The Air Story Thread

[Expat Canuck]

I love stories and I love airplanes and I especially like stories about aircraft.

I would love some stories of funny events, close calls and or air combat if any of you would not mind sharing a few of them they do not have to be yours of course nor all military.

WABpilot I'm sure you have a few?

This is the entertain us thread!

Fire away.

[highsea]

Glyn should have some doozies for us...

Never flew mil AC, but have had a little fun once or twice.

Once was practicing departure stalls under the hood with a junior high student in the back seat. I forgot to slow down on entry and ended up doing a nice hammerhead instead of the stall. The poor kid wasn't impressed, but my instructor was.

Once decided to race a rain squall back to my home airstrip. Didn't want to pay for the extra time to let it pass before I landed. Dumb. The race was a tie, and just as the mains touched I lost all visibility. I tapped the brakes to slow down and found myself skidding sideways down the runway at 60kts. Straightened out and rolled out all the way to the other end of the strip before I could bring up the courage to turn onto the taxiway.

Once was on short final (about 50' agl) and a xwind kicked me over to the taxiway where a Grumman Widgeon was waiting at the hold line for me to land. It was an oh-sh!t moment where I stomped left rudder and hard left aileron to get back on line, the Widgeon pilot's eyes were somewhat saucer-like.

Then there was the time when the controller at Tacoma Narrows airport cleared me to land just as a Citabria was taking off. I was turning from the 45 to downwind when the controller notified me of the traffic, which by then was about 100 feet below me to my right and in a climbing turn directly at me. A quick evasive maneuver, and I dryly notified the tower that the traffic was not a factor.

[Blademaster]

Hairraising stories! When I make enough money, I am gonna learn to be a pilot and fly my own plane.

Highsea, can you give me a quick rundown figures on the operating and maintenance costs of owning a plane like a Beech Citanon or something like that. I often wonder how much a private jet with comfortable seats and enough luggage space and power to lift would cost. Also how much would fuel cost for a run from FLL to Aspen.

[highsea]

^^^ Don't know about your fuel burn, but you can expect to pay ~2 to 2.5 mil for a nice used Citation or King Air and about $300,000/yr for maintenance and operating costs under average use, and a direct operating cost of ~$700/hr.

[Blademaster]

Hmmm so you are better off flying first class or chartering a private jet for a couple hours?

I often wonder why the big airlines have not gone down the path of buying lots of private jets and outfitted them with luxury seatings and goods and offer the services and conveniences of private jetting at first class prices where the consumers do not have to pay for acquisition costs and operating costs themselves. I bet a lot of companies would go for that since it would save a lot of money and not to mention taxes.

[highsea]

memorable quotes from my instructor when I was learning to fly-

"That was an excellent recovery, but your passengers probably don't want to hear their pilot yell 'oh sh!t', just as the plane is about to touch down."

"I didn't know you could do that in a 172"

"The centerline is over there"

[Expat Canuck]

lol Thanks High Sea!

"I didn't know you could do that in a 172"


What DID you do?


When I was in Air Cadets as a kid we did a lot of screwing around. I suppose that's what you get when the 19 year old pilot just left cadets a year earlier and hit 16 - 17 year old buddies are in there. I got a large lump on my head when some oil cans in the back floated unnoticed across the top of the cabin. They came down really hard when we pulled up from that dive from 8000 ft.

Man I loved flying, can't wait to get my license.

The best air story is in this board somewhere about the young man who had to pull a door shut and was tied up because everyone thought he was going to bail out. I laughed my ass off.

[Jimmy]

I heard a story about a C-130 or something that had a student pilot. As they're on final and cleared for landing, he alerts the crew in the back by telling them "Crew we're going down." A few seconds later his instructor chimes in "We're actually cleared to LAND."

Sadly I havent seen enough funny stuff besides random ceiling panels falling onto peoples' heads and things of that nature.

[gunnut]

Not me or anyone I know. But I thought this is kinda related.

LiveLeak.com - C-130 Marshalling Dance in Iraq

[wabpilot]

Worst flight I ever had was one where I was giving an IFR phase check to a student. Not my student BTW. His instructor came to me and clued me in that the student was having a tough time with partial panel work, but was refusing to acknowledge his problem. Thus, he was not progressing at all.

The pre-flight was all well and good. In the TF-9F, the instrument student flies from in back with curtins all around. Those make it impossible to peek out. Because the student is in back and all curtined in, the instructor has to taxi, takeoff and land. Although in theory with a GCA the student should be able to at least land the aircraft safely. In theory at least.

