In the coolest voice Ive ever heard in my life, Einstein tells me the seats arent armed. GREAT
Somehow, perhaps God's good humor....we get into the air and the landing gear slams shut (with a grind). Hooray! I'm alive!
Now the big question is....is the gear toast? Will it extend? And, those FAA Inspectors on the field are scribbling away like a White House press conference. Larry tells me later that the take off looked like a comet richocheting off the ground!
Again, for the sake of summary...we make a low pass with the gear out, and the folks with binoculars feel everything is ok, make two high speed passes.
Einstein does the first at 400mph and WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. He hands me the controls...I drop my ejection handles, and get to do the second, a wee faster, and with the middle finger extended for all to see :p Einstein takes over and heads over the water and into what he thinks is a cloud. Umm, no...its fog. I point this out and he breaks out in a clearing...and good grief, we're at under 1,000 ft and diving in on some poor guys fishing. I dunno what was more memorable, their WTF eyes, or mine.
He brings the airplane back to the field, on a long final...and again, he's sitting onthe RPMs the magic placards all say are *bad*. As the plane gets slower and squirley...he comments "this is the part im not so good at". Ugh. But, with a hearty smack...we land...and are greeted by 12 FAA inspectors. Larry slips in, tells me how lucky I am and why didnt i try to get out. I showed him the handles :D :D
Last I knew, the guy sold the plane....he asked if I was interested in it for $60k. Nah!
Turns out he had just bought the jet and asides me, also gave a few other people a few good scares.
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Longest flight: Tampa to Toronto
Most boring flight: Tampa to Toronto - same flight. Nothing but clouds until nightfall, and then nothing to see since it was so dark and cloudy.
Funniest flight: Return flight on a business trip from New Jersey to Tampa. I'm sitting at the gate, minding my own business, scoping out the chicks, when I spot a pretty blonde girl in a denim skirt shopping at a nearby kiosk. She's got the body of an angel and the piercings of a tramp. I play it cool, catching a glance at her, then a glance at an old lady smuggling her dog onto the plane in a ventilated duffel bag, then back to the blonde, then back to the lady with the lap dog, then back to the blonde.
As I'm watching the lady with the lap dog explain to another passenger about the bag, the dog, and why little Fluffy travels with her, the blonde walks over and sits down next to me. So of course I open the conversation with something so smooth and debonair that it could've come straight from the lips of James Bond: "Hey, nice wedding ring." This thing was a freakin' ROCK! I'm talking big, like coke money big. She looks over at me and smiles and says "Actually, its just an engagement ring." I congratulate her and ask about her wedding plans (something most women fantasize about most of their lives, so its a pretty good topic to discuss when you want to get them to open up). But she confesses that no date is set and I'm getting the feeling that she's got some reservations about the whole thing.
So we get to talking a bit and it turns out she's engaged to a guy who owns a horse farm in Ft. Lauderdale. She didn't come out and say it, but I got the vibe that she was about to become his next trophy breeding stock. No love there. She had that rough edge to her and I suspected she was in it for the money, and probably had danced for dollars at some point in her young life.
Anyway, the gate opens and we begin to board the plane. Faster than you can say "Mile High Club" the ticket agent seats us at different ends of the plane.
Not sure if that's funny or simply tragic, but it was certainly the most interesting pre-flight experience I've had.
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Most Turbulence? A Eastern Metro Express Dash 8 from Atlanta to Chattanooga. It was really bad the whole flight. Soda on the ceiling, pull the belt as tight as it would go, bad.
Longest? San Francisco to Hong Kong. Way long, like 12 hours or something? Japan to Dallas was a haul too.
Best service? AA 777 1st Class from Japan to San Jose, CA., Amazing service, anything you could ever want, and the seat folded into a bed with a curtain. Add this for best food too. The steak was great. The Sundae cart wasn’t bad either.
Worst service? American Airlines San Francisco to Honolulu. Some old sky hag that was like 90 really made it clear she was a old hag. Tied, is not even being allowed to get past security early this year because my carryon bag I had traveled with many times wheels prevented it from fitting in that metal box that measures carryon size. So I missed my flight.
Cheapest? Free, anytime I ride in coach.
Lost luggage? Eastern Airlines, Atlanta to San Fran but they delivered it to my door the next day which was cool. Actually my parent’s camcorder was stolen in Chicago. The empty open case came down the carousal which was kinda cruel of the rampers. Got a brand new one out of the deal though.
Scariest? Went on a test flight in a American Eagle Metro III. You don’t wanna know.
