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Scariest moment in flight??

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Too cute, avbug!! I cant stop laughing!
 
The scariest moment of my flying career occured not 3 hours ago, but i was safely on the ground at the time. My student, on his second or third solo flight, heard "a noise", panicked, flew the tightest pattern of his life, was ridiculously high and fast, forced it down to the runway anyway, and went carrening off the departure end, into the mud at at least 50 knots, airplane comes to rest a scant few yards from the fence. Amazingly, he split the runway lights and only managed to separate the nosewheel from the rim. I'm still shaking.
 
Avbug's Newest Novel ...

I'm waiting for Avbug and BobbysAMD to collaborate on a book. I'm betting that between you two there's at least five hundred pages (small print). Any ideas for a title?

"Airplanes I Have Loved and Hated"

"Don't Tell My Mom ... She Still Thinks I play Piano In A Whorehouse"

"Aviation: The Horror ... The Horror"


Count me in for at least two copies, guys! :D

Minh

BTW ... perhaps 'Publisher' really is one ... your people should call his people.
 
Good Idea

Can you include a chapter of avbug's theories on useful monkies? Those are pretty amusing.
 
In May we have a HNL trip on the bid sheet. I jumped on it so that I could get CEPAC qualified and I have never been to HNL. To make a long story short I got my first choice, as I was bragging about it to my wife she asked me what the dates of the HNL trip were 23rd-30th of May. She reminded me I would be missing my youngest daughters birthday and our aniversary. So much for senority I couldn't blame it on anything else but my stupidity. When I was checking out on the 727 as a captain I was in the sim. I wanted my first taxi-out and take-off to be perfect. Right after take-off at about 400 feet the instructor froze the sim. At that point he said he was the tower and asked how I got airborne with a GPU and ground crewman attached to the airplane.....
 
QUOTE:
"Can you include a chapter of avbug's theories on useful monkies? Those are pretty amusing."


I thought he already wrote a book on monkies with all the "monkey stories" on this board.
Keep 'em coming!
 
yesterday!

Flying SLC to southern Utah yesterday. Airmet for "occaisional moderate turbulence blo 16,000". No problem, been there, done that, usually not a big deal. Wrong! got into first a/p fine, little turbulence, nothing major. Tried to make it to Escalante, UT from bullfrog basin. Constant "moderate" turbulance the entire way (over some real nasty looking national park territory...), then whenever I got the 172 below 7500 feet, I started getting my head whacked on the ceiling of the a/c! Tightened my belt, went lower and started the same thing, with rolls ~ 45-60 deg in each direction, only recovering with full aileron and some rudder.

Anyway--didnt land there, went to Bryce Canyon instead (26nm); wind was 200@20gust29 when I landed, 160 @ 30 when I took off (landed with about an hour of fuel left, so I had boxed myself in, but good!). liftoff in about 200', then almost 90 deg sideways the length of the runway at 50' agl.

options, options, options. Not going to box myself into a trip like that again or ignore Airmets (they are for "little" airplanes, arent they?). Some fearless, all-knowing CFI....

Seems like a humbling experience comes just when you think you're getting pretty good at this stuff....
 
Scariest? Only one here. Losing a blade on a MU-2 over Texes wasen't fun. Especially after seeing the damage in the daylight.

Airplane was scraped along with my good jeans!!!!
 
Seneca III, doing an ambulance trip. Somewhere along the way I hear this loud bang, and look all over for the cause. Checking instruments, checking doors. Looking at the cowl for oil, the usual. Nothing. Turns out that a mother had put some big balloons in back, the big mylar kind. At altitude, they burst, made a hell of a racket.

Next time I went to pick someone up, same thing; big bundle of the large mylar balloons. I told the mother I couldn't take them; they'd have to be deflated. Right there on the ramp at PHX, she lets the whole bundle go. Two busy runways, lots of arrivals and departures, and a big bundle of reflective balloons rising out of the middle. I thought someone was going to show up to kick my butt, but no one did. So I kicked it myself. Repeatedly.

Terrifying in flight is a Shorts filled with skydivers, packed in there like sardines. Somewhere close to FL 180, gas is rapidly expanding, needs somewhere to go. Attempts to reroute it to some internal holding resorvoir fail at a critical moment, and with several minutes left to go before the door comes open, the gas becomes self evident. The point of origin is easily identified by the wave of jumpers rubbing their eyes, propogating out from me. All eyes turn, looks of destain followed by someone yelling "get a rope!"

Door comes open, not quite on jump run yet. Now or never. Scramble over bodies that can't move quite fast enough for a lynching (legs still asleep from the ride up). Dive for door, making sure that all remaining gas is expelled BEFORE leaving the airplane. Roll over on exit to wave and display large fecal-eating grin, and wave. Free at last. Except, in three minutes, they'll catch up on the ground. How low can I go and pull, make it to the parking lot, and drive off before the lynching takes place? Not terror, but suspense.

Discomforting would be getting out the door and realizing that one forgot one's parachute rig in the haste to exit. It's happened...several years ago a photographer back east made it out the door with his camera gear intact, but no parachute, and he filmed it all the way to impact. I wouldn't classify that as terror; the outcome is a given. Certainly I'd guess that it wasn't a comfortable ride down, but probably peaceful to some degree. All decisions are made for you at that point...for the rest of your life.
 
Fire warning light (false indication) one night in an F-4 crossing the Atlantic headed to Europe. Dang thing would go out for a while if you rolled inverted for a few minutes. Broke the boredom though.

However I don't think anything strikes fear into my heart like missing an aniversary with the wife like Avbug. Been there, done that.
 

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