Your Best Moments
- Thread starter bc2209
- Start date
Tommay85
Well-Known Member
-First solo for sure. It was in a cherokee 140 and my instructor weighed 280 pounds. I weighed 125 pounds soaking wet. It was noticable... 
-First day at the survey job in Daytona beach. WAY outside the UND bubble and was told "Go to Pittsburgh. I would like you in the air in an hour"
-First day at Flight Express. Going from STP-OMA in a blizzard. Thankfully, TKS works GREAT!
-First solo in the 99 and Metro
-First time going into St. Maarten and St. Lucia.
-Pretty much every time I go into St. Lucia is memorable. Nasty winds, terrain surrounding a narrowish/shortish runway, and a very aft C.G. makes it interesting every time.
-First day at the survey job in Daytona beach. WAY outside the UND bubble and was told "Go to Pittsburgh. I would like you in the air in an hour"
-First day at Flight Express. Going from STP-OMA in a blizzard. Thankfully, TKS works GREAT!
-First solo in the 99 and Metro
-First time going into St. Maarten and St. Lucia.
-Pretty much every time I go into St. Lucia is memorable. Nasty winds, terrain surrounding a narrowish/shortish runway, and a very aft C.G. makes it interesting every time.
First Lear captain upgrade flight at Airnet. It's where they stick you in the left seat after you bid a captain run and fly you with a check airman and see if you can cut it. 35kt crosswind, freezing rain, approach to 300 and 3/4 into SYR.
Harbor Visuals into BFI at sunset lately. Rounding the bend around Alki and seeing the space needle and city then lining up on final with Rainier in the background. Never seen anything as spectacular and finally in my career it means I'm home.
1/1 Descent into ATL at 3am in the Lear.
2 or 3 others that I'll save for over beers or scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch.
Harbor Visuals into BFI at sunset lately. Rounding the bend around Alki and seeing the space needle and city then lining up on final with Rainier in the background. Never seen anything as spectacular and finally in my career it means I'm home.
1/1 Descent into ATL at 3am in the Lear.
2 or 3 others that I'll save for over beers or scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch.
Tommay85
Well-Known Member
That is VERY nice. Distractingly nice actually.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
Like Mike, some of mine are better told in private.
But certainly first solo. Weird that I can't really remember much about the airplane or the day, but I certainly remember the feeling of "holy f'ing poop, I'm up here by my lonesome". Hard to describe, but I'm sure it's very much the same for all of us. I could also pick my primary instructor out of a lineup of short pudgy Italianish dudes with 100% accuracy, even 20 years later, although I think he left shortly after my solo.
In no particular order:
Flying back from my commercial ride down at KBWG. Got as high as the poor Gutless could manage. Perfect night, no moon, solid undercast, seemed like you could see the entire Milky Way.
CFI Oral is burned in to my unconscious. I will be an effing expert on "center of lift" for the rest of time. Once bitten, you know.
Couple of "oh, so this is what the inside of a thunderstorm looks like" moments from freight. Apparently if the dirt of decades is coming off the floor and hovering around you, you've now "got the patch". I only learned this later!
Some incredibly fun times with fellow pilots at FLX. You (or I, anyway) don't realize how much fun you're all having until it's 10 years later and you've got to go to Work, and you kind of don't want to.
Landing in a tropical storm at KPNS. Taxied in all proud of myself and the DHL guys refused to come out and unload the airplane because "it's crazy out there".
A certain night in KPBI with my F/O and another crew, which probably should be erased from my memory, in case it becomes downloadable in the future.
Coaxing the poor Bitchjet up to "Four-Five-Oh, dude!" to get over a line that stretched from Ohio to Louisiana. The lightning strikes were constant. It looked like a freaking rave, or maybe a constant barrage of cluster-bombs. Very much a "oh, Little Man, you think you Know Something?" moment.