Worst flight? Honolulu to Los Angeles. I was really sick from overdoing it all weekend, and that sucks on a long flight.
Diversion? Ya know, it’s never happened.
Singapore and Cathay Pacific are outstanding Airlines. The flight attendants are young, picked to look great, treat you great, and help you any way they can. They spend as much time in the mirror making their makeup just right as anything. Oh, and AA is putting the seats back in the airplanes Beetle, some of them anyway. Too bad too, it makes a huge difference.
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i remember that story LePaul .. that was some funny watermelon the first time you told it :D you had more Drama LOL but great story none the less!
longest flight: was Milwaukee to Anchorage about 7-8 hours. i was like 12-13 years old. it was in a DC10 and about 2/3 was empty so my cousin and me were running all over the place LOL. flight was so smooth the i even made a small house out of playing cards on my fold out tray :cool:
worst flight:
Milwaukee to Omaha. coming in for an approach we felt a major "lurch" then our stomachs all dropped out for like 20 seconds. everyone was screaming and stuff going WTF happened. after landing very suddenly pilot came on and told us a 747 had just flown ahead of us and we went through it's jet wash or something to that effect. we dropped something like 5000 feet in 20 seconds before pilot got the plane level again. :eek: this was on the way to a cruise in the carribean and it was going to be a 4 hour stop-over in omaha. they sent us on our way in 45 min (guessing to get us out of there and not spread stories around the terminal for 4 hours LOL).
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Wow....I will have to write more on this one! Great stories guys!
Longest flight....AC130 from Brindisi, Italy to Mombasa, Kenya In support of Mike Durant and his buddies. Long...tiresome...WELL FRIGGIN WORTH IT!!!!
Le Paul.....great pic and story!!!!!!! BTW..folks live in Freeport...I get back there every so often....perhaps a beer or two if I get up there? That would be fun!
NUKE.....you are the epitome of an prettythanghole....unless of course you were being VERY sarcastic...not seeing your other posts on the board I would not know.
If you like these stories here read the book "Fate is the Hunter"
OUTSTANDING!
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Funniest Flight
One time I was on a local flight from Lagos to Port Harcourt Nigeria. The plane was an old Boeing 707. If you ever wondered what happens to all the old loud planes that are not allowed to fly in Europe anymore just look south into Africa. That is where they all end up.
Anyway so I am assigned a seat and I get to the front of the line and quickly board to make sure I get the window (so I can look out and watch my luggage actually being put in the plane).
The flight is full and this big pompus looking guy comes in and stops a couple of rows in front of me and sees someone in his assigned seat. Problem is that guy also has a ticket for that seat so he refuses to move. Before you know it both are yelling and screaming at each other at the top of their lungs. Finally the cabin crew drags the pompus guy away before he starts to pummel the guy.
A few minutes later they come back and make the other guy leave but he refuses and locks his hands on the chair arms. Finally 3 guys all pull him out of the chair and drag him out of the plane. The pompus guy comes back and we depart 45 minutes late.
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Originally posted by guttboy
Le Paul.....great pic and story!!!!!!! BTW..folks live in Freeport...I get back there every so often....perhaps a beer or two if I get up there? That would be fun!
Sure, say when, I'm in Bangor...like a mini-Portland here, minus the traffic! Civilization is nice!
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I once flew from New York JFK to Tokyo non-stop. 14 1/2 hrs.
Scariest flight was from Leon, Mexico to Dallas Tx in 1997. At 30k over Monterrey, Mx the Captain came on and said that ATC issued a turbulence warning and told us to buckle-up. Right then we went into freefall. I hit my head on the bulkhead so hard it almost knocked me out. Screaming-crying-food everywhere. The captain was making violent banks to try and get-out of what we were in. We were over the Sierra Madre Mountains. It was horrible. A passenger in first class was killed. Broke his neck. Interestingly enough, that year American had 3 turbulence related fatalities. It was the big El Nino year. All fatalities were over mountainess areas…..humm???? Maybe some of u remember seeing this on the news..it got some Pub.
Best flight..comming back from Spring Break in Cancun. Felt-up and made-out with the Chick next to me.
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Longest Flight
KLM (still on my around the world flight) from Rio to Amsterdam. It was the longest in the world at that time.
The only reason I mention this is I decided to lay over in Amsterdam for a night before flying on to Jakarta and back to work. I stayed in a highly rated Golden Tulip hotel and except for the KLM food and the hotel food did not eat anywhere else. On the flight to Jakarta a day later I did not feel too good at the end. When I got back to my house in Jakarta I felt definetly sick but not too bad so I went to work the next day. Turns out I had to fly to an offshore oil rig the same day so I went home packed and made the helicopter.
