Experiences of Air Travel

I flew for the first time in 1955, when I flew from Lydd airport in Kent to Le Mans for the 24 Hour Race. The aeroplane was a twin engine De Havilland something-or-another, since that time I have only flown once more, a commercial flight from Birmingham to Glasgow. I have also been a passenger in helicopters twice, first with Jack Sears (President BRDC, and 1st British Touring Car Champion) when viewing the alterations to Silverstone following the Senna crash at San Marino, and then on one of the 'tourist flights' at the circuit.

I appreciate that all of this is trivia compared with the modern time traveller, however, it serves to help launch 'Intrepid Birdman' Penn's latest wheeze.
I now look forward to some truly interesting stories from our members, and of course a diatribe on the downside from Johnson.

Oh! I also served as an Air Wireless Mechanic for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth when she needed help with her Air Force back in the '50's.

LAC Bauble 2784570.

The Closest I have came to flying is when Traffic Office tried to give us an unwashed Petrol Tanker for welding repairs

Would love to get up in the air though. Was looking at the Ulster Gliding Club website the other day to see how much passenger runs were.

 Your supposed to wash them out first  

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Bleadin Aircraftsman  Bauble
It was probably the only twin passenger little darlin they mad in that era.
The D. H. Dove

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My first flight was in an RAF Hastings in 1952

Not that I actually remember it  

The Best experience I ever had in an Airliner , was to Australia in 79.
Qantas 747, before they all turned them into sardine cans.
Comfy, great grub, great crew, who even let me hang out in the cockpit for a while .
When I asked for a Scotch and ginger ale , the gorgeous young stewardess, poured me a full beaker of Scotch, gave me a similar sized can of Canada dry, and said " Reckon that'll do you for a few minutes" and winked.
Try getting that in economy nowadays ?

It was 59 years ago but as far as I can remember it looked like this.

De Havilland Rapide.

Arrrgh - the bloody Rapide - Classic Wings do pleasure flights in them from Duxford, so every airshow you have to endure the Rapide going up and down all morning, wouldn't be so bad but one of the actual display aircraft last weekend was,.... a Dragon Rapide.



Paul, 747 to Australia - luxury, I flew there early 70's in a BOAC 707, needless to say it wasn't non-stop  

A 707 alongside a 747  

Still got a menu booklet from that flight... some scanned pages










Heady days



24 hours to get to Australia?! , try telling that to the kids today

You guys have maybe already seen it but in case you haven't you might be interested in trying to find it. A while a go I watched a Docu about the 'golden age' of air travel. Some yank into the older planes had bought an interior of a 747(?) including the stairwell all original fabric and built up a complete replica of first class at his house.

It was a good wee show but a bit nuts watching this guy go to a scrap yard to pick up the right model year and marque of winebar to complete his plane.

Reckon you got a cheap ticket on Freds discount banger airways in that case Bleeder
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hehe Dewie, we had steak and eggs four times Bloody YUM .
Time Zone = Ooops Aussie brekkers again
Lamb cutlets sound better than peanuts though

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That's what yanks do Mate. I know a bloke with a beach house made of a 707 fuselage
Looks similar to this one .

Ahhh here it is ( piss artist)

There was a 747 converted to a restaurant in Korea.



http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2009/04/abandoned-boeing-747-restaurant.html

I think that was in the same Show I was talking about Wuz.  (Or at least was one of the ones I watched, yes I am trying to read more instead of watching American Docus ).  Had one of the Stewardesses that served on her talking.

I think she suffered a nose strike in the air too and needed a major patch up.

There was a documentary on the development of the 747, and that aircraft was featured. One of the stewardesses was saying how she loved that particular aircraft. It came to some grief on its first flight, but ended its career as that restaurant. It has since been cut up.

A couple of 747s featured in the movie 'Into the storm'. Terrific formation flying too.

I've done a lot of commercial flights all going to or coming back from a job somewhere or other.
Everything from the cattletruck airlines (flybe, ryanair and the like) to business class on BA and then a standard class flight on Etihad that knocked BA's business class into a cocked hat!

Many memorable moments but I will just mention a couple, we used to do the Ulster Motorshow in The Kings Hall in Belfast, and one year the weather was a tad bleak! As we landed at Aldergrove (I think it was a 737) we hit the ground quiet hard and bounced maybe 50 ft back up, bounced again and rolled out on the next occasion. Fair few yanks on the flight were applauding (as they tend to do on landing I understand) but the Aussie guy behind me just said •strewth cobber, I thought the first landing was the best of the three mate!

