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... intrigued to hear stories ready Sully and whilst it sounds glamorous I'm sure it's not.
Or even if you're a normal pilot let's hear your best and worst.
Thanks in advance
I'm a fighter pilot, but to be honest its not what I expected when I signed up. We spend most of our time doing homoerotic shit on beaches....
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www.pprune.org
binners - MemberI'm a fighter pilot.....
Call sign "Crayola"
homoerotic shit on beaches
Do NOT Google this at work.
Flaperon on here is supposidly a pilot. After seeing him struggle with a Garmin GPS I'd hate to watch him conduct the pre-flight checks 😯
Isn't Danstw or something an airline pilot?
doing homoerotic shit on beaches
Are'nt airline pilots a bit like clever bus drivers?
I've flown on a commercial aeroplane, but not the pilot, he was up front steering the thing.
Are'nt airline pilots a bit like clever bus drivers?
Yeah, they can use apostrophes correctly and evryfink.
Call sign [s]"Crayola"[/s][b]"Steakbake"[/b]
FTFY
Friend of mine was a forward air controller in the army and got taken up in a fast jet so he could appreciate what it's like up there.
Was incredible. But he was sick, not so much a throwning up as the contents of his stomach were 2 feet above his actual stomach.
Meant the ejector seat needed replacing as they couldn't take chances with corrosion due to stomach acids.
Call sign "Crayola""Steakbake"
Top Bun?
A friend is a pilot, and he posted this the other day which made me chuckle.
Haha! This is awesome! Some spotter filmed my emotional landing at [---] last month... It was a student pilot flying the first approach, in really difficult crosswind conditions.
The flare was a little aggressive, and during the subsequent float we had a pretty major malfunction, which resulted in all kinds of bells and whistles going off in the flightdeck. As a result the flight control computers went wibble, and the aircraft reverted to an alternate control law, which is not something you really expect to see for real. So as we flew down the runway, waiting for the engines to spool up, we were working like one-armed paper hangers! I love how serene it looks from the spotter's viewpoint!
We subsequently declared an emergency, got in the way of most traffic into [-----], and landed on vapours about 20 minutes later.
And to round off a bad day, the hotel they put us up in didn't even have a bar!
A guy at work was in the military, they were flying somewhere in a big jet, whilst in the air the pilot was stupidly taking photos and sent the plane into a nose dive (i believe the co pilot was thrown about the cabin caught unawares), the plane would have crashed except for the 3 on board computers all agreeing a crash was inevitable - so they took control and saved the day. Upon landing all the military guys were ready to lynch the (military) pilot (who got sacked)!!! The whole group wouldn't get back on another jet, they had to send something with propellers to collect them, a psyc team to deal with the trauma risk management & a doc to sedate the few who just couldn't cope with getting back onto a plane (they had considered a land evac)
Cool story bro! And true by all accounts.
Coolest airplane story ever......
[url= http://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-1079127041 ]The ultimate ground speed check[/url]
I've been in a 2 seat Jaguar (one per squadron for evaluations) whilst somebody else flew it at low level over Germany, including diving run on the ranges. Things come up bloody fast (especially the ground when you're diving on a target)! The visibility was pretty poor too - I'd have thought twice about flying a Cessna in those conditions.
I've also been in a Hawk around Wales whilst the pilot (instructor) was being evaluated. I threw up but managed to get it in the sack.
Do NOT Google this at work.
the jury is now deliberating why you would have googled it at work reasoning dictates this may be why your warning others.
Qwerty...... That happened not so long ago on a RAF voyager. pilot wasnt taking photos but had his camera dangling off his seat and when the seat was motored it hit the controls and sent the plane into a nose dive. the co pilot actually broke his back.
They sent out a Tristar to pick them up.
According to a pal who is medium hall [s]coach driver[/s] pilot, it is half an hour of stress to make your take-off slot on time. Three hours of boredom. 2 mins of uber stress getting the can on the floor again.
Repeat ad infinitum.
What she does say is that the whole rest/flying hours per week thing means that the amount of time off is good.
Mrs GeeTee is a commercial pilot - has been flying since she was 14, PPL on her 18th.
A cool story:
She grew up on the island of Guernsey and her grandmother lived on Aldernay. After she got her PPL, while still doing her A-Levels, she would come home from school, pop down to the airport where she had a part lease on a small plane, fly over to see her grandmother and be back in time for tea and stickies. She used to do this as a way of getting her flying hours up.
A few years ago we went to visit her grandmother. The island is notorious for getting fogged in and while waiting to depart I got chatting to a guy in the aiport. I asked if he was on the same flight back to Guernsey as us and he very casually quipped he was heading back to Guernsey but he was doing so in his own plane.