A week later still feeling sick I told my boss in town. A second week goes by and I am still sick. Nothing major just mild stomach upset and the runs. Finally I get a chance to leave the rig and get to town where it is found I have dysentry. The only place I could have got it was from the stupid KLM hotel.
I lived in the third world and in some really rough places for over 5 years and the only time I got sick from the food was in Amsterdam!
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Yeah have many fond memories of Bangor! We would ALWAYS stop there on our redeployments from Brindisi or Africa to go through customs there! Always had the VFW folks meet us and make us feel great to be in the military...they also brought Stephen King stuff for us there....they were SOOOO nice!
Been a while since I have been through there though on a plane.
Mike
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Longest point-to-point flight: 747-200 Sydney, Australia to Honolulu (abd then on to SFO without an equipment change) Long, long time, no overflights I was aware of.
Lost luggage -- yeah, it's happened to me more than a few times, often involving milan, or KLM (and always when both conspire).
Cheapest Scheduled Flight: Tower Air from JFK to CDG. $99 one way to France. completely full 747-200, not all safety equipment in place. On crossing, plane never got above 18k; Ticket was overpriced.
Most entertaining flight:
CSA Czech Airlines 737-400 redeye from Larnaca, Cyprus to Prague. A schoolgroup of 12-year-olds was on board. Pilsner Urquell was the beer served in coach. Enjoyed one.
Now I need to digress about the state of Prague's airport at the time:
As I waited for my connection later, I observed traffic landing and taking off. Prague has three runways 24: 22-04, 06-24, and crossing both of those 31-13. In E corner between the three runways is the N terminal building and ramp area (http://www.biolog-online.info/beta/docs/PubDoc/D03-OCD-10.pdf has a map on page 73).
This day, as is common, I imagine, the only runway in operation was 24.
But there was construction, which closed off both high-speeds on the crossing runway and all taxiways on 24 except B, a high-speed for traffic coming down 06, roughly 700m from the 24 treshhold.
So I'd sit and watch planes land. For example, an ATR-42 came in, touched down, and stopped about halfway between the W highspeed and the crossing. It then taxied to the crossing, turned N, and taxied all the way to the far apron, made another left turn at the intersection over by the GA area, then came back to the ramp and parked at the terminal, some ten minutes after touching down.
Well, that's not what happened on my landing. I think the flight originated in Dubai or something, and the crew didn't want to taxi around with all those 12-year-olds making a mess of the airplane. So they come in perfectly on 24, then they thunk the thing down hard right at the threshhold, go full breaks and thrust reversers, and hold it like that while dentures and glasses fly across the cabin, up until the plane is completely stopped, with the thrust reversers still shaking and screaming. Then chops throttle, brings the reversers in, gives a forward blast from the #2 engine, swinging the nose around before shooting down the eastbound highspeed that happens to be just to our left. 30 seconds later, we're at the terminal..
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turbulence:
Well, once while walking to my flight one windy day in Pisa, on the tarmac, I watched overhead as an MD-80 went wheels up and turned to the left, and was thrown all over the sky. I mean that plane was shaking. Got on board the ATR-42. "This is the Captain speaking -- we're in for a bumpy ride to Milan today." It was.
scariest:
well, I haven't had many scary moments that I've known about, thankfully. And I'm sure there are much better stories out there (actually I know there are, like Funked's 777 hop).
I once had this flight from Larnaca, Cyprus to Rome, Fiumicino, on Cyprus Airlines. Cyprus Airlines has 4000 employees and 7 planes, mostly A320s (awful planes).
I had a seat on this A320 directly over the wings. The all-composite body means that you get to hear all the workings of the aircraft, especially when you're sitting over the wings. So I get to hear the full ignition sequence, from the APU to the right engine, to the left.
So not much happens on the flight until we're descending into FCO. I'm not paying much attention, reading, as we drop through the clouds on final. Then -- still nowhere near the ground -- the pilot firewalls the engines and banks hard and to the right. 1 second later, a loud "crack" pierces the air, the jet lurches to the left, and flames shoot out the front of the #1 engine. The largely cypriot passengers, for reasons still obscure to me, think that a compressor stall is sufficient cause for a spontaneous ovation. I'm thinking "please refrain from using electronic equipment or applauding the flight crew until after the aircraft has arrived at the gate".
Anyway, the plane now flies straight ahead, hanging at a 10-degree left bank for about thirty seconds. Then I hear the sounds I'd associated with starting the left engine; these cycle continuously until the plane touches down.
