Looking down on where you came from.

[SurferLucas]

Today I’m DH’ing from CVG to TPA before flying home, and our flight when right over my hometown. For 18 years, this place was my entire world. I spent so many days looking up at planes, wondering if I was ever going to get to there myself.

Now, looking down from 39,000ft, it makes all the trials and tribulations worth it. JetCareers was a huge part of making it happen.

Anyone else have that same moment?

 

[Soul Brotha']

Doing the RNAV/Expressway 31 in LGA I can see the apartment window of the building I lived in.
Landing 22 in LGA I see my apartment in the Bronx.
Landing 22 at JFK I can see my High School.

 

[Fixtur]

Been a while since I've flown on the west coast, but the first time I went over my hometown on the Legos arrival was pretty cool.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Oh sure, I've spent plenty of time in the hometown sky in an airliner. Nice thing about seeing an EMB-120 while a student, at San Luis, or Oxnard, and going "yeah, that would actually be really cool." It was.

I've taken every airliner I'm typed in into and out of LAX, so that's pretty cool. And all the jets save the current one into and out of ORD...I actually have a green slip request in to fly a charter through O'Hare this weekend, not that I'll get it or that they'll need to resort to a GS to cover it, but "wouldn't that be cool," too?

 

[trafficinsight]

Each time I've done the tecky departure from SJC headed to points north or Hawaii we made a nice lazy circle over KRHV, which is where I spent my whole career until I joined the airlines.

 

[CFIT99]

ORD 4R ILS, NAPER is the FAF and right over my parents house...granted they use that runway 3 days a year.

got my private at 1C5, small airport in bolingbrook, Illinois...about 30 miles SSW of ORD.

EDIT: I used to turn on the lights every time I flew over it....cause why not, want to fight about it

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Each time I've done the tecky departure from SJC headed to points north or Hawaii we made a nice lazy circle over KRHV, which is where I spent my whole career until I joined the airlines.

I think I've gotten to do some pretty cool stuff overall, but I must say that working with you, there, remains a very glad distinction.

 

[Old Pete]

I’ve had a couple of those moments. The day I flew ORD-ATL. I remember in the early’70s, mom would drop off dad at O’hare, in the Oldsmobile, and dad would go places, to “call on customers” he would always bring something back, a memento, nothing expensive, but it was something special. And to think I Captained an airliner between two of the busiest airports in the world would blow his mind.
Second, when I flew to Havana. Dad was in was in the air national guard when he was called up for the Cuban Missile crisis, and If I could tell him now that I flew to Havana and back and wasn’t shot at, he would be amazed

 

[Old Pete]

Today I’m DH’ing from CVG to TPA before flying home, and our flight when right over my hometown. For 18 years, this place was my entire world. I spent so many days looking up at planes, wondering if I was ever going to get to there myself.

Now, looking down from 39,000ft, it makes all the trials and tribulations worth it. JetCareers was a huge part of making it happen.

Anyone else have that same moment? View attachment 74276

Today I’m DH’ing from CVG to TPA before flying home, and our flight when right over my hometown. For 18 years, this place was my entire world. I spent so many days looking up at planes, wondering if I was ever going to get to there myself.

Now, looking down from 39,000ft, it makes all the trials and tribulations worth it. JetCareers was a huge part of making it happen.

Anyone else have that same moment? View attachment 74276

Is that Cherokee county, if it is, the perspective from 39000ft sure does flatten out the terrain

 

[trafficinsight]

I think I've gotten to do some pretty cool stuff overall, but I must say that working with you, there, remains a very glad distinction.

I spent evenings crying in the parking lot so you didn't have to!

Seriously though, our IS-BAO stage III certificate still hangs on my I love me wall.

 

[MikeD]

The thread title gives the impression of having a negative outlook/opinion on where you came from.

 

[zmiller4]

30 years ago when I was 13 I took my first flight in a “small plane”—a 206 (or 207?) from Maya Air from Caye Caulker’s 2500’ gravel strip to Belize City, and the pilot let me sit in the right seat. That’s probably when I first really thought about being a pilot, as it seemed way more achievable/less intimidating than looking into a 727 cockpit. (That trip we also took a clapped out TACA 737-200 to San Salvador and San Jose in a tropical storm, which also made me afraid of flying in storms for a while).

This weekend I took my son to Belize for his 10th birthday, and we ended up taking a Maya Caravan from a caye back to BZE, and the pilot let him sit up front. Kid was thrilled, feelings ensued.

 

[SurferLucas]

Is that Cherokee county, if it is, the perspective from 39000ft sure does flatten out the terrain

Close, about 50 miles east at KAJR, Habersham County

 

[SteveC]

I got seriously hooked on the idea of becoming a pilot back in, I think, the early nineties. I was in my early 30's, doing sales engineering work at the time (if I remember correctly), and got to ride along in a customer's King Air coming from their factory in Iowa back to our offices in Michigan, with some of their personnel. Night time, coming past the greater Chicago area, all lit up, and I was sitting in the right seat with a headset on. Absolutely gorgeous view, and I was able to actually understand a good percentage of what I was hearing, and what the pilot was doing. That's when I realized that it was, maybe, something that I could do too...

 

[///AMG]

I fly over my hometown all the time now, but I always smile when we go down there for practice approaches with a student, and I check in with Cascade Approach.....my first

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

The thread title gives the impression of having a negative outlook/opinion on where you came from.

That was my first thought. I thought it would be about mainline guys who look down on regional pilots, forgetting they came from the same place years ago.

 

[MikeD]

That was my first thought. I thought it would be about mainline guys who look down on regional pilots, forgetting they came from the same place years ago.

I thought it was going to be something akin to “everyone I went to school with still works and lives in the crap town I escaped from. And now I glare at them from above”.

 

[jrh]

For me, it's a combination of where I literally grew up and looking back at past jobs.

I grew up and got my private pilot certificate in Iowa, so flying over Cedar Rapids always brings back memories. But all the FBOs have changed and I don't know anyone there anymore, so it's nothing more than memories now.

Whenever I fly over or into BOS, STL, or a few other airports served by Cape Air, I think back to my time there, over ten years ago now. I wonder what happened to some of the rampers and other ground crew I worked with. I have mixed feelings about those places because I had a great time working there and it was such a formative time for me professionally, but a lot of other things in my life at that point in time sucked and it was where I decided to turn my back on professional flying as a result.

Now, I'm flying bizjets out of the same airport I used to manage a flight school at 15 years ago. The flight school is busier than ever. They have a new building and different airplanes, but I still give them a wave whenever I taxi by and somebody looks at me from their 172. I spent a lot of time in their 172s looking over at bizjets coming and going, wondering if I'd ever get into one, and here I am. Made it.

 

[ASpilot2be]

I have had a couple moments like that lately.

The other day going from Anchorage to Chicago, we flew just south of my home town. Looked down and reminisced about simpler and happy times.

Then the other day on our way to Korea from Miami, we flew by Unalakleet and Emmonak. It was where I cut my teeth with my first flying job.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

On new hire OE I got to land a 747 in NRT in front of the observation deck where I caught the bug. Then on captain OE I got to land on the same runway I took my first intro flight on out in Yokota.