He felt a little denuded when I told him how my wife used to do just the same thing when she was still at school.
What she does say is that the whole rest/flying hours per week thing means that the amount of time off is good.
Yeah it's also not what it used to be. They passed the EASA didn't they?
Flaperon on here is supposidly a pilot. After seeing him struggle with a Garmin GPS I'd hate to watch him conduct the pre-flight checks
Cheeky bastard. 🙂
Qwerty...... That happened not so long ago on a RAF voyager. pilot wasnt taking photos but had his camera dangling off his seat and when the seat was motored it hit the controls and sent the plane into a nose dive. the co pilot actually broke his back.They sent out a Tristar to pick them up.
YES - thats the one!!! A funny story to hear, but i think it had a lasting effect on him. He's a dead nice guy - no longer in the RAF.
[url= http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/soldiers-sue-mod-after-military-8634474 ]It was plummeting at a pace of 15,800ft a minute during the 27-second spell.[/url]
@lowey - that's G-LOC, we had fun playing with that and compensation strategies on the human centrifuge (yes, that's just what it sounds like) in the last year of my degree!
A friend of mine grew up in rural Michigan, where her parents' farm and those of their neighbours were so huge that they'd often fly from one farm to another. They all had little crop-dusters and light aircraft, and most farms had space for a landing strip, so it was often the easiest way to get around.
Think of what kids get up to on farms in the UK, driving tractors and quad bikes, and add aeroplanes, and you get a taste of some of the stories she has of her childhood. It was also apparently not uncommon for one farm to host a big barn party, lots of neighbouring families would fly in, park up, party into the night and then fly home absolutely hammered. She remembers her dad flying 5 of them home late one night from a Halloween party with one hand over one eye, because that was the only way he could stop himself seeing double. It sounds like a miracle they're all around to tell the tale!
Speaking of the Blackbird, the wife once over heard a radio request to descend to 78,000ft.
Where the heck do you descend to 78,000ft from?
To put it into context, she was at twenty something thousand ft.
I can vouch for Alderney being a sod to land at/take off from. One of my last flights out in a Trislander involved a horrible crosswind and a very steep bank around the tower after a very short takeoff. That was a short flight back to Southampton.
It is about helicopters in 'Nam but I urge you to read Chickenhawk. You'll love it. Some flying stories in that like...
Coolest airplane story ever......The ultimate ground speed check
Yeah, the Sled Driver stuff is pretty cool. Remember one when the plane basically broke up at something stupid like mach 2, really scary.
Isn't Danstw or something an airline pilot?
Not any important routes, that's for sure.
A other ace aviation tale here - http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/brian-coxraf-owe-me-a-new-ipad
Old man was something with Radar in the RAF and often flew lightnings with the chief instructor Brian Carroll. They had some "rocket ships" that they used to play about with on 92sqn in Germany. On one occasion they were exercising with some German and Italian 104's to pretend to be Mig25s (the 104 being the only thing they though fast enough to give some sort of accuracy) and some the Lightnings could outrun them in level flight, and this was the two seat variant.
Carroll reckoned that it would run out fuel before the speed max'd out.
I was in the air cadets at school and each summer camp the best NCO got to have a ride in a fast jet, so I was a proper brown nose for the whole week and got to fly in most of the recent jets. Always puked, a pilot told me once they will chuck it about until you do anyway so not much point trying to hold it in.
Hahah - Alderney, as mentioned above, has to be one of the best flying experiences you could have in the UK I reckon. My ex was an islander and I've spent more than a little time sat in that departures lounge waiting for fog to clear, but oh my, what a view as you come in over the Giffoine 🙂
I was taking a cadet flying when I briefly worked for the Navy. He puked right in my face. No warning. It went in my mouth.
One of my proudest moments in 20 years of flying was remaining calm and not totally freaking out.
To answer the OP, I've flown whizz-jets (Hawk) and now fly heavy jets, having flown a wide variety of aircraft of all shapes and sizes and performance.
Sully did a superb job and there are many that haven't had the opportunity of throwing an aircraft around at its limits to fall back on. I know those stick and rudder skills I acquired in the Mob saved my life on a couple of occasions.
With regards to being a bus driver, last night's 9 hour flight was anything but the boredom described above.
While we are on the subject, here's Destin with a really nice video graphically demonstrating why you "put your own mask on before helping others".
Fairly sobering!
Where the heck do you descend to 78,000ft from
Moreover why even bother to ask permission?!
I've been up with fast jet/trainee fast jet pilots when I was in the ATC.
Funny thing is I'm scared shitless of commercial jets yet I'd jump in a two seater etc without a thought.