Doing the dreaded single-engine approach in to KTUL during my MU-2 training. Got a little low and slow (purely due to being insufficiently wary and skilled, no fault of the airplane) and the unbelievably salty old badass in the other seat who ate nails for breakfast was like "Ok, maybe I should..." "No, I got this". And I did. That may be the proudest moment. Although I doubt I could do it again.
Flying up the Outer Banks of NC with a high school friend back in the mists of time. Literally running from the ramp to the ocean (all of maybe 300 yards) and camping on the terrestrial-vehicle-prohibited beach all by ourselves (and in contravention to Park Service Policy, I think). Waking up, looking down the beach and seeing not another footprint, let alone a human being as far as the eye could see, with the tide way out and thunderstorms on the horizon.
Landing the Mitsi in Nowhere, Nebraska in the dark winter to pick some electrical conduits. Hit reverse..."WHOMPH"...can't see a damned thing, snow everywhere. The semi showed up like a ship out of the fog 30 minutes later. I don't think I said three words to the driver, nor him to me, and I'm pretty sure we were the only breathing human beings for 30 miles around.
Once again, obviously the first student solo. Far more nervous than I ever was when it was my dumb ass in the seat.
My first (and hopefully only) experience with tailplane icing leading to an incipient tailplane stall.
The first time I flew a jet in to Aspen at mins as PIC. Another one of those "Wow, I did that, I'm awesome!" moments where...nobody else is even marginally impressed. "So, are you guys going to take some fuel, or what? There's a good game on".
I could go on. And on. You get the idea.
For all of its faults, this crap doesn't lack for Memorable Moments, does it?
But certainly first solo. Weird that I can't really remember much about the airplane or the day, but I certainly remember the feeling of "holy f'ing poop, I'm up here by my lonesome". Hard to describe, but I'm sure it's very much the same for all of us. I could also pick my primary instructor out of a lineup of short pudgy Italianish dudes with 100% accuracy, even 20 years later, although I think he left shortly after my solo.
In no particular order:
Flying back from my commercial ride down at KBWG. Got as high as the poor Gutless could manage. Perfect night, no moon, solid undercast, seemed like you could see the entire Milky Way.
CFI Oral is burned in to my unconscious. I will be an effing expert on "center of lift" for the rest of time. Once bitten, you know.
Couple of "oh, so this is what the inside of a thunderstorm looks like" moments from freight. Apparently if the dirt of decades is coming off the floor and hovering around you, you've now "got the patch". I only learned this later!
Some incredibly fun times with fellow pilots at FLX. You (or I, anyway) don't realize how much fun you're all having until it's 10 years later and you've got to go to Work, and you kind of don't want to.
Landing in a tropical storm at KPNS. Taxied in all proud of myself and the DHL guys refused to come out and unload the airplane because "it's crazy out there".
A certain night in KPBI with my F/O and another crew, which probably should be erased from my memory, in case it becomes downloadable in the future.
Coaxing the poor Bitchjet up to "Four-Five-Oh, dude!" to get over a line that stretched from Ohio to Louisiana. The lightning strikes were constant. It looked like a freaking rave, or maybe a constant barrage of cluster-bombs. Very much a "oh, Little Man, you think you Know Something?" moment.
Doing the dreaded single-engine approach in to KTUL during my MU-2 training. Got a little low and slow (purely due to being insufficiently wary and skilled, no fault of the airplane) and the unbelievably salty old badass in the other seat who ate nails for breakfast was like "Ok, maybe I should..." "No, I got this". And I did. That may be the proudest moment. Although I doubt I could do it again.
Flying up the Outer Banks of NC with a high school friend back in the mists of time. Literally running from the ramp to the ocean (all of maybe 300 yards) and camping on the terrestrial-vehicle-prohibited beach all by ourselves (and in contravention to Park Service Policy, I think). Waking up, looking down the beach and seeing not another footprint, let alone a human being as far as the eye could see, with the tide way out and thunderstorms on the horizon.
