First Flights
 

I'm currently watching some great, but like me getting on a bit, comedies on You Tube, and came to this episode. I'm sure many will not wish to watch the whole thing, although I would recommend it for your chuckle muscles, its very funny, but the initial "getting airborne sequence is very funny.

The Beverly Hillbillies - Home For Christmas - YouTube

In that vein, I was wondering if anyone would like to share their first flight experience. For me, an amazing 30 minutes in a Chipmunk from Shawbury circa 1967. A few aero's and finally allowed a "clutch". For a village lad who's most exciting experience had been a drive on the farm tractor in a field. Well, heaven. A few weeks later a T21 flight from Tern Hill I was hooked. That was 14 years old as an ATC cadet. I'm 60 now and still remember vividly those first flights. I managed to clock around 500 hours solo gliding, 5000 hours as a GE on Albert, and generally managed to fly in everything I worked on, even the wonderful Lightning. Enjoy the video, have a laugh and please share your first flights. I was just Groundcrew at the end of the day. What drew you Aircrew types in to the mob ?

Smudge

If this is repeating a previous thread please let me know, I will kill this one.

DC-3 pleasure flight over Newcastle.

Sat next to an old dear, who was 83, and her first flight aswell.

First Flight: Age 3, in an Auster flown by my dad.
Never grew up; ended up as a "nose gunner" in Tornado F3s
The one type we were both rated on was ...Tiger Moth.

My first flight was from Tangmere in a Slingsby Sedburgh T21 strapped on my dad's knee. Bill Verling was the pilot.

I was about 2.

I got the bug early :)

Dan Dare 727 back from Naples in the 70's

My first flight was 4 hours in a Varsity August 1971. I had just started the main course as a U/t AEOp at Topcliffe. The flight was to qualify for student flying pay. I still remember the soup served from flasks.

Half hour in a De Havilland Rapide from St Just, Cornwall, in 1968 as my 8th birthday present. Sight-seeing flight around Land's End, accompanied by my dad who had been a Flt Lt Dakota pilot in Burma 1944-46 and explained everything that was going on in superb detail. How I miss being able to ask his sage advice 14 years after he took off on his last flight.....

Chippie out of White Waltham around the same time as Smudge, I didn't log that then.

First logged flight was a Comet C4 out of Lyneham in 1976, just over three hours mainly "local flying". One cadet kept a note on how many approaches made by counting the number of times he saw a sewage works I was told.

44 years ago aged 12 in a Piper Tri-Pacer flown by an ex Wimpy man ... cost me 10/- of saved pocket money. We flew out of Lympne Kent ... I was hooked :ok:

Aged 13, Anson serial ISTR TX219. Worried to death I would not like it as since the age of 5 I had wanted to fly and, strangely, go to Cranditz. Too much "Reach for the Sky" I guess. Really enjoyed the flight though.

Aged 10 - my grandad took me on holiday to Jersey.

Yeadon to Jersey and return in a Viscount.

First RAF Flight was a VC10 jolly when I was at Swinderby - a few hours rocking and rolling over the North Sea from Waddington.

Slingsby T.38 'Grasshopper' - As a 14year old CCF cadet. The 'flight' was unplanned and frightened the living bejeezuz out of me. :eek:

JJ ... So you didn't have the giant spoiler board attached then :eek:

The boards were attached but as soon as I released the aircraft the 'g' made them slip round the leading edge.....lift was achieved! Hence unplanned!! YIKES! My abiding memory is of leaving the ground and watching my compatriots (who had been on bungie pulling duties) scattering in panic accross the playing fields! Managed to keep it level on my return to earth!

1965, "Chrisair" deHavilland Dragon Rapide at Tollerton airshow. 10/- flip with a Lady pilot. Got an extra circuit because landing was baulked:ok:.
Started a way of life:).

OAP

First flight was in a BEA DC3 from Sumburgh down to Dyce, at the age of 5 - it was quite turbulent and I was sick as a parrot all the way.

First solo in a Slingsby Sedbergh at Catterick when I was 16 yrs old. It was a v hot summer day and after I landed I took a swig from a bottle I spotted on the grass next to the caravan. Thing is, it wasn't water, it wasn't even lime squash - yeuch !! Once more I was sick as a parrot!

Rgds SOS

WTF?
 

Errr.......Is this pessimistic irony or what? Call me, 'Confused far way'.
My first flight was in a Whirlwind (Helo) at Lossie aged 5. They left the door open and I remember being terrified. Absolutely cringing against the forward bulkhead. My Dad being a Chiefy Engineer didn't quite get it.

Second flight I was seven, in a Chipmunk sitting on my Dad's lap. He foreswore fastening the parachute and just sat on it. That was fun. That was when I got hooked. Strangely, many years later, I did my ab initio on Chipmunks - it was like coming home. Delightful aeroplane.

Mrs TT2 being as she, is of a Lao persuasion always gives me a slap when I look to the sky at an aircraft and say "Sexy". Tssskkkkk.......She doesn't quite get it, alas.

BOAC Argonaut in 1950 aged 8, Heathrow to Singapore for first summer hols at boarding school. Took 4 days. Night stops at Rome, Cairo and Karachi. Best hotels, trips to Vatican, pyramids. Those were the days!

De Havilland Dragon Rapide from Wick to the Orkneys aged three!

First flight July 1965 aged 5 weeks - Trooping flight Aden to UK

First RAF aircraft 19 Apr 1979 Chipmunk WK562 ATC AEF at Filton

http://happymeal.free.fr/AZUR.jpeg

First after joining up 1 Mar 1984 Puma XW234 - AEF at Swinderby