Amazing Sights???
 

Im only 50hrs into a PPL(H) but my instructor told me the other day when flying throught Wattisham MATZ he saw 2 RAF tornadoes go from right to left about 400ft under him - about 7 seconds from visual to gone!

Just wondered if anybody else has seen some "amazing" things while flying, and I mean amazing, weather near air to air misses, actual air to air accidents, fires, road accidents...

Anybody?

RHM

I was doing the usual round on the Niagara Falls, turned the corner and there was a Lanc not more than a couple of miles away (quite safe). Beautiful!

Phil

Paco,
A Lancaster? Wow! I had a B-17 pass by me at our Stratford heliport, and it really made my day.

Also had a B-52 pass under me while instructing at Ft. Rucker back in 1971 (before the design for air was formally released). It was on an "Oil Burner" route.

Have you ever been inside a B-17? how those guys got around in the amazes me.

Actually, one claim to fame I had was that Concorde always had to wait for me - I used to do milk run from Manchester to Bournemouth in a caravan II, which involved turning right at Woodley at FL 90. This always happened just after Concorde took off and it always had to pass underneath, which was quite good for the passengers.


Phil

Sitting in the left seat with another ppruner in the right seat in a high hover in the south of england when red arrows flew underneath us!
Names and places witheld to protect the guilty!

rhmaddever, if your instructor was in the Wattisham MATZ then he would presumably have been told of the Tornados by ATC so it shouldn't have come as such a surprise!

Confession !
 

Jarvy

That'd me being the guilty party then !

Climbing out of Hotel on south coast in the summer, Reds enroute to a display about 20miles away.

But ATC did say .call me in the climb when you lift. (they can't hear us when on the ground at that site). which we did.

1500ft Hover, Reds at 500ft vertical seperation maintained.

Horizontal seperation was pretty much zero.

Climbing 30-45 seconds later would have made the papers and ruined our day at the very least.

Looked bloody good from my seat.

V.

1. Once under the control of Cottesmore LARS, I had the instruction, "G-REDI, look out for fast moving jet traffic in your 9, 10, 11,12,1, 2, 3 o'clock position" as a Harrier GR7 shot by at nnnKts. Obviously caught the controller out as well.

2. Emerging from the Lake District, the Reds passed by in front at 4 miles, recognising something else red in the sky, turned on 3 seconds of red smoke "for conspicuity".

3. Passed the BBMF going the other way in Lincolnshire a couple of summers ago.

Was helicopter pleasure flying at a show "oop nawth" a couple of years ago, outside controlled airspace away from any NOTAMS and working local military unit.

Whilst on the ground during a turnaround was aware of somthing moving in my peripheral vision and turned my head expecting to see a bird. At that point ten bright red hawks (they had the spare with them) in two flights of five flew over the site at +/- 500' agl. Had i been airborne in my normal circuit, could have been a bit scary.

Freind of mine watching (also a pilot) observed "imagine how much trouble you would be in if you did that to them". I HAD filed a CANP notifying my activity!!!

Looked Bl@@dy impressive though!

Whilst enjoying a fine summer evening's activities at Netherthorpe several years ago, a Tornado went diagonally NE-SW through the (quite busy) circuit, directly over the airfield, at approx. half the circuit height. (800ft.) at a vast rate of knots.

Here are a few . . .
 

I saw a hovering metal looking ball once, it was near the piramids of Teotihuacan , perfectly round metal ball just sitting there, me and my mechanic thought it was a balloon, flew towards it and when we got close we saw that it was definately not a balloon (unless it had auto hover with the wind and all) we didn't even turn our heads and kept on flying,

Then on a night IFR practice flight for which I was riding passenger (in perfect VMC conditions, AS365) flying between Acapulco and Mexico City, me and 5 other pilots saw the sky in front of us light up with some lighted object that took up the whole windshield and it dissapeared upwards in about 4 seconds, it also showed on WX radar as a big red spot at about 5 miles.

I also saw a gasoline truck that had been hit by a train explode, a saw a French guy jump off a building to remove himself from society, I saw a DC3 make an emergency landing in the middle of the most populated city in the world without killing anyone,

And most recently I saw this (I am flying the blue helicopter)

The video is about 3.4 MB

Download HERE

While on SAR duties I watched 2 Mirage fighters being abandoned in flight - with the first one, the nose kicked down from the force of the ejection and it spiralled down into a swamp. The second continued unaffected, glided well out of the safety area and splashed down on a beach directly in front of a populated area. Nobody hurt (other than the pilots with spinal crushes.)

Been buzzed by F18s while on powerline inspections, been attacked in the circuit by dopey students in planks who only ever look into the circuit direction, Been attacked by a crapduster who didn't bother turning his radio on when entering a circuit.

While near misses are the subject, had an unidentified military jet pass maybe 50' in front of me from left to right at 1500' near Ashford, Kent, at exactly the same altitude while in a H300. Also over the Long Island Sound in a plank had another one miss by 100' or so. Taught me all about head down in the cockpit - i'll never forget them ! That's 2 in 500 hours ! God knows how many you old timers must have had and not even known about them ! Safe flying !

Had a Piper pass 6' under me in a R22 in the YMMB training area.... I can remember seeing the rivets and hearing it, once is enough.

BlenderPilot:

Down loaded the Video.!!..Only one word truly describes it......
.............................F%&K... :mad: :ok: :E

I flew one of the Traffic Watch helicopters in the LA area in California for a week when I was hour building. For those who don't know, they fly over the freeways during rush hours, reporting on traffic conditions for the radio stations. Well, we saw lots of road accidents, a frightening number really. But when you consider that we were looking for them, in the sense that if there was an obvious traffic snarl-up we headed for it to see what was happening, I suppose it's not surprising. Scary though. :(

If considering "amazing things", I've never forgotten, several years ago now, flying through a completely circular rainbow, over the Valleys in South Wales. I thought it was amazing then, and I still do. :ok:

Oh yes, looked down once to find the Red Arrows a few hundred feet beneath me too. Marvelled at them, then wondered if I was supposed to be there or not. :eek:

I noticed a slight movement between my feet at about 1500ft near RAF Gütersloh in Germany whilst flying in a Gazelle, looked again and it was four Harriers! Good camouflage, I could hardly make them out if it wasn't for the movement.
Had a Tornado do a right to left barrel roll in front of me aswell, I passed through the hole!

Perhaps the most amazing sight for me was on a cold winter flight in Alaska on a helo medivac. I noticed the distant mountains had been transformed from the very familiar shape into somthing that looked like vertical cliffs over 10,000ft high.
I thought maybe I was having a religous experience or going crazy. Finally I asked the pilot next to me what he thought was going on. He had no idea either.
Later I found out it was an atmospheric allusion or mirage called Fata Morgana.
Looks very real.

slowrotor

While Iwas training at Mangalore, Oz I was on finals to land parallel to the runway and had 2 Strikemaster Jets do touch and goes next to me - very impressive!

In 1991 I was flying on an operational flight in NI around midnight, using NVGs. Suddenly, the view through them went very strange. I lfted the goggles to see the whole sky ahead was a bright traffic light red! It took a good few seconds to realise it was an unusual manifestation of the Northern Lights! I'd only ever seen them as a pale green/ blue light before. Absolutely spectacular, I'm sure I'll never see it occur like that again. Awesome. ;)