Did you ever have a "moment" when flying
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Did you ever have a "moment" when flying
By moment I mean moment of sheer terror.
Roland Beamont describes such a moment in his autobiography. Roland came all the way through the Second World war as a fighter pilot, he was shot down and captured as a prisoner of war, and tested the early prototypes of many tricky aircraft including the Lightning. He even pioneered the idea of solo night attacks on targets of opportunity in the Typhoon, but per his own assessment he was only ever terrified when flying on one occasion.
A middle eastern Strikemaster customer had complained to BAe that the "fire control system" was not performing as promised (an FCS on a Strikemaster - is that "ring and bead" ?) and Roland was dispatched to identify the problem. Their chief pilot was ex-RAF as I recall and he took Bee up on a QWI type sortie. On the way to the range he had the Strikemaster running wide open on the deck. With sand dunes looming ahead Bee expected the pilot's low-level display to end with a pull up, but he simply pressed on and avoided each dune by rolling and raising the wingtip as required with the dune disappearing just a couple of feet under each wing at 400 knots or so. Bee believed that the pilot expected him to grab the stick but he kept his hands on his knees the entire time, apparently he was quite shaken by the experience but kept his cool.
Maybe it's different as a passenger, pilots rarely have enough time to worry about things, but was there "a moment" in your career ?
Roland Beamont describes such a moment in his autobiography. Roland came all the way through the Second World war as a fighter pilot, he was shot down and captured as a prisoner of war, and tested the early prototypes of many tricky aircraft including the Lightning. He even pioneered the idea of solo night attacks on targets of opportunity in the Typhoon, but per his own assessment he was only ever terrified when flying on one occasion.
A middle eastern Strikemaster customer had complained to BAe that the "fire control system" was not performing as promised (an FCS on a Strikemaster - is that "ring and bead" ?) and Roland was dispatched to identify the problem. Their chief pilot was ex-RAF as I recall and he took Bee up on a QWI type sortie. On the way to the range he had the Strikemaster running wide open on the deck. With sand dunes looming ahead Bee expected the pilot's low-level display to end with a pull up, but he simply pressed on and avoided each dune by rolling and raising the wingtip as required with the dune disappearing just a couple of feet under each wing at 400 knots or so. Bee believed that the pilot expected him to grab the stick but he kept his hands on his knees the entire time, apparently he was quite shaken by the experience but kept his cool.
Maybe it's different as a passenger, pilots rarely have enough time to worry about things, but was there "a moment" in your career ?
As you say: when someone else is flying.
Leeming mid 60s - JP (again).
QFI asks if I'd like to come along on his CT flight. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity.
He dropped into a steep sided valley and navigated it by going from 6g turn to 6g turn.
Every time we went to 80deg bank (and, of course, lost sight of t'other side) I thought 'Bang seat isn't going to help here! I'll just get splatted on nearside instead of offside!'
Big aeroplanes and coffee for me!
ps: The other 'moments' were over before I realised they'd happened - e.g. close to midair in low vis, almost hitting hill etc etc.
Leeming mid 60s - JP (again).
QFI asks if I'd like to come along on his CT flight. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity.
He dropped into a steep sided valley and navigated it by going from 6g turn to 6g turn.
Every time we went to 80deg bank (and, of course, lost sight of t'other side) I thought 'Bang seat isn't going to help here! I'll just get splatted on nearside instead of offside!'
Big aeroplanes and coffee for me!
ps: The other 'moments' were over before I realised they'd happened - e.g. close to midair in low vis, almost hitting hill etc etc.
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Chatting to a lovely bloke Dave over a few beers in Bali not so long ago as you do.
Ex RAF who flew Hastings, VC 10's (he loved that aeroplane, oodles of power apparently..?) and ended up a big wig at Cathay Pacific.
Was telling a story involving the Malayan campaign involving a Hastings. They were doing runs dropping supplies to the boys on the ground. On the way home to his alarm, he noticed all the fuel gauges dropping. Made it back ok only to find fuel leaking from dozens of bullet holes in the wing tanks!
