Your first flight...

[birdguy 3,943]

I barely recall my first flight.   It was the summer of 1939.  We were staying at my father's family farm in Michigan.  I was five and a half years old.  I have vague recollections of it but mostly rely on what my mom told me.

A barnstormer came to town (Elberta Michigan) in a three engine airplane so I assume it was a For Trimotor.  He was giving rides.  I recall the wicker seats and other people sitting in the plane.

But my first real encounter with an airplane came in 1946.  We were living in San Francisco and I was 12 years old.

Van Ness Avenue was auto row.  All the car dealers were located there.  It was just a few blocks from our house and after school my friends and I would go up and down the blocks looking at the new cars.

One afternoon one of the dealers had a brand new Luscombe Silvaire on the floor.  I went in and asked one of the salesmen if I could sit in it and he said yes.  I climbed into that simple cockpit and my imagination went wild.  It had a stick as opposed to a yoke and I flew to all the exotic places in the world.

I became a fixture there every day after school.  I was getting transfused with aviation.

Then one day it was gone.  I walked in and the disappointment on my face must have shown because one of the salesmen came over and comforted me and gave me a bottle of Coke.

But I was hooked.  One day I would fly!

Fast forward to 1958.  I was a young discharged Marine home from Korea.  I was living with my parents in a house on hill across the bay from San Francisco in Mill Valley.  I had a job as a file clerk for the Southern Pacific Railroad.  And every morning on my way to work on the bus we would pass Commodore Center in Sausalito.  And there on the dock were a couple of SeaBees and my beloved Luscombe on floats.

I was a veteran and eligible for the GI-Bill.  I used it to begin my flying lessons in my sweet Luscombe.  I soloed and became a pilot.

Even today I have Bill Lyons Luscombe on floats parked at the dock on Orbx's rendition of Commodore Center (22CA) on my FSX-SE installation.  And from time to time I reprise my cross country flights to Clear Lake or San Luis Reservoir cruising at 90 knots and reliving my youth.  

Like women our first love with an airplane is the one we will always remember and cherish.  From that first kiss in an automobile showroom when I was 12 to finally going all the way and soloing at 25. 

Memories!

Noel

 

[tamsini 278]

Noel, nice trip down memory lane! Curious - what aircraft have you flown? This coming from a wanna-be-but most-likely-never-be pilot.

[scianoir 610]

My first flight was in an Auster, when I was about 7 years old, from a small airfield called Coonagh about 8 miles east of Shannon Airport in the west of Ireland. The aircraft was flown by a great American character and pilot from Louisiana called Sam Pratt who was our next door neighbour and who worked as ground engineer with Seaboard and Western Airlines who had their European base at Shannon Airport. My main recollection of the flight was my surprise at how the ground moved more and more slowly as we climbed out - I guess my young mind expected to see it zooming by! I went on to take flying lessons at the same airfield (the runway was so short that they used to say if you can land at Coonagh you can land anywhere!) about 9 years later and subsequently got my PPL. A lifelong love of aircraft and aviation was born from that first flight.

Bill

[jhaley101 20]

First trip.   19 years old.   Wardair - Toronto to Montreal.    A310 - Beautiful.   Weather was awful in Montreal when we landed, but he brought the thing in without issue.    Had a trip to the cockpit on the return flight, when you were still allowed to go up.          

[birdguy 3,943]

Mario, I have flown and flown in several aircraft types.

Flown myself - Luscombe 8E on floats - Cessna 52 - Piper Cherokee 140, 180, Arrow - Mooney but don't recall the model - American Yankee - Piper Aztec - Citabria.

Half flown - When I was building time for my commercial my flight instructor had a buddy who was flying Convair 580s for Frontier Airlines at the time.  His buddy was going to take one out of the hangar after maintenance for a test flight and we were invited to go along.  I was invited to sit in the left front seat and do a bit of flying with the pilot in the right seat.  I was a bit nervous and my  instructor said, "It flies like any other airplane, just make the nose go where you want it to go and the rest will follow."  I flew it for a about 20 minutes including the approach into Denver's old Stapleton Airport.  As we crossed the threshold the pilot took over for the landing.

Passenger - DC-3, DC-6/7 - Boeing Stratocruiser - Constellation - B737 - B757 - DC-9 - DC-10 - Embraer 145.

Military passenger - C-119 - C-124 - C-130 and got back seat rides in an F-100F and a B-57 and a Huey helicopter.

Noel

[Mace 1,927]

On 1/28/2018 at 1:45 PM, birdguy said:

Mario, I have flown and flown in several aircraft types.

Flown myself - Luscombe 8E on floats - Cessna 52 - Piper Cherokee 140, 180, Arrow - Mooney but don't recall the model - American Yankee - Piper Aztec - Citabria.

Half flown - When I was building time for my commercial my flight instructor had a buddy who was flying Convair 580s for Frontier Airlines at the time.  His buddy was going to take one out of the hangar after maintenance for a test flight and we were invited to go along.  I was invited to sit in the left front seat and do a bit of flying with the pilot in the right seat.  I was a bit nervous and my  instructor said, "It flies like any other airplane, just make the nose go where you want it to go and the rest will follow."  I flew it for a about 20 minutes including the approach into Denver's old Stapleton Airport.  As we crossed the threshold the pilot took over for the landing.

Passenger - DC-3, DC-6/7 - Boeing Stratocruiser - Constellation - B737 - B757 - DC-9 - DC-10 - Embraer 145.