"This is the captain. We couldn't land because there was another plane on the runway. We'll be down in five minutes".
Nobody believed him. Well, I believed the five minute part.
So now the plane skids around the sky and we land without further incident.
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Originally posted by guttboy
Yeah have many fond memories of Bangor! We would ALWAYS stop there on our redeployments from Brindisi or Africa to go through customs there! Always had the VFW folks meet us and make us feel great to be in the military...they also brought Stephen King stuff for us there....they were SOOOO nice!
Been a while since I have been through there though on a plane.
Mike
We had some fabulous receptions for troop flights in 1991. I mean, we had over 100 folks, bands, grandmothers, vets and ordinary folks greeting every flight in 1991...it was like a month long Mardi Gras...minus the booz!
The VFW, schools and everyone in general has been trying to greet troops again this time around but they are hush as to when they are arriving. Now they dont give much notice when the flights are due in....so its harder for more folks to welcome back the troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, etc
But we're trying!
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LePaul,
I remember one of those returns from the big sandbox....
Let me say it gives me SHIVERS up my spine when I think about it.
It is SOOOOO nice to have people care about what the USAF/USMIL does...
It means alot, trust me...especially after being deployed to a "Sh*t hole" in tents, no AC, no food but MRE's, no communication with home, etc....to have people who you dont even know come out and welcome you home!!!!!!!
OUTSTANDING!!!!!!!!!!! I cant say enough for the people who come out to greet us.
THANKS AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT MEANS ALOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mike
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Coming in on final at the airport on Maui in 1981. I'm gazing at the blue-green water off the beach, and the pilot hits the throttle and pulls the 737 into a turning climb. He then gets on the loudspeaker and tells the passengers that he didn't want to land on top of that small plane underneath us. A scary experience to say the least.
:(
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Originally posted by 2stony
Coming in on final at the airport on Maui in 1981. I'm gazing at the blue-green water off the beach, and the pilot hits the throttle and pulls the 737 into a turning climb. He then gets on the loudspeaker and tells the passengers that he didn't want to land on top of that small plane underneath us. A scary experience to say the least.
Something similar happened off San Diego in 1978. Unfortunately, the 727 and the Cessna weren't so fortunate.
(http://www.cactuswings.com/psa/museum/pic/crash1.jpg)
No survivors on either plane. It became the classic case study for ATC.
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Scariest...Toronto to Quebec City. Snowstorm and crazy tail winds. On final approach the passengers, including myself, would have been hitting the ceiling regularly if we weren't strapped in. Even the drink carts broke free in the galley and smashed about in there until we landed.
Longest...the flight back to Toronto. I had a bad dream/premonition that the plane was going to crash the night before. I was white knuckled for the entire 1.5 hour flight which seemed to take much, much longer...an eternity even. The girl I was with vowed she would never fly with me again because I scared HER so much.
Funniest...I already posted my story about the cute girl sitting next to me on a flight home. I had a serious night of drinking before getting on the flight and most of the ramifications of that night ended up in the toilet about an hour before we landed....possibly the smelliest bathroom trip EVER. As I came out of the bathroom I came face to face with the girl I was sitting next to..who proceeded to enter the bathroom I had just used. We didn't speak for the rest of the flight.
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the wife and I were flying from Amsterdam to Madrid and she is a nervous wreck when flying. I love it on planes and sleep like a baby. On approach to Madrid the plane was bouncing and rocking back and forth swaying left and right wildly..passengers were looking rather nervous as the jet jumped up and down. The landing was a rough slam onto the ground and some rather judicious use of brakes made for a frightening landing....all of this being told to me as I was snoring the whole time and what woke me up was my wife hitting me in the head with the skymall mag!
Longest flight: Seattle to Paris something like 14hrs.. was cool tho going over the North Pole area.
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Scariest... 777 approach into Denver. We can see 2-3 thunderstorms all around us. We are on final approach and we hit a microburst. Plane just falls and falls, then a very wild recovery with what felt like a stall (wing dropped and lots of buffeting) but we pulled out in time. It was a full plane and it sounded like pretty much everybody was screaming. We fell so suddenly that all kinds of handbags and personal items flew up in the air and were scattered all over.
We then set up for another approach, and we hit the same thing, almost as severe, but the pilot aborted earlier. The pilot announced that they closed the airport and said we were being diverted to Cheyenne.
But either the conditions improved or we had fuel issues, because we tried a third approach. He flew the whole thing at very low altitude, including a curving final. It seemed like no more than 30 seconds between ending our turn and the wheels touching down.
