What turns you on?
Looking at the airline section there is a thread on a young lad sitting in the captains seat and the captain loosing his job because of that. Many older airline pilots do not envy the modern flight invironment and talk with passion of the way things used to be especailly prior to 9/11. The world has taken a dive since then and mostly in a bad way with the result that we have lost a lot of our freedoms and hence colour in life which existed before.
But reading some of their postings made me think about a flight I had in the latest Cirrus with a full glass cockpit. It was an amazing piece of kit but the impression I got was that I was strapped in front of a flight simulator screen and totally detached from reality or true flight.
I fly Business jets and do a very limited amount of ferries. One was Florida to South Africa in a very nice Citation S2 which had its own challenges of African airspace.
The other was a ferry from India to the UK in an ancient Citation 2 with no RVSM, poor navigation equiptment and in an aircraft which had so many problems you didnt need simulator training you got it for real.
But by the end of the flight I became so attached to that aircraft. Not only because of the challenge but also because it had loads of character and a personality of its own. Man and machine together each understanding each other. The problems involved work arounds but the aircraft and the areas we flew over made the flight stick in my mind. Even landing in the middle of Saudi Arabia in a sand storm and blistering heat and a 90 degre 40 kt crosswind .
In the twins I have flown I loved the Beech 55 for its character and quirks as well as its delicious handling and the sense that you were in the cockpit of some twin warbird.
What aircraft that you fly or have flown turns you on and why? Do you love the glass cockpits of today? What trips have you done which will stick solidly in your mind forever because a lot of our flying trips we forget ever happened ?
Pace