Landing the Mitsi in Nowhere, Nebraska in the dark winter to pick some electrical conduits. Hit reverse..."WHOMPH"...can't see a damned thing, snow everywhere. The semi showed up like a ship out of the fog 30 minutes later. I don't think I said three words to the driver, nor him to me, and I'm pretty sure we were the only breathing human beings for 30 miles around.
Once again, obviously the first student solo. Far more nervous than I ever was when it was my dumb ass in the seat.
My first (and hopefully only) experience with tailplane icing leading to an incipient tailplane stall.
The first time I flew a jet in to Aspen at mins as PIC. Another one of those "Wow, I did that, I'm awesome!" moments where...nobody else is even marginally impressed. "So, are you guys going to take some fuel, or what? There's a good game on".
I could go on. And on. You get the idea.
For all of its faults, this crap doesn't lack for Memorable Moments, does it?
chrisreedrules
Master Blaster
*My first solo at FHB. Scenic little uncontrolled airport by the ocean. I was doing laps in the pattern while my instructor stood in the grass talking on his phone.
*My long solo Cxc. It was the first time I started to feel like a "real pilot". I'll never forget the feeling of absolute joy I used to get when I first started flying by myself.
*My long commercial Cxc to AVL. I remember thinking, "Wow! These mountains are pretty big". I laugh at that now having flown in the mountains of the northeast, the Rockies, and other moutains out west.
*My CFI initial... The DPE was a real character and I endured his old Vietnam/Desert Storm war stories for a couple hours, watched him do jumping jacks, and tell inappropriate jokes. Did the flight portion in an MAC-145A Complex tailwheel (fun airplane if you ever get the chance to fly one). Tower gave me the wrong runway to take off from and then later called up the flight school to complain. Well my DPE got on the horn with them and pretty much told them off. Oh we also had a gear extension failure. He was over being in that airplane at that point.
*I'll include this story because it was during my first 50 hours of dual-given as a fresh instructor. Definitely still learning as I went at this point... I had a student I was teaching stalls to. He hated them and got all nervous and clammy every time. We were in a PA-28 by the way... So I demonstrate one for him and give him the controls. Well he goes to do his power on stall. He added full power, got a little uncoordinated, and when I instructed him to go ahead and lower the nose, recover, and try again... He went ahead and just pulled full back on the yoke and over we went into a spin. I took the controls and recovered us and when it was all over he says, "so that's a stall huh?" ...I could of died from laughing so hard.
*My long solo Cxc. It was the first time I started to feel like a "real pilot". I'll never forget the feeling of absolute joy I used to get when I first started flying by myself.
*My long commercial Cxc to AVL. I remember thinking, "Wow! These mountains are pretty big". I laugh at that now having flown in the mountains of the northeast, the Rockies, and other moutains out west.
*My CFI initial... The DPE was a real character and I endured his old Vietnam/Desert Storm war stories for a couple hours, watched him do jumping jacks, and tell inappropriate jokes. Did the flight portion in an MAC-145A Complex tailwheel (fun airplane if you ever get the chance to fly one). Tower gave me the wrong runway to take off from and then later called up the flight school to complain. Well my DPE got on the horn with them and pretty much told them off. Oh we also had a gear extension failure. He was over being in that airplane at that point.
*I'll include this story because it was during my first 50 hours of dual-given as a fresh instructor. Definitely still learning as I went at this point... I had a student I was teaching stalls to. He hated them and got all nervous and clammy every time. We were in a PA-28 by the way... So I demonstrate one for him and give him the controls. Well he goes to do his power on stall. He added full power, got a little uncoordinated, and when I instructed him to go ahead and lower the nose, recover, and try again... He went ahead and just pulled full back on the yoke and over we went into a spin. I took the controls and recovered us and when it was all over he says, "so that's a stall huh?" ...I could of died from laughing so hard.
Soul Brotha'
Off to go do Black guy stuff
First flight ever(Out of Republic in Farmingdale, on LI)
First solo
First time I let a student solo
First 121 flight(CVG-ORD), thunderstorms, holding and MX issue on my IOE ride
First landing into St. Marten
First time meeting @Derg in JFK and forgetting to mention my real name(No crap I introduced myself as Soul Brotha' from JC).