People were still crying getting off the plane. I noticed my hand was hurting and bleeding and I realized that I had gripped my armrest so hard that I had cut myself. The pilot said it was the worst wind shear he had seen in 17 years of flying for United.
I then had to get on a Beech 1900 to Grand Junction in the same weather. It was also a very rough flight but after the 777 it was nothing, and I was just smiling and reading even though some of the people on the plane were crying and puking. :)
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Great stories, guys! I liked those of Dinger and Habu. Dinger said
Lost luggage -- yeah, it's happened to me more than a few times, often involving milan,
Doh! Would you believe it - I'm flying to Milan on Saturday to begin a week's holiday in North Italy. Maybe I'll take seven pairs of underpants in my hand luggage.
Habu - did you own the house in Jakarta? I hate to think how much money you lost if you did. When I was there in 1997, £1 (GBP) = 6,000 rupiah. I was glad to get out of there, and rearranged my trip to spend an extra 2 days in Bali - and 2 fewer days in Jakarta.
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Worst Flight - 2 of them....
Flying out of Cinncinatti back to Milwaukee after visiting Kentucky Truck Plant (KTP) when I worked in automotive...
I was sitting in the back of the plane by the galley. Tower gave us clearance to roll. Ah, the sweet acceleration.... I'm looking out the window as we travel down the runway.
The pilot rotates the nose and up we go.... Up about 5-10 feet and....
POW!!! we come smashing back down on the runway... WTF?????. At this point, we gotta be just about out of runway, but I'm sitting in the back of the plane so I can't tell. The pilots put the throttles to the board (now THAT was acceleration) and up we go... I look back and even the stewardess is white, and has a white knuckle grip on the little fold up seat she is on.
We are about 1/2 thru climbout to altitude when all the little galley cabinets (that hold the drink/food cart) let loose. About 4 carts come crashing out of the cubards, tipping over, spilling sh*t everywhere and making a hell of a racket.
At this point, I started to pray, cuz I figgered this was going to be my last flight. We got to Milwaukee and the field was COMPLETELY fogged in. I didn't see the runway until we acutally touched down. It was that foggy. I don't know how they managed to get us down without killing us.
I got home, so stressed out from the flight, I drank myself into unconciousness :D
2nd flight...
Feb 2002... Flying back from Italy on Allitallia (don't know if I spelled that right). Flew into Chicago in very high winds. Again, I was at the back of the plane looking out the window. The pilot has 100% flaps down (perpendicular to the airflow) and is spooling the engines up and down in huge amounts (not little throttle adjustments). The plane is rolling and yawing so much, I'm starting to get sick. And it takes A LOT to get me motion sick. As we get close to the runway, the pilot has the plane crabbed so much, I am looking down the runway out my window. We must have been damn near flying sideways. Just before touchdown, the pilot kicks the rudder, straightens us out and drops the plane down on the runway like a clubbed elephant.
I got home, and drank myself into sweet unconsciousness :D
Best flight...
Flew to Seattle last year for the Black Sheep Squadron reunion. Flew in the new 777 and listened to the communication channel the whole way. Flight was as smooth as silk... :D
We landed, and I drank myself into sweet unconciousness :D Just kidding... ehehehehehe
The more I think about it, the more I hate to fly.....
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Maybe Beet1e is the jerk. I almost never see him in the MA. I ran into him a couple days ago and shot him down after a brief fight. Saluted him.......................... .............................
nothing.
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Scariest Flight: 1979 Wein Air Alaska 737 Sea-Tac to Kodiak
Just to set this up, Wein Air Alaska's mascot was a Goose wearing an old aviators cap and goggles....it was an omen.
I am in-transit to my ship and get booked on WAA. After leaving Sea-Tac the pilot comes on the PA and gives the usual speech "we will be cruising at 20,000 and expect to be on time, ect,ect...and I want to wish a Happy 90th Birthday to Ms. Peggy Watkins! Peggy is travelling to meet her great-grandson today in Anchorage...Peggy, this ones for you!" At this point the pilot breaks out his harmonica and starts to play "Peg O' My Heart" over the PA. If that wasn't enough, he started banking the plane in time to the music! All I could envision was this guy kicked back with his feet on the yoke steering the plane while the co-pilot was breaking out his comb and tissue paper.
Pre 9/11 Security Snafu: 1981 San Francisco Int'l
I was headed home on Leave from Seattle and had to take a connecting flight in SF. There was a 4 hour lay-over so I headed straight for the bar. About an hour before we are scheduled to leave I hear my name called over the PA and I'm asked to proceed to the Information counter. Guess the flight is full and I'm going to be bumped...WRONG!