Asked him how many drops they did?, obviously a few too many he replied!
Ex RAF who flew Hastings, VC 10's (he loved that aeroplane, oodles of power apparently..?) and ended up a big wig at Cathay Pacific.
Was telling a story involving the Malayan campaign involving a Hastings. They were doing runs dropping supplies to the boys on the ground. On the way home to his alarm, he noticed all the fuel gauges dropping. Made it back ok only to find fuel leaking from dozens of bullet holes in the wing tanks!
Asked him how many drops they did?, obviously a few too many he replied!
I'm not a pilot, but a late colleague flew bombers during WWII, and aerial photography in now Indonesia thereafter. However, he claimed that his "moment" was when flying a glider and the wing literally fell off. He became the first glider pilot in Australia to use his parachute.
On the way down he was trying to remember from >25 years ago how to land. Remembered to spit out his false teeth just in time.
On the way down he was trying to remember from >25 years ago how to land. Remembered to spit out his false teeth just in time.
I 'flew' hang-gliders for nearly twenty years.
I think at least 50% of the flights had at least one moment of shear terror.
But there again, Anything you could walk away from AND re-use the glider afterwards was considered a success.
I think at least 50% of the flights had at least one moment of shear terror.
But there again, Anything you could walk away from AND re-use the glider afterwards was considered a success.
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Autos in the old (no visuals) SeaKing sim at Culdrose. My oppo misread the altimeter and flare-check-leveled at 1050 feet instead of 50. I damn nearly had an underwear malfunction - half-crown, threepenny bit, dustbin lid! I knew he'd just killed us both, and then realised it was the sim...I was shaking for an hour!
None in my Bulldog time, but plenty when flying privately. The most scary of which was a Marchetti ( it had tip tanks, so that was my assumption) nearly hitting me head on over the North Downs, whilst I was receiving a flight information service. The damm thing wheeled round in a WW2 type head on attack. I shoved the nose down and applied full power ( all 180hp of it) and prayed! My ATPL passenger (who was map reading at the time) and myself both hit the roof and got a face full of dust and debris. He had to take my word for what was about to happen,as it was over in seconds and luckily it flew above us!
Getting sucked into a CB at about 4000ft in a light twin near Nice - five mins of terror with windscreen completely iced over, hail smashing from the props on the fuselage sides, battling with huge control inputs to keep wings level, stall warning horn blaring then overspeed, falling altimeter. Eventually came out of the bottom at 800ft over the sea.
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OK, have a giggle about a <30-hour PPL student during his Flying Scholarship at Kidlington on the Piper Colt (wow, real aeroplane!!)...
1. Solo GH sortie. Pre-descent checks, pull out Carb Heat knob ... which came out of the instrument panel, along with the cable. I was in one with radio, so calmly called Pan, Pan, Pan on Oxford Tower frequency. No reply. Someone else replied, and said he would land and get an Instructor up to the Tower. Followed the subsequent advice (avoid large power changes) and landed smoothly (as I usually did).
2. Solo Navex. Got a bit close to (inside) the Upper Heyford Zone, leading to White Vereys! Soon afterwards, encountered slipstream of a B-47 (those were the days) and was pleased I was quite good at "Unusual attitudes ... Recover." Didn't my Instructor check my Flight Plan/Chart? I'm sure I was on track.
Well, we all had to start somewhere. As it transpired, I didn't get much further anyway
1. Solo GH sortie. Pre-descent checks, pull out Carb Heat knob ... which came out of the instrument panel, along with the cable. I was in one with radio, so calmly called Pan, Pan, Pan on Oxford Tower frequency. No reply. Someone else replied, and said he would land and get an Instructor up to the Tower. Followed the subsequent advice (avoid large power changes) and landed smoothly (as I usually did).
2. Solo Navex. Got a bit close to (inside) the Upper Heyford Zone, leading to White Vereys! Soon afterwards, encountered slipstream of a B-47 (those were the days) and was pleased I was quite good at "Unusual attitudes ... Recover." Didn't my Instructor check my Flight Plan/Chart? I'm sure I was on track.
