Free rides?
 

Could any serving pilots tell me if they are ever, under any circumstances allowed to take family or friends up in their aircraft? This specifically refers to current fast-jet pilots.

I would suspect they would not be allowed to for safety reasons and fuel costs, etc....but is there any circumstance known where this would be allowed?

I can think of few things more satisfying after many years of intense training than taking up a family member and showing them what you do daily!!!!!

Only example I can think of recently was when a certain Tonka pilot took his 'Jedi' brother for a ride down Scotlands 'Star Wars Valley' and that was done as a PR/Charity trip.I believe the pilot has now left the services though.

Only other one I can think of were a Father/Son Buccaneer trip many eons ago.Father was a serving pilot,son was a serving Nav so I don't think that counts.

I thought you had to have a 'lumpy jumper' to get a pax trip in a FJ?

Not enough pax trips are given now due to the lack of servicability. If the Sqn's 2-seat aircraft were ever available, someone needed a check. I was always glad to fly someone when I had the chance, as long as they had earned it. The pax then understood what we did in the air and I found that they gave a better return for the sqn after that. Pax rides are an investment in our people.

SMT

Pax Trips In Fast Jets
 

For starters, I never viewed pax trips as free rides and never took mine for granted. They were normally given to those that had, for some reason or another, earned them. Lumpy jumpers? Well you could say they......!!;) But Stickmonkeytamer has it spot on. It gave an albeit small number of groundhuggers the chance to understand what operating a fast jet really entailed. It helped me as an air trafficker understand their operating issues and, I think, made me a better operator for it. Indeed, I think a few current aircrew got their taste for flying as a result of such pax trips. Even in these times of ever-decreasing budgets, I believe pax trips are still good value - where appropriate.
WJMcP

On this forum, not so long ago, there was a bit about a T* low level over Wales ~ that was a families outing IIRC.

The ANS used to use METS to fly families on their open days.

I have flown 2 brothers-in-law in a Nimrod - slightly different as one was a FLEM and the other an MEM(A).

My brother keeps asking if I'd like to go up in a Nimrod, but although I'd love to see what a Nimrod pilot does I don't fancy being pinged to serve tea and pies to all those crew members.;)

Family? You must be joking. I couldn't manage it in 8 years on tombs, which is more understandable, but even on Hawks I've so far had no luck. The flying programme just doesn't leave much room for it, and when there is the room, some local non-celebrity rugby player or page 3 muppetess manages to snaffle it in the name of either;
1) "Publicitee" for the station / RAF as a whole, or:
2) "Chariddee".

The latter I can uderstand. But the former?

Does anybody know someone who joined the Air Force because they saw Will Carling having a ride in an F4 once? The prosecution rests.


As an aside, a very nice Police chap on here (a flying observer) has been politely pestering me for ages now for a ride, and to be honest I can see the point from a deconfliction point of view. Their aircraft sometimes operates in the same valleys as mine. I do my best, but I just can't see it in the very near future because obviously the Mayor of Angelsey or Lorraine Kelly are far more deserving of the slot.

Blood boiling stuff.

Probably not quite as thrilling but I did get my wife airborne in a Chipmunk during my Pilots course.

When I was at Shawbury in the late '80s we often use to fly the new ATC studes (especially lumpy jumpers) and we also used to use 'Familiarisation flights' as currency for getting additional services out of flight safety, MT, etc.
eg If we needed additional survival packs for an exercise the CO would ask me to have a chat with IC Safety Flight at the Sgt's Mess bar, buy him a beer and get his new starters over to the squadron in time for morning prayers....

Gazelle flight was part of the syllabus during my ATC course at Shawbury. Managed a few rides in a FRADU hunter whilst as Yeovilton. Loved it!

Gingers (occasionally) too
 

Slight thread drift, i.e. not family and certainly not friends, but the engineers did used to get trips "in the old days".
My one FJ trip was after spending ages coaxing a 74 Sqdn. (Lightnings era)pilot to really understand the full implications of Euler angles, from an avionics/mathematics/solid geometry point of view, rather than stick-monkeying (he was probably facing an exam or some such). A couple of months later I had an excellent trip up the East coast of Malaysia in the squadron T bird--buzzing the sub aqua club on Pulau Aur on the way.
Great stuff.

One of my course-mates at Finningley almost got to the end of AEOp training and then found that he threw up on every trip in the Nimrod, so he went to Farnborough for a few weeks and got to fly in fast jets to determine exactly what motion made him ill!! They decided that being a Rotorhead would be Ok for him...
We all thought about pulling that one...

a mate of mine sorted me out with a FJ trip at leeming, although it was in one of the little black planes with a spare seat in the back, not one of the pointy grey ones with big flamey engines. I think that is a bit more difficult to arrange.

It was a nice day out.

Flights for Family
 

I was on a unit with a boss and 4 pilots and 5 a/c. For Remembrance Sunday the boss went to the city centre in his No 1 uniform and the pilots did the flypast with their wives with them. I also did a landaway once (Navigation CT training) and happened to go to a relatives house for lunch and he happened to get a 30 minute trip before we went home. No names or locations, to protect the guilty, and it was a long time ago!

THS, take the trip. There is no way they would entrust a tray of tea to a novice or get you to make peanut butter and pilchard sarnis with marmalade.:}

PN,

A TRAY of tea, more like a bloody hoofin' big teapot, that is full of lifeforms of interest to the Porton Down Brigade. It is this teapot that gives the Nockers their fantastically strong wrists:E :E


ALWAYS assume NEVER check

Hey I'm no novice with tea, 6 years on TSW (Tea Supping Wing) pays testimony to that.;)

Don't they use the teapot to stop the a/c decompressing?:}

Was very fortunate on completion of JATCC to spend 2 weeks at Scampton on the ATC air experience course. Seven trips in the Tucano sim, followed by three in the aircraft. First trip GH, second, low-level navex and third, formation GH and aeros. A real privilage. Unfortunately, the money ran out after only about half a dozen courses!:ok:

In those far off days when there were only 'slow jets' and 'even slower jets' I took my son for a ride in a Vamp T11. It was at Shawbury and we were supposed to be bashing the GCA circuit for the U/T controllers, but I imagine we sloped off to do the odd aero as well. He was in the ATC at school at the time, so it was legal, but I made him get his hair cut as payment; not sure he has ever forgiven me! Also the odd Chippie flight.

And I did hear tell of a Canberra instructor hiding his wife in a flying suit, electric hat, and all the other things the well dressed Canberra navigator wears, and take her for a tour of the Scottish low level route!