Flights

In my last post I wrote about some of my favorite airport memories so I thought I would use this post to write about some of my most memorable flights. Please let me know some of your most memorable flights as well!

Many years ago, I was on a flight from Atlanta to Denver on an L1011. For those that don’t know, this was a large, three engine, wide body jet that could carry up to four hundred passengers. The interesting thing about this flight was the decided lack of passengers. I really think there were more crew on this flight than there were passengers.

My seat was towards the middle of the plane and there ended up being no one else in my section. Figure fifty to 75 seats, all empty. Once we were in the air, the flight attendant stopped by and asked if I needed anything. She told me I could move wherever I wanted to and even lay down in several seats if I so desired. They would check on me once in a while or I could come find them if needed or pull the call light.

That was about it, I stretched out and proceeded to relax and enjoy the flight. It ended up being such a smooth flight that it felt like we were on the ground and not moving. We arrived in Denver no worse the wear.

This was a flight where it almost felt like it was my own private plane I was riding in. Pretty cool and probably the emptiest flight I’ve ever been on.

The second flight I want to tell you about wasn’t so smooth and was on a much, much smaller plane. In this case, a small commuter jet, two seats per side and maybe fifteen rows. There was one flight attendant for the entire plane. This time the flight was from Durango to Denver. In case you don’t know, Durango is a small town in southwest Colorado.

It was a warm summer evening, as I recall, with the sun close to setting. Durango’s airport is small so we walked out on the tarmac to board the plane. Its door was also the steps. Once we were seated and the door closed, the flight attendant did the safety review and then she strapped herself in. Her seat was by the cockpit door and she faced all the passengers.

We taxied the short distance from where we were parked to the beginning of the runway and proceeded to take off. Well, kind of. Just as the plane started to rotate, meaning the front wheel was off the ground, the pilot aborts the takeoff saying over the intercom, “abort, abort”. The flight attendant starts yelling “Get your heads down, get your heads down!”. Which we did, as far as I can tell, because my head was down. All just a bit scary.

This all happened in a few seconds and here is what I was thinking, “Will we stop before we get to the end of the runway?”. You see, this airport is built on a small mesa so if you get too far past the end of the runway, you come to a small cliff. Fun! Thankfully, the pilots were able to stop the plane well short of the end of the runway. Now you may think that is the interesting part of the flight but it isn’t. That came next. 

As we were taxing back to the terminal, I believe we were all thinking that we would stop and the plane would get checked out by the mechanics, and whatever the issue was would be corrected. Well, no…

The pilot came on the intercom and said a couple of lights had come on that caused them to abort but they felt it wasn’t an issue now so they decided to go ahead and take off again. We circled back around to the start of the runway and proceeded to take off. This was going to be interesting…

This being a small commuter plane, we didn’t fly very high. The flight was almost entirely over the Colorado Rockies and since this was an evening flight, the air was very “bumpy”. Part of the fun of flying over the mountains.

As I’m sure you can guess, every bump caused a gasp from all the passengers, followed by a nervous stir and then dead silence. No pun intended. There was total silence on this flight and I have to say I’ve never seen or felt anything like it. You could cut the tension with a knife. Did I mention there were a lot of bumps over that hour and a half flight? Each one of those bumps just stretched the tension even more.

No one “snapped” though. As we touched down in Denver, we could all feel that tension let go from not only ourselves but every other passenger on the plane. There was clapping, quiet shouts of joy and I know a few tears were shed. We had arrived at our destination safely! I just don’t think any of us were sure that would be the case…

The next flight wasn’t as exciting as the last but it was just as memorable for what didn’t happen. The first thing that didn’t happen was following the standard flight path from Atlanta to Denver.

A little after we took off, the pilot came on the intercom and said there were huge thunderstorms over the midwest and to avoid them we were going to take a southern route and go around them. This longer route along with a late take off, due to all the air traffic in Atlanta, were the reasons they gave us a free movie to watch. This was a few years ago when there were still tube style TVs located above the seats here and there throughout the plane. We may have even used those old tube style headphones although I can’t remember for sure.

Anyway, the folks around me all thought the free movie was a nice thought and we all discussed if we would hit turbulence due to the bad weather ahead. I wish I could tell you the name of the movie but I have forgotten. I do remember it was good.