Same year, I was designated driver to and from Heathrow, 6 inches of snow fell on Heathrow while we were over the water. We had a cunning method over the years of managing to finish our work just in time to miss the 3:45 flight, giving us a 4 hour wait in the bar for the next one. This time as I sat with my glass of cola dreading the next few hours watching the lads getting hammered, the PA sparked up with 'we are pleased to announce that the delayed 3:45 flight to Heathrow is now ready for boarding' I don't think the lads were as happy to leave their beers as I was my coke

Hell of a drive home though in shit conditions, TBF I did pop into Luton so the lads could buy some tinnies!

Hahhaa Excellent
You have too much fun

I don't really remember my first flight. I guess because it was on an airliner similar to the ones I get these days.

I vaguley remember in my early air travel there being applause on landing, but not for a long time.

I always fly Virgin now, never taking QANTAS (too expensive, only a couple of flights a day from Hobart), Jetstar (cattle truck) or Tiger (a dodgy Asian airline which was grounded for safety violations then went bust, and is now owned by Virgin).

In the early years of their service, the flight attendants were quite entertaining when they did announcements before during and after the flight.

I have to say my best air travel experience was with QANTAS. I flew to Dallas on a direct flight (QANTAS was the only one with that service) on a 747 in Premium Economy, which costs more, but gives you better ammenities than normal Economy class. That was nice, but the return trip, from LA, was better - Premium Economy on an A380. Couldn't believe how much space there was. Really very comfortable.

My worst trip was on 767s from Brisbane to London via Singapore and Dubai.

The first two legs were on the same aircraft, which had the cockpit heating too high. The stop over in Singapore was only an hour, so not much time to stretch. The stop over in Dubai was worse. They were developing the airport, so they couldn't bring the aircraft to the gate. We disembarked onto the tarmac (and it was quite hot), then onto an air-conditioned bus for the trip to the terminal. I made a pitstop and then went up to security, by which time they were making the final boarding call for the flight to London. Got through security, found the gate and then had to rush down the stairs to the tarmac and another bus, which took us to a new 767.

The flight to London was uneventful, except when coming to land, with seat belt signs on, I puked....

wuzak wrote:

The flight to London was uneventful, except .... I puked....

In the true spirit of Barry McKenzie.

Oh boy.

I grew up an Air Force brat, loved airplanes, and when I was five we moved to a training base in the middle of Alberta. Note: the winters are as cold as advertised. Anyways, I grew up listening to Harvards and Expeditors (twin Beech) flying overhead every day. In 1960 my father was transferred to Metz, France, and we traveled there courtesy of Cunard. But when it was time to return to the homeland, we were going to fly. So on emorning we arrive at the base we are to depart from, in a Canadair Yukon, a modification of the Bristol Brittania.



It was a big long range turboprop, nothing as fast or comfortable as the jets.

We board the aircraft, the usual seating and start-up proceeding. Then we get to the point where we are supposed to take off, and the pilot notifies us that because of an air traffic controllers strike, we would have to sit and wait. One hour later after sitting on the ramp with the engines idling, we finally took off, heading west. Then we settled into the flight. After a couple of hours the pilot notifies us that the headwinds were abnormally strong that day, and we would be delayed. Anyways we settled into the constant drone as the plane crossed the Atlantic, a wonderful sight from thirty thousand feet. It was a very long flight, and eventually most started to snooze off. Then without warning the engines cut back to idle, and the only sound I could hear was the many seat belts being snapped shut as people woke up to a changed environment. The pilot came on the intercom again and notified us that the flight was taking longer than planned, and we would have to stop in Gander to refuel.

It was night when we finally landed, and the customs people were long gone. We could not leave the plane, and sat in this closed aluminum tube for an hour while they refueled the aircraft and prepared it for it's next leg. No power, no lights, no air conditioning, for an hour it was stifling and stinky. But eventually we got underway, finished the last leg of the trip and arrived in Trenton, Ontario 18 hours after departure.

It was the first time I flew, I loved it, but when someone complains about a flight, I say to myself ....  *censored*

Nice story, Blinkers.

One of mine...

This goes back to the mid 90's. I was about to make yet another trip to Blighty (from Adelaide) to visit my parents. I was booked on British Airways and the routing was Adelaide > Melbourne > Kuala Lumpur > London.