Military passenger - C-119 - C-124 - C-130 and got back seat rides in an F-100F and a B-57 and a Huey helicopter.

Noel

Wow!  You flew in a Strat, and a C-119!  And wasn't the C-124 the one they called "Old Shakey"?
Do you remember any details about the C-124 flight?

My first flight was on a TWA Boeing 727-(200?), St. Louis to Cancun, summer 1990.  I was 16 years old or so.  I miss TWA, we used to be able to fly a lot more places easily, than we can now.  Today it is all routed to Dallas or Chicago or Atlanta.

[scianoir 610]

My first flight in a commercial airliner was on an Aer Lingus 707 (EI-AMW) from Shannon to London (flight number EI.049). I can remember being impressed with the degree of flexion of the wings and even more impressed by the amount of movement of the engines on their pylons during turbulence! My second flight was in a BEA Viscount on the same route with some pretty bad weather on the approach to Heathrow. 

Bill

[DylanC 181]

I don't remember how old I was, but it was in the 70's so I was probably 6 or 7 years old.  Flew on a Pan AM 747 from JFK to POS.  I can never forget two things about that trip:  The old Pan AM Worldport or Terminal 3; as soon as you pulled up to it, you immediately felt like you were already on a vacation.  Outside had a meticulously manicured lawn with trees surrounding it and if my memory does not fail me, there some trees and/or shrubs inside in certain sections of the terminal.  I always remember running around and just absolutely fascinated with the chairs with little TV's attached to them.  And finally the aircraft.  For a kid whose father would always take him to a certain section in queens to watch aircraft land and particularly love watching 747's land.  To finally have the chance to fly on one himself, it was simply a wonderful feeling.  I didn't really understand how huge the aircraft was when we were at JFK, but when we landed in POS, we deplaned via stairs.  I remember my Mother dragging me from the stairs all the way to the terminal because I refused to turn around away from looking at the 747.  Simply fascinated by the sheer size and that something that big could fly.  Some years later (1988), I flew back to Port Of Spain on another Pan Am 747 by myself and must of been the luckiest son of a gun because I was the victim of a seat dupe.  Ended up being upgraded to business class on the upper level.  I will never forget that experience.  

[n4gix 4,947]

Ah, my very first flight would have been in 1954 (I was 5 years old). My mom and I took a cross-country trip on a Super-Connie! Man, was that thing loud. I got to sit next to the window and I swear I must have had my nose pressed against the window for most of the flight.

I don't recall all of the full stops, but as best as my poor memory can do we left Miami and stopped over in Atlanta, Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Phoenix finally arriving in Sacramento many, many hours later.

When they started up the starboard #3 engine, flames and smoke came shooting out the short exhaust stacks. How exciting! My poor mom got scared (she'd only flown once before on an old DC-2) when I pointed to the "fires"...

We returned to Miami several weeks later on another Super Connie. Those were the only two times I ever got to experience having my in-flight meals served on china, with real silverware and cloth napkins. Sadly, I never had a chance to fly on another Connie.

My next flight was trans-Atlantic on a fairly new PAA B707 in 1962. By then meal service was served on plastic plates, paper napkins, etc.

[birdguy 3,943]

Yeah, Rhett, it was called the Old Shakey.  It was loud.  And those were the days when we didn't wear ear protection and why I suffer a hearing loss today.  That and working around B-57s and F-105s on the flight line amid all that jet noise.

When I lived in  Ogden Utah I would fly from Hinkley Field to Salt Lake City from time to time giving friends rides.  We'd park on the east side of the airport at Key Aviation for a snack before heading back.  That was also the Utah Air National Guard side of the airport too and at the time they were flying Old Shakeys.

On one trip we were heading back and one of them followed my tiny Cherokee as I taxied out to the runway.  I didn't notice it until I turned onto the runway and saw it had been right behind me.

We called it the flying apartment house.

I flew on a couple of Strats.  One was an Air Force Stratofreighter fro Hickam AFB in Honolulu to Travis AFB in Californa.  The other time was a military contract PanAm Strat from Travis to Japan with stops at Hickam and Wake Island.

The one and only time I flew in a C-119 (Flying Boxcar) was when I was stationed at Selfrige AFB in Michigan.  Our Officer in charge was a pilot and needed to get in his flying time for the month.  The only aircraft available for him was a C-119 and he invited some us to fly along with him.

Noel

 

 

[John_Cillis 2,406]

On ‎1‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 11:15 AM, birdguy said:

I barely recall my first flight.  

 

My first flight was on a Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) Lockheed Electra back in 1966 between Burbank and the SF Bay Area.  I remember being a five year old kid with my eyes glued to the window as we banked and turned our way over the LA metroplex over inland California and up the coast.  I felt so benevolent looking at the cars, trees and houses growing smaller before my very eyes as we climbed into the sky.  Much of my career was spent as a "sky warrior" flying every five to ten days somewhere across the US, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic to my clients stateside and worldwide.  Then my daughter was born in 1999, and I nixed the travel for desk jobs.

John

Edited February 1, 2018 by n4gix
Removed excessive quote. Please don't quote a "wall of text"!

[birdguy 3,943]

Yeah John, kids!

I was working toward my multi-engine rating in a Piper Aztec when my third daughter entered high-school.  I had three girls in high school at the same time.  Flying money just dried up even though the GI Bill paid for half of it..  I flew every now and then.  Mostly biennials just to keep my license legal.  It wasn't until all the kids left home that I was able to start again.

Noel