First solo
First time I let a student solo
First 121 flight(CVG-ORD), thunderstorms, holding and MX issue on my IOE ride
First landing into St. Marten
First time meeting @Derg in JFK and forgetting to mention my real name(No crap I introduced myself as Soul Brotha' from JC).
CirrusMonkey
No Real Usefulness
First time flying the river visual to 19 into DCA.
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
First solo (duh)
Watching a line of thunderstorms that stretched from probably Arkansas to Houston light up at night.
Flying into dauphin island, Alabama with some commercial students in the twinstar and having a local cop give us a ride to a joint that served up a mean shrimp po'boy.
Another cross country that took us into the heart of mississippi to meet a students family, where we ate crawfish boil and gumbo, drank mint tea, and shot 22s at pop cans in his back yard. We then hopped to another airport for fuel, where we met a crazy old coot who claimed that was the airport Britney Spears flew into when she went home to whatever trailer park her family still lived in, that she knew him by first name, and that he'd never liked "that Kevin feline guy".
Teaching a student turns around a pod of whales in Alaska.
Popping a tank in a Cherokee in a snow shower on my first day off of IOE.
A two hour glacier bay tour where we saw beautiful views of the Fairweathers, glaciers calving, whales, and mountain goats...and not a penny in tips from the passengers.
Not a good one, but one that sticks with me is waiting out back of the office watching the rain and waiting to hear from our overdue plane.
Flying 3100 lbs of halibut in the caravan.
Coming off the mendenhall glacier in the Navajo, power down to 25", flaps 25, gear down, 150 knots and 2000+ fpm to make 1000' by the tower and nailing it.
Many more that are either incriminating or that I don't want to take the time to type right now.
Watching a line of thunderstorms that stretched from probably Arkansas to Houston light up at night.
Flying into dauphin island, Alabama with some commercial students in the twinstar and having a local cop give us a ride to a joint that served up a mean shrimp po'boy.
Another cross country that took us into the heart of mississippi to meet a students family, where we ate crawfish boil and gumbo, drank mint tea, and shot 22s at pop cans in his back yard. We then hopped to another airport for fuel, where we met a crazy old coot who claimed that was the airport Britney Spears flew into when she went home to whatever trailer park her family still lived in, that she knew him by first name, and that he'd never liked "that Kevin feline guy".
Teaching a student turns around a pod of whales in Alaska.
Popping a tank in a Cherokee in a snow shower on my first day off of IOE.
A two hour glacier bay tour where we saw beautiful views of the Fairweathers, glaciers calving, whales, and mountain goats...and not a penny in tips from the passengers.
Not a good one, but one that sticks with me is waiting out back of the office watching the rain and waiting to hear from our overdue plane.
Flying 3100 lbs of halibut in the caravan.
Coming off the mendenhall glacier in the Navajo, power down to 25", flaps 25, gear down, 150 knots and 2000+ fpm to make 1000' by the tower and nailing it.
Many more that are either incriminating or that I don't want to take the time to type right now.
dasleben
That's just, like, your opinion, man
That's pretty much how it is explaining NJC to my non-JC friends.
"I just went to Vegas to uhh, hang out with people from the internet. No, it wasn't an orgy."
scooter2525
Very well Member
Well there goes my motivation for attending....
You're too fertile for group sex, @scooter2525.
There would be armies of cheeseburger-eating taco addicts strapped in baby carriages and monkeyline all across America!
scooter2525
Very well Member
It's not me...
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Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Haha, yeah, that's what it's like telling people from Haines how I know @ASpilot2be.
"well, I met him through the Internet, am facebook friends with him, and had lunch with him a couple times..."
nocturnalaviator
Family Man
The debt, the diligence, the heartache, relationships lost and then after it's all said and done, the paycheck. Oh I'll never forget the paycheck.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
It's hard to forget something you look at for hours on end, trying to move the decimal just one tiny spot over to the right.
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