As a young RAF pilot, it never worked as a chat-up strategy, as every lad from the base was a pilot on a night out!!
Lots of cool stories as a C130 pilot in the RAF - flying over the remains of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or Saddams summer palace at 250ft. I even managed to set Baghdad Airport on fire when my Defensive Flares auto-deployed in the landing flare!
Airline wise, much more standard flying. I try to have as few incidents as possible in order to keep my job. I had an airmiss with a large drone at Heathrow a few weeks ago.
Glamour? I go to some amazing places, staying in very nice hotels. The views into Male (Maldives) and San Fransisco are pretty special, as are flying over Greenland, seeing the Northern Lights and the Alps.
The best part of my job is taking my bike with me to most destinations - I regularly ride around Tokyo, San Fran, Rio, Bermuda, Boston and loads of other places.
The voyager incident was a bit "interesting".......from a professional point of view!
Mate of mine works at AirTanker who operate Voyager for the RAF - he was onboard at the time.
I was involved in some of the post incident analysis at work (work for one of the companies who are part of the AirTanker consortium.
Flight control laws saved that A/C........
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Had a chance to see Sully last night but we chose Allies, will try and see it on the big screen.
@geetee and @dan love those stories (not the drone one 😐 )
Never got close to solo but have done a quite a bit of gliding which I loved. Not sure I'd have the bottle to go solo now. Did some fun stuff with Air Cadets out Hamble in Chipmunks, to me a proper plane has propellors and takes off from a grass airfield. I'd be all over the £10k Sptfire flights if I won the lottery. Used to take turbo-prop commuter flights in and out of Jersey and Guernsey a lot when I was sailing.
Other people's stories ... heard many great ones from a sailing friend, Emirates pilot/trainer and ex RAF flying Vulcans. Not going to share here as I could imagine at least some where not consistent with approved procedures, spooking Russian warships at dawn in Med via low level overflights. His stories about getting into the original HK airport make you glad they built the new one 😯 I did a simulator session at LHR on a corporate jolly and we asked for HK and they just laughed as it would be a total waste of time and "crashing" the simulator was not pleasant.
Hahah - Alderney, as mentioned above, has to be one of the best flying experiences you could have in the UK I reckon. My ex was an islander and I've spent more than a little time sat in that departures lounge waiting for fog to clear, but oh my, what a view as you come in over the Giffoine
My first ever time there I had aspirations of taking a guitar with me and my wife laughed and said 'have you ever been on a small plane before?', as in 'where you going to put it?'
I scoffed that of course I had.
Well i thought I had but then even those small planes had central isles and a cabin crew. When the pilot opens the door for you and moves the seat forward so you can get in, you suddenly get a whole new perspective.
Sitting right behind the pilot as we came into Land at Aldernay was pretty awesome (almost as cool as taking off and landing in the glass nose cone of a Ilyushin Russian cargo plane.
Moreover why even bother to ask permission?!
Because somewhere in the world if fast jet jockey who is touching himself or herself in the knowldege that there are people like us cooing at their aushumness.
I've been in a Tristar as a passenger while it was circling about the North sea and tanking numerous Tornados doing exercises. I was sat in a window seat near the port wing. A pair of Tornados appeared and sat just off the wing, then one at a time they slipped behind for a drink of fuel, returned to the wing and then when done they left. The bit that was most amazing was when I waved to the pilot of one of the Tornados, and he (or she) waved back 8)
Also been on a Sentry AEW, I was working on radars t the time and spoke to the radar tech and he kindly lifted the floor hatch and took me down to see the Klystron. *'kin hell it was big, like a dustbin! Shortly after something techie went a bit wrong so the exercise (again over the norht sea) doing fight er control was cut short and back to RAF waddington we went a bit early. Pilot loved that as it meant he had enough fuel to practice some landings. Think I managed to sleep through about 7 touch and gos.
Nearest I've been in is the full blown Typhoon sim and chucked it about a bit.
I know pilots taking back-seat passengers like to prove the effect of negative-g on the contents of their stomachs.
Met a couple of SF Chinook drivers doing covert ops in the desert at night - literally looking out for buildings and pylons in NVGs - not much room for error.
What's ridiculous is that some commercial pilots get paid less than tube and train drivers and to complete their training can end up with 6-figure debt.
Closest I managed was when doing the Fighter Controller course at RNAS Yeovilton.
We got sent up in one of the FRADU Falcons, basically private jets that had performance close to that of the Sea Harriers we were learning to FC for. They were doing practise intercepts, so getting thrown around the sky under the direction of someone on a ship at sea.