Normally, the aircraft arrived in Adelaide from KL and then proceeded Melbourne for refuelling, reprovisioning and new crew. However, on this day, the weather was poor across southern Australia and Adelaide was fogbound when it was due to arrive. Consequently, it diverted to Melbourne (Tullamarine), loaded the KL passengers and then stopped at Adelaide for a direct flight to KL. Arse about in other words.

The problem with this was that at the time, the main runway at Adelaide (shorter then, subsequently extended to take heavies fully loaded) was very marginal for a 747 to take off loaded with fuel for a long hop such as KL. When I got to the airport the weather was filthy. Heavy rain and a very low cloud base around 400ft. Looking out of the terminal window at departing aircraft, they became a ball of spray and for all intents invisible well before rotating.

I must confess to being a bit interested in what might happen. I didn't share my concern with my wife or daughter.

The takeoff roll started and it seemed slow. We rolled and rolled. The rain was hard and I know from my gliding that a wing loses a lot of lift when covered in water. You have to factor it in when selecting approach speed. I have taken off from Adelaide hundreds of times and I saw bits of the main runway from ground level I hadn't seen before. Finally, rotation and an oh-so-sluggish lift off just before the threshold and Tapleys Hill Road which ran past the airport. (Remember that road name). We stayed lowish over the sea for longer than usual, picking up speed. Finally we climbed away and inevitably, popped out into clear sunlight at some height or other. 15,000ft?

So all was well.

Fast forward two months or so. I was due to pick up a mate and his wife returning from overseas and when I got there, he asked if I could squeeze into the car another couple (and their luggage!!!) who they'd flown back from London with. Turns out the guy was the then British Airways Adelaide Manager. I happened to mention my rainy day takeoff.

"Wow!", he says, "Were you on THAT flight?"

He went on to explain that the weight of the aircraft combined with the heavy rain and the shortish runway was too rich for the BA staff and crew in Adelaide to commit to a go. So they sent a request to BA Engineering in Heathrow. They had to include all the relevant parameters including temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, a/c weight and certain readouts from the aircraft etc etc.

Finally, they got a fax back from Heathrow clearing them for takeoff but apparently the fax included the words, "Let's just hope there are no big trucks coming down Tapleys Hill Road when you're lifting off."  

Anybody a victim of "I'm sorry, we seem to have misplaced your luggage"?

Raises my hand.

Flew from Toronto to Victoria, BC, with a few stopovers. When I got to Victoria went to pickup my luggage ... not there. After about an hour of enquiries the airline discovered my luggage had been unloaded in Winnipeg, only over 2,000 klicks away. waited a very long time before they were flown to me.

Being based in Comox, British Columbia, and having medium-range aircraft, our squadron occasionally flew "navigation flights" either up to Anchorage Alaska, or down to San Diego, California. Let's get to the point, they were drunk runs, we would fly down, spend the night getting extremely hammered, then fly home the next day. Usually about a dozen of us ground crews could come along. On paper it was all above-board, but hey, in the military we're not all glum and tight. It was also amazing in the statistics how a part would almost always fail in San Diego, we had to lay on another flight to get the part to there. Three days in Tijuana is amazing ..... and a blur.

On one flight up to Elmendorf base at Anchorage (in a DeHavilland Buffalo), it was all worthy of a book. I'm sure my picture is still in some bars up there, banning me for life. Back to the subject, on the return flight, since the aircraft was unpressurized, we flew at ten thousand feet. Yes, it's true, after a night drinking and at ten thousand feet, you fart .... and fart ...

Once we had settled into the flight, after a couple of hours we got bored. We could see the pilots up front (they were raised relative to the cargo floor) and ever few moments we could see the pilot's hand drop down to the elevator trim wheel to keep the plane level. So all of us (about a dozen) slowly moved to the very back. We could see the pilots hand adjusting this change in trim. After a few moments, we all migrated to the front, and sure enough, the pilot's hand went down again, and he moved the wheel to keep us level and at the same altitude. What is important to remember is that the pilot was performing this act mechanically, without thought. We migrated to the back, and sniggered as we saw his hand moving the trim wheel. This went on about a half-dozen times, then suddenly the pilot realized what was going on, looked back and saw all of us standing at the very rear, grinning like fools. He nodded his head, went forward on the yoke, then pulled back hard. I've never been bounced off the ceiling of an aircraft.

Only ever flew once an the luggage didnt arrive with us. LA to Tacoma WA
then drove about 40 miles to destination in deep snow, blizzard etc.
Cant remember the Airline, but about three hours later one of their vans arrived at the Hotel with our luggage

Check this out!



Not a bad way to travel but could be a tad pricey.