Well, we all had to start somewhere. As it transpired, I didn't get much further anyway
Last edited by MPN11; 2nd Mar 2017 at 18:48. Reason: sub-30h
MPN11, I can empathise with you there. Some 20 years before the Marchetti incident, same area, same flight information service, on Qualifying Cross Country, straight in to IMC and right above Rochester airport. The controller said 'everyone keep a good lookout' , which seemed daft to me as I was in cloud. My thoughts were about the 2minute rule which I had been told was all you could expect to survive in cloud with no rating. Lucky for me that day, a quick 180 and what seemed like an age and I popped out of it, to land 15 mins later to a v surprised CFI, who had thought I'd be a few hours!
A few 
The really terrifying couple of 'moments' were over so quickly that of course the effects come later LOL.
Certainly had some worrying moments when out in my glider x-country,but they mostly were not terrifying,more of a ''why am I at 400' in the middle of nowhere on a sunday afternoon - when I could be relaxing at home''.
My first long distance glider flight was 320k out/return for diamond goal,O Sarum/Hapenny Green/O Sarum.
One of our senior instructors said ''youll never make it'' but luckily I had chatted to a very experienced guy from another club - he had said ''never give up''.
On the first leg I had seen the sky turning grey behind me but pushed on to the turn point photo and took as much as I could from the last visible thermal.
Turning south I was actually saved by a large bonfire (cold air) and then some embedded Cu in the overcast ohead Droitwich,I then pedalled cautiously down to the Cotswolds and managed to get enough height to cross safely (the vis was orrible into sun),on popping out into the sunshine - there were only 2 clouds on trackish - I chose the darker one and joined another glider scratching around over Pewsey - as soon as I saw him steeply banked into a turn I joined him to be sociable - took it for every foot I could and ended up on the final glide at VNE to burn off all that height .
6hrs 30min of sheer fun with a low pass over the caravan and a chandelle into the circuit to land with feet like blocks of ice (september)
The really terrifying couple of 'moments' were over so quickly that of course the effects come later LOL.
Certainly had some worrying moments when out in my glider x-country,but they mostly were not terrifying,more of a ''why am I at 400' in the middle of nowhere on a sunday afternoon - when I could be relaxing at home''.
My first long distance glider flight was 320k out/return for diamond goal,O Sarum/Hapenny Green/O Sarum.
One of our senior instructors said ''youll never make it'' but luckily I had chatted to a very experienced guy from another club - he had said ''never give up''.
On the first leg I had seen the sky turning grey behind me but pushed on to the turn point photo and took as much as I could from the last visible thermal.
Turning south I was actually saved by a large bonfire (cold air) and then some embedded Cu in the overcast ohead Droitwich,I then pedalled cautiously down to the Cotswolds and managed to get enough height to cross safely (the vis was orrible into sun),on popping out into the sunshine - there were only 2 clouds on trackish - I chose the darker one and joined another glider scratching around over Pewsey - as soon as I saw him steeply banked into a turn I joined him to be sociable
- took it for every foot I could and ended up on the final glide at VNE to burn off all that height .6hrs 30min of sheer fun with a low pass over the caravan and a chandelle into the circuit to land with feet like blocks of ice (september)
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Flying along in my PPL days, showing my passenger what was happening with the VOR needle. Looked up. Blue Cherokee coming straight at me head on, both at 2346 ', ' cos I thought nobody else was daft enough to fly at that height. Twanged it hard right, banged the throttle, at exactly the same time as he turned HARD LEFT!!!!!!!!!!.. Was very. very close. That's when I learnt that it is good to talk to people like radar services etc. when the vis is not great.!!!
Whoops. Just noticed should not not have posted on this section. I wasn't Military. Apologies, but someone may learn something from it.
Whoops. Just noticed should not not have posted on this section. I wasn't Military. Apologies, but someone may learn something from it.