Now, back to what didn’t happen, turbulence. This was another flight that was so smooth you could barely tell the plane was moving. Another thing that didn’t happen was much conversation. For whatever reason, maybe because it was late in the day and folks were tired, but everyone around me were all intensely watching the movie! It felt like a great movie theater experience, one where everyone cheers and claps at the end of the movie.

The part that I remember the most about this flight wasn’t the movie, but what I saw out of each side of the plane. On the right side of the plane (the side I was on) was one of the most amazing storms I have ever seen. It went on for miles and miles with cloud tops that stretched much higher in the sky than our altitude. The tops were white while the bottoms were dark.

The clouds would light up suddenly with glowing flashes, some lasting less than a second while others lasted much longer. Then came the lightening bolts that flashed from cloud to cloud. This scene repeated itself over and over as we flew along the edge of this monstrous storm!

When I looked out of the left side of the plane, I saw a beautiful sunset without a cloud in the sky. Only the lazy evening sun off in the distance.

We were lucky enough on that plane to see nature’s anger and power on one side mixed with its peace and glory on the other. Both amazingly beautiful. We, in the middle were “snuggled up” to our TV sets watching a movie without a care in the world. A magic carpet ride amidst the titans of nature.

The final flight I want to talk about is by far my favorite. It was a flight my wife gave me for a birthday gift! A “trial” flight school ride to see if someone is interested in learning to fly. Needless to say, I have always wanted to learn to fly so I was all in!

It was a surprise for my birthday that I really fell for. I didn’t know what the gift was for sure until we walked into the training center and she told me. She took many photos of the experience while the instructor and I did our thing. 

After introductions and signing a few forms, we exited the building and walked to the plane. The instructor and I proceeded to walk around the plane, a Cessna, and the instructor went over the preflight checklist. Items included checking the fuel levels and checking for water in the fuel, checking tires, brakes, lights, flaps and more. This probably took a half an hour and really helped me get a feel for the plane.

The next phase involved getting in the plane and going over the controls and gauges. I liked the fact this plane used traditional gauges vs. a glass cockpit as this had always been part of my dream of a first flight.

One of the more interesting aspects of flying a small plane is all communication is done via headphones due to the noisy environment once the engine starts. The other thing related to communication is how much of it is done between the pilot and various flight controllers. I’m not sure I would have been able to say anything remotely intelligent to those flight controllers at that point and for me, this would probably be the biggest learning curve with being a pilot.

While the instructor was reviewing the checklist and going over the various controls, he would also ask me questions about any flying experience I had and somewhere in there he must have decided I may actually know something because he said, after starting the plane and doing the run up, “OK, taxi us to the start of the runway”. Easier said than done as that is accomplished using the rudder pedals, which I found are a bit tricky as they control the brakes and rudder. Of course, I also had to use the throttle, which is controlled by a lever on the dash. With maybe a minute of experience, it took a bit longer to get us to the runway than if the instructor had done it. I didn’t hit anything and kept us on the tarmac so I was pretty happy!

Having arrived at the runway, the instructor proceeded to go over the throttles and flight controls one more time. He also discussed how quickly we should ascend. He then radioed the tower and tells me to takeoff!

What? Did he just tell me to take off? I double-check and he confirms. All butterflies and excitement, I throttle up, release the brakes and proceed down the runway. At the appropriate speed, I pull back on the wheel and we rotate and are airborne! Dang that was fun! He tells me to take it to 8200 feet and level off. I watch my climb speed and when we get to altitude, I back off the throttle to where the instructor suggests and settle in.

During the flight, the instructor went over how to trim the plane out so I didn’t have to constantly correct the altitude. He also talked about using a very light touch on the controls. He probably said this due to my relative death grip on the control wheel. He had to remind me of this several times during the flight but I finally got it.

We flew northeast and as we flew I learned to search for places to land in case of emergency. I learned where other airports were located. I learned to search the sky for other aircraft. All this in an hour of flying in clear skies with little wind.

Eventually we had to go back to the airport and land. I hated hearing this as I wanted to continue to fly! Using the instructor’s direction, I maneuvered us into the final approach and the instructor performed most of the landing. He left the taxi back to the parking area up to me. After we secured the plane and went back inside, the instructor marked my first hour of flight in my logbook and welcomed me to return for more.

It has been over ten years since that flight and there haven’t been any more hours logged in that flight book. Maybe one day I will have another favorite flight that will get added to that logbook.