First Flight

[spilok 1,134]

Mine was in a Commanche 250 (red and white) with my next door neighbor who was a private pilot for executives.  I was 12 years old, and I couldn't believe how slow we were traveling (perception of course).  I loved it and remember it as if it were yesterday.  We only went about 25 miles or so from the airport, but it was a dream come true for me.

 

Stan

[John_Cillis 2,406]

On 9/4/2017 at 0:37 AM, Chock said:

Yup, I can remember my first flight in an aeroplane, I would have been pretty young so I guess it might have been around the very end of the Sixties or more likely early in the Seventies. It was in an ex-BOAC de Havilland Comet 4 operated by Dan Air London, flying from EGCC Manchester Airport (which was known as Ringway Airport back then) to LEGE Gerona airport in Spain. I made the return flight back to the UK on a Boeing 727, disembarking as I recall, via the airstairs at the back which was interesting.

I can remember looking at the wings of that Comet from the window seat whilst we were at the gate at Manchester and noticing they had a lot of stains on the aluminium surface, presumably from a fuel spillage or some such. I was sat on the port side next to the emergency over wing exit (not something an airline would let a young child do these days). During the flightI can remember looking at fluffy clouds above the distant Pyrenees Mountains, a range which divides France and Spain and goes up to 11,000 feet.

It was an impression which certainly stayed with me because I often make that same flight in simulators these days. I was one of those kids who was always making model planes, drawing them and reading anything I could get my hands on to do with aeroplanes and I knew I always wanted to learn to fly right from being a little kid. Since my dad worked as an engineer for Faireys, building the real things, I would sometimes get to go to their factory and see where aeroplanes were made. Hardly surprising then, that I got into all that kind of thing too.

In June I was in Europe and got to cross the Pyrenees twice, first going from France to Spain then from Spain back into France.  Quite beautiful mountain scenery.

John

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I should mention my last flight was a marathon eleven hour non-stop from Heathrow to Phoenix Sky Harbor on June 23rd, on a 747-400.  I sat in premium economy so there was just a window and an aisle seat with me sitting at the window.  Saw Hudson Bay, still with ice flows even in late June.  Also had clear weather from the upper midwest, down thru the Rockies, and all the way in to our Valley of the Sun.  It was quite a climate shock going from England to Arizona!

John

[ShawnG 1,823]

After 40 years on the planet being fascinated by aircraft, yet terrified of flying in them, I got on an AirTran 717 in 2013 to Orlando.  Since then I've been on a dash 8 100 and a couple 737's.  I still have to be convinced of the necessity, and slightly medicated to board an airplane, but once we are off the ground, I enjoy the flight (control issues).  Probably if I had never done this as a hobby, I wouldn't have flown at all.

[VeryBumpy 272]

I was a baby in the late 60's for my first flight. No clue what it was.

Youngest flight I have memory of was landing into a stormy Reykjavik (BIRK) airport in Iceland.

It was an Icelandic Air DC-6 in a really bad winter storm with blinding snow and therefore blind landings.  We needed to deboard the plane. Holding my mom's hand, we went down the outside airstairs and walked through a blowing and drifting sideways blizzard. It was really a white out and I was dumbfounded we actually just landed in this crazy weather. Then off into the terminal we went.

My mom always shopped for tax free purchases of wonderful wool and cashmere sweaters at BIRK.  They'd refuel, I guess, or just pick up and leave off passengers.

One time we were supposed to land at Luxembourg and got over the airport only to be notified that the airport terminal was on fire.  We were instructed to fly to Brussels which we did.  When we got there it was so fogged in they couldn't or didn't want to land there . We were then told to go back to Luxembourg and land there anyway, which we did.  Then we took the train to Brussels.  Horrendous exhaustion from that long travel.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I also remember my first flight on a GA aircraft.  Back in the summer of '79 I went with a friend to Napa Airport in the late evening, just to look at the parked aircraft on the tarmac.  Lo and Behold a fellow high school graduate who had a pilot's license asked if we wanted to go up with him.  Of course! 

He took us on a circuit west towards the fogged in coast, then south to San Francisco.  I remember looking down on Pier 39 some distance below and the SF highrises.  It was moonlit night, perfect for night flying.  He had his radio tuned to KFRC, a band called Raydio was playing the song "You can't change that".  It was quite a thrill to be up there in his Cessna and he was a competent pilot though low in hours, very gentle touch on the controls.  He was the subject of a newspaper article due to his gaining his license in his teens, before he even got his driver's license.  Never spoke to him much in school but he knew me since I was the school's poet laureate and had written for the school newspaper, plus I was somewhat of a class clown, always teasing the teachers which made me somewhat popular.  I got away with it because I also got straight A's in advanced placement courses.

Back to the GA flight, Napa's tower shuts down at night and the runway lights are controlled by clicking on the comm channel.  Quite cool, landing our little Cessna on a 6000 foot runway after an hour's flight.

I've taken quite a few GA flights since then, and also took light sport lessons in a 2-place Allegro 2000, a bit smaller than a 152 but with a better glide ratio and performance.  But nothing compares to that nighttime GA flight over the Bay Area with my two high school comrades.

John