Was somewhat concerning to see what you can do with one of them. Why the wings were not ripped of is beyond me.
I was very very sick, but it was worth it.
(I failed the course BTW, generally this was considered a good thing for all those involved in flying aircraft)
I've been up in my father in laws (retired BA 777) diamond for a go but that's it.
As an ATCO I can request a familiarisation flight in the jump seat but I've never had the time. Want to hold out for a long haul as my mate ended up in Cuba!
From a professional point of view I'd love to do it. I really want to hear what it sounds like from the other end.
Every year we have courses where pilots from virgin, BA etc come along and we talk through what works best. Had Ryanairs chief pilot in for one last year. Top bloke.
I frequently look on ads-b exchange, some interesting military flying above the UK on most days. Infact a USAF C5A Galaxy currently doing circuits above Bury St Edmunds at the mo.
I've sat upstairs on bus on my own before. Does that count?
ATC stories are probably scarier...
The Queen was kind enough to pay me to play in fast jets for a few years....so very kind of her.
Some really great perspectives on here:
[url= http://www.fastjetperformance.com ]Fast Jets[/url]
Looking at the vids on there, it stuck me how [i]busy[/i] flying a fast jet is. Not much chance to savour the freedom and chuck it about for fun....
Also reminds me of my tourist heli flight down Grand Canyon. Pilot was busy on the radio pretty much all the time, making sure that post 911 air traffic controllers didn't scramble the F16s from Nellis to keep us away from Vegas strip or the Hoover Dam....
Coolest pilot. Ever.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Dickinson
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Not even close...
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Teen2 is hoping to have his PPL before his A Levels. Would like to fly commercially. Brother in law is a helicopter pilot. My eyesight meant I'd never get a CPL. So it's vicarious living if he doesn't bankrupt me first!!!
Nah, coolest pilot ever? The late Bob Hoover.....
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V9pvG_ZSnCc
I've gotta say, that was very cool. 🙂
The Queen was kind enough to pay me to play in fast jets for a few years....so very kind of her.
Indeed it was, so repay her subjects via a tale or two ?
I used to know Kevin Whyman through work, he invited me to go up in the Gnat but we never got it organised. He was killed in an air display crash at CarFest in Cheshire a few years ago.
My old boss managed to drop a bomb from a harrier whilst he was fixing its radio. The front of the bomb clunked into the hanger floor and the back bit was still attached to the plane. He then got on the radio to ask the ATC to get the bomb people to come and help him out.
One Phantom pilot I know managed to end up in the Atlantic as oppsoed to the Chanel as his navigator had his map the wrong way round.
Two ex A-10/Corsair II pilots I know enjoyed getting shot at over Vietnam.
One F-18 pilot I know, loved the job so much that when he retired he divorced his wife and moved to the middle east to carry on flying fast jets as an instructor. 😀
Although I have heard that flying CAP over the North Sea is boring as hell - but as a rule, if a pilot tells you that he hates his job - he's either A) Lying B) Done 30 years or more flying airliners and never once used his job for coke and hookers without the wife knowing.
Whats not to like about the job? 😀
This thread reminds me of an old joke which can easily be modified...
How do you know you're discussing stuff on tinternet with a fighter pilot?
He'll tell you.
Was this you?I had an airmiss with a large drone at Heathrow a few weeks ago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38264696
Drones at 11,000 ft! I see that was claimed as a record in March, but I'm shocked a commercial drone can go that high.
No, mine was about 3 weeks ago - very similar incident, but the drone was bigger.
Dantsw13. If you were flying hercs around 05-08 and came through Akrotiri it was probably me fitting the flares to it !!
I remember going out for a jolly on an sf herc in Iraq. The thing was so low that the pilot had to pull up and climb to clear the airfield perimeter fence.
Also flown in a sf Chinook into Basra palace to pick someone up. Was pretty daunting to be honest.
Left in 06, so probably met!!
seadog101 - Member
Closest I managed was when doing the Fighter Controller course at RNAS Yeovilton.
We got sent up in one of the FRADU Falcons, basically private jets that had performance close to that of the Sea Harriers we were learning to FC for. They were doing practise intercepts, so getting thrown around the sky under the direction of someone on a ship at sea.
Was somewhat concerning to see what you can do with one of them. Why the wings were not ripped of is beyond me.
I was very very sick, but it was worth it.
(I failed the course BTW, generally this was considered a good thing for all those involved in flying aircraft)
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I used to maintain those Falcons. Dassault F20, heavily modified for the E/W role.
Believe me - I'm amazed those things still have wings! I remember my first flight in one - then working out why they came back bent.......
A
I know it's not a jet, but even so, you've gotta admit it's quite impressive!