When I reach the counter and identify myself I am suddenly bent over the counter and handcuffed. WTF? I am dragged (literally) into a small room and plopped into a metal chair facing a US Marshall sitting behind a small table. "What's this?" the guy asks. I look and see one of my knives (a 12 inch Surgical Stainless Hunting Knife) laying on the table. I explain to him that I am active duty Coast Guard and that is part of the equiptment that I am expected to have , and I cleaned out my locker before going on leave (the truth).
The guy starts asking me if I have ever been arrested, ect,ect and having 3 hours worth of Jack Daniels in me I think I am witty. "Yeah, I admit it...I put the knife in my checked baggage so I could rip up the floor during the flight and sneak down into the baggage compartment, find my seabag, get the knife and hijack the plane." Odd, they didn't laugh...maybe I'm not as hysterical as I think. Anyway, after 45 min of interrogation, phone calls to my unit and a "complete" body search I get to put the knife in an envelope with my name, place that inside another envelope, put that inside a small box and then inside a bigger box which is given to the Flight Attendent for safekeeping until we land at DFW.
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Ever lost luggage?
Yeah, on my honeymoon. It seems the airline left our bags out on the tarmack for several hours because they forgot about them, didn't see them, or didn't know where they should go. However, it was pouring rain. The luggage was soaked clean through and we had some dry-clean only stuff that was ruined. We coulda claimed damages to replace those things but never did. Not sure why our luggage was sitting in the rain in Dallas when we didn't depart the aircraft to switch anything but kept going on the same aircraft to Florida (from California.)
Gofaster,
My father saw that thing go down. He was working in the Home Fed building downtown (high rise) and saw the thing. It crashed into a subdivision. Urban renewel in the worst way.
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dbl post...stupid Internet
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Longest flight: Paris to Cayenne (French Guiana). Some 14h in a god-knows-how-old Air France 747. I was flying near the tail and the thing creaked like it was going to break apart.
Add the fact that the Cayenne Airport has a pretty short runway for a 747 and you have a long yet interesting flight :)
Best flight: It has to be the parabolic flight in the Airbus 300 of Novespace. Bourdeaux - Bourdeaux, 3 hour flight with 30 parabolas near Corsica.
Daniel
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Longest flight: Paris to Cayenne (French Guiana). Some 14h in a god-knows-how-old Air France 747. I was flying near the tail and the thing creaked like it was going to break apart.
Add the fact that the Cayenne Airport has a pretty short runway for a 747 and you have a long yet interesting flight :)
Best flight: It has to be the parabolic flight in the Airbus 300 of Novespace. Bourdeaux - Bourdeaux, 3 hour flight with 30 parabolas near Corsica.
Daniel
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Originally posted by beet1e
Habu - did you own the house in Jakarta? I hate to think how much money you lost if you did. When I was there in 1997, £1 (GBP) = 6,000 rupiah. I was glad to get out of there, and rearranged my trip to spend an extra 2 days in Bali - and 2 fewer days in Jakarta.
No I only rented but my $60,000 USD golf membership to Karawang International Golf Club is probably worth about ten bucks these days. I had an Indonesian "wife" while I was there and I left her quite a bit of US dollars also when I got out.
I was there when Suharto stepped down. That was another storey to tell. I still go there every year or so as I own an import company and have a couple of suppliers there.
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Originally posted by beet1e
Habu - did you own the house in Jakarta? I hate to think how much money you lost if you did. When I was there in 1997, £1 (GBP) = 6,000 rupiah. I was glad to get out of there, and rearranged my trip to spend an extra 2 days in Bali - and 2 fewer days in Jakarta.
No I only rented but my $60,000 USD golf membership to Karawang International Golf Club is probably worth about ten bucks these days. I had an Indonesian "wife" while I was there and I left her quite a bit of US dollars also when I got out.
I was there when Suharto stepped down. That was another storey to tell. I still go there every year or so as I own an import company and have a couple of suppliers there.
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Originally posted by beet1e
Habu - did you own the house in Jakarta? I hate to think how much money you lost if you did. When I was there in 1997, £1 (GBP) = 6,000 rupiah. I was glad to get out of there, and rearranged my trip to spend an extra 2 days in Bali - and 2 fewer days in Jakarta.
No I only rented but my $60,000 USD golf membership to Karawang International Golf Club is probably worth about ten bucks these days. I had an Indonesian "wife" while I was there and I left her quite a bit of US dollars also when I got out.
I was there when Suharto stepped down. That was another storey to tell. I still go there every year or so as I own an import company and have a couple of suppliers there.