I taxied out, took off and handed the aircraft over to the student. I told him to climb to FL200, while maintaining a constant 250 knots indicated below 10,000 feet. He did that well. Right on 250 KIAS. As he passed through 10,000, I amended his instructions and told him to level off at 14,000 on a heading of 200 degrees. He did that perfectly. I was beginning to wonder about my fellow instructor. I had him do some precision turns. Each turn was well done. Then I gave him a couple of climbing turns and descending turns. It all looked good. He was definitely on track to pass the phase check.

The final task was partial panel. The TF-9F had an electric attitude indicator in back that could be disabled from the front without disabling the front attitude indicator. And, the TF-9F did not have a warning light in back, just a little flag on the indicator. I turned off the AI. Then things got wild!

The student proceeded to follow the AI as it wound down. Periodically he would realize his other instruments were not in agreement, including the battery powered AI. (To be fair, the battery powered AI was a little gauge about half the size of the main AI.) Thus, he would try to recover leading to some very interesting unusual attitudes. Unusual attitudes that Mr. Grumman never envisioned for his little trainer jet, or any other airplane known to man. We rocketed from 10,000 to 20,000, rolled inverted, almost stalled, then did a snap roll. Finally, I took over the plane and told the student to take down the curtins and look out. We were inverted, at almost minimum controllable airspeed in a climb. A lot of silence from the back seat, and then an "oh sierra" from the student.

I got the nose down and rolled us back to the upright. And then, I flew us home. I had no intention of letting that student touch the stick with me in the plane again.

The student finally realized that he was not passing the partial panel phase, and he shaped up. I gave him another phase check and he did partial panel just fine. So, all's well that ends well. We never did get that TF-9F back from the NARF though.

[wabpilot]

Originally Posted by Blademaster

Hmmm so you are better off flying first class or chartering a private jet for a couple hours?

I often wonder why the big airlines have not gone down the path of buying lots of private jets and outfitted them with luxury seatings and goods and offer the services and conveniences of private jetting at first class prices where the consumers do not have to pay for acquisition costs and operating costs themselves. I bet a lot of companies would go for that since it would save a lot of money and not to mention taxes.

A guy named Warren Buffet owns a company, Executive Jet Aviation, that does something like that. It's strictly a charter operation though, Warren owns the planes. He also has a company called NetJets where you can buy a part of a jet yet have access to dozens of similar jets for your transportation needs. It's more expensive than charter, but offers some tax benefits for the corporation that doesn't need a whole jet. I've also seen NetJets used to fill in for corporate flight departments when they are just too busy to handle the traffic, but not so busy as to justify another plane.

The big business jet manufactureres own their own fractional operations as well. Cessna calls theirs Citation Shares, Bombardier calls theirs FlexJet, Beech/Hawker owned Flight Options for a while, but sold it this year. Lufthansa has a pair of all first class configured Boeings that they fly from Frankfurt to Newark on a daily basis. You can buy seat rights from LHA, not really ownership. Piedmont has a couple of Boeing 757s in all excutive configuration that fly some dedicated charter routes that are not really open to the general public. Their 75 used to call at our hangar. It's a nice plane. Not as nice as the Citation X I flew, but for it's cheaper to buy a couple of seats on Piedmont's 75 than buy another Citation for a dedicated route.

[Gun Grape]

2 that I got off another board. Don't know if they are true or sea stories.

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: "Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway."

Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven." The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"

Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."

Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"

Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, and I didn't land."

A Pan Am 727 flight, waiting for start clearance in Munich, overheard the following:
Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war!"

[Jimmy]

Oh man, both of those are AWESOME!

[Expat Canuck]

I've read that first one before, I'm sure it must be true.

Love it.

[wabpilot]

I was waiting to takeoff in a long line of airliners and a few GA prop types at Indianapolis. The tower controller was giving the usual caution wake turbulence warning to eveyone who departed behind an airliner. From the opposite side of the runway taxied out a C-5A. He called the tower ready to depart in sequence. Indy tower cleared one of our DC-9s for takeoff and then cleared the C-5 in to position hold. After the requisite two minutes, tower said to the C-5: "Air Force ----- cleared to takeoff, caution wake turbulence."

The C-5's reply was historic, "Indy tower, we cause wake turbulence, we do not encounter it."