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Doublepostorama.
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Doublepostorama.
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I'm going for quad.
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Originally posted by Modas
The more I think about it, the more I hate to fly.....
Spoken like a true Cutthroat!!!
Worst flight here.........
Short final on the active runway, 11, at BED in a Piper Warrior II with two good friends aboard.
Tower "Plan to land past the intersecting runway. Airline traffic landing runway 5"
The "airline" traffic was a Beech 1900 on a long straight in approach to the non-active runway. Increase power, arrest descent, set up for glideslope to far end of runway 11. I end up crossing the threshold at 100-125 feet. The airline traffic is crossing the threshold for runway 5.
Tower "Beech ##, clear to land runway 5. Ummm, Cherokee clear to land. Can you hold short of the runway intersection?"
What???? Knowing the the controller had lost control of the situation and fearing she'd call a go-around for one or both airplanes, there was no way I was going to cross that runway. I was going to merge with it on the ground or in the air right where the runways crossed.
Chop power, stomp on right rudder, full flaps, dump nose, fly to the right side of the 150' wide runway. The Beech 1900 touches down. I touch down. There is no relative motion for the Beech 1900 in relation to its position in the windscreen. Stand on the brakes, raise flaps, full aft on the yoke. Too much speed, I'm going to cross the intersecting runway into the path of the Beech 1900. I ease off on the right brake and turn parallel to the edge of runway 5 using the additional runway width to get the Warrior stopped. The Beech slides by on the right side of the airplane less than 75' away.
My Warrior rocks back after the aircraft plows to a halt. I sit there, ready to storm up to the tower for clearing two aircraft to land on intersecting runways. Scared the hell out of me and my passengers. Close call.
MiG
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Was in a Northwest Airlines 767 on approach to O'Hare when the pilot snapped the plane on its wing (ok, relatively snapped it) and pulled a hard left turn.
He then came on the intercom and told us a Continental plane had crossed his path. Thought it was odd that he would give us the name of the airline. I wonder if it might have been a union beef?
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Flew from Waukegan Il. to Phoenix AZ once, in a 182. That's a long flight, baby.
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Best flight, Marine CH-53
Longest flight, Guam to Hawaii then Washington.
Scarriest flight, Beechcraft twin turboprop into North Bend Oregon during a bad storm. Plane in front crashed into the lake due to high winds however we made it. Actually that was fun and scary.
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Ok last one.
A few years ago I flew JAL into Indonesia. I like JAL as they are one of the few airlines that still gives you a free hotel room if you have to lay over to make your conection.
Because the flights were long and because I was laying over in Japan I did not watch any TV for a couple of days, so I was a little out of touch with international events.
I got on the flight to Jakarta (747) and it was pretty empty which is very unusal. When we few into Jakarta I looked down from the plane and saw tons of fires and smoke. I thought they were rice fields being burned which is not unusal.
Once on the ground the pilot gets on and says "There seems to be some trouble in Jakarta, we are going to Bali next and advise all passengers to stay on the flight." I was thinking no way I am going to Bali when I had appoinments and meetings schedualed for the next week so I was itching to get off. Besides I had lots of friends in Jakarta and how bad could it be?
Just then a group of 4 guys sitting on the other side of the asile get up and deplane. I think if they are getting off then so am I and follow them.
When we get to immigration I catch up to them and notice absolutely no one else has followed us off. I hear them talking to the immigration officer and the one guys says they are a BBC news crew. Yikes.
I go though customs and enter the main terminal and it is absolutely packed with people everywhere. Turns out the airport is cut off by roveing bands of looters and all those fires I saw on the way in were large blocks of Jakarta on fire. The protestors are all demanding Suharto the President step down.
I get to a phone and call JAL and ask to get back on the plane. They tell me my seat is taken. I am stuck in Jakarta and there are 1000's waiting for flights out.
I sit in the terminal all day and notice that the McDonalds is having a run on its food. I go over and buy 3 Big Macs (who knows how long I will be there?) and shortly after they run out of food. Who has every seen a McDonalds run out of food before? I was getting worried. At about 10 pm a taxi pulls up and some rich guys hire him to take them to a hotel. They pull out and it comes back 15 minutes later with all its windows smashed.
At midnight some more taxis arrive and I get one driven by a women (Ebu Haji) who is dressed in Muslim dress. She only charges me twice the going rate which is totally fair as she is risking the car. I get to the downtown (we were stopped once by a gang of teenages with rocks but once they saw her and me they smiled and waved us on, a chinese guy would have been mugged). All the way down I see fires and wrecked buildings. A huge shopping mall I used to go to was totally gutted.
I go to a very large 5 star hotel and check in. Next day it is totally full of people fleeing their homes. I was lucky to get a room. I looked out of my window and saw the army deploying. There were tanks parked on the road below the hotel which made me feel very safe. I went to bed after calling a supplier who promised to send a car for me the next day. He was not worried at all about any of it.
The next day the supplier calls me and tells me to get to the airport asap! I guess he finally looked out his window. I do and we can't get an international flight so we get a domestic one to Semerang. Once there we find it pretty peaceful so I check into a nice hotel that has a golf course near it. I spent the next week playing golf by myself as the course was totally empty. Suharto stepped down a day later, the expats started to come back after a week and by the end of the second week the place was getting back to normal. Except for the fact that looters had destroyed a huge chunk of many of the downtowns like Jakarta.
My wife spent each night watching the riots on TV and listening to the news while I phoned here and told her it was all eggagerated. Really it wasn't though.
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Coolest flight: Sitting front seat in an AH-1 Cobra in Saudi on a test flight. Almost shat my pants.
Scariest flight: Too many, here's a countdown :)
4) Flying from the port to our base in the Saudi desert in UH-1. It's getting dark and the visibility is really poor at dusk. We're flying pretty dam low. Feel a big thump. Pilot asks me to lean over the side and look below. Both our skids are gone and the crosstubes are folded up against the belly. We continue flying to base and the pilot radios ahead to have our unit build a sandbag landing platform. He pulls it to a hover and everyone but him jumps out. He lands the gear-less UH-1 flawlessly on the platform. Upon further inspection, the main structural beam that connects the tranny to the fuselage is cracked. Aircraft never flew again as far as I know.
3) Flying from Grafenwoer to Illesheim Germany in UH-1. I'm riding left seat. About 15 minutes into the flight the aircraft picks up a nasty vertical vibration. Pilot asks me if I think it's serious. I figured we had just lost part of one of the rotor blade tip caps, throwing the balance off. We fly on. We land, I hop out. As the blades spin down, I notice that about a foot of skin from one of the blades has peeled itself back. Got really drunk that night.
3) We're flying a medevac hoist missionin UH-1 to pick a mountain climber off Mt. Rainier in Washington state. Visibilty is toejam! It's dark out and fog is rolling in. Even with NVGs, can't see more than 50ft or so. We're flying at treetop level at no more than 20 or 30 knots probably. (Well below a decent autorotational speed if anything went wrong.) I thought for sure we were going to buy it, that pilot had more guts than brains. Finally after a bit of complaining from myself and the medic the pilot sees the light and we turn around.
1) Flying another medevac hoist mission in Washington. We get set to lower the hoist and I have the medic about 50ft down. I lean out farther to get a good look and my harness doesn't catch me. I fall out of the helicopter and stop with a jerk about 10 ft below it. Our life support equipment inspector had inspected my harness and run it out all way without my knowing it. My only thought on the way down was that I had forgotten to secure the harness. Thought for sure I had pissed my pants. Managed to pull myself back inside somehow, but that was enough for me that day. We pulled the medic back up and another crew finished the job :)
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Longest, funniest, scaryist flight: 1968 Ben Hoa Viet Nam to McCord AFB in Washington, 17 hours. Had to de-board the flight three times prior to take off due to mortor-rocket attacks on air base. Plane was a DC-9 stretch, 250 GIs on board, took all of the runway and then some to finally lift into the air.
Starting our descent into McCord, the pilot comes on the intercomm: "Gentelmen, we're starting our descent, we expect some mild turbulence so please make sure your seatbelts are fastened." The seat in front of me is occupied by a young black private who declares "yea, set this mother****er down." No sooner had these words left his mouth, when the plane rocked hard and stood on it's nose. My stomach had just come out of my mouth, my hands gripping the armrests in fear, through the pandamodium in the cabin I hear the young private screaming: "Not like that, not like that!":D
Btw, the charter line on this flight was Flying Tiger Airlines. Those of you who have done so in the military know that you have to fill out a customs form on the flight returning to the USA. On the line asking which airline was used, most of us wrote: FTA. If you were in the army at that time, you know what that stood for.;)
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Funniest flight-Going to my cousin Patrick's wedding.
MD-80 I believe from Columbus to Houston,where we had to take a twin engine turboprop to Corpus Christi.
About halfway in the flight,we hit some pretty bad turbulence.What's funny is there was my six year old niece screaming "wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!" everytime we would hit some more,while some poor guy seated across the aisle from her was puking his guts out at the same time.
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