OK, you asked for the story...

I learned to fly on the east coast of Florida, where everything is
flat. The only thing you had to be concerned about is gusty winds
blowing over your plane, so tie-downs were a must but parking brakes
not of much use. After 30 years of non-flying, I had forgotten there
was a parking brake much less ever used it. When I was taking my
recurrency training for the BFR endorsement, my CFI said don't bother
with it when doing the run-up (the checklist had said to use it) just
keep the feet on the rudder brakes. So the non-use of the parking
brake was reinforced.

So here I am on my 2nd solo flight after a 30 year hiatus on the
airport-built-on-a-hill, where you have taxi a long ramp up two levels
to get to the FBO/restaurant. I shut down the Skyhawk and backed her
up to the edge of the asphalt to allow other planes room to get to the
self-serve gas pump in the center. I was thinking to myself that
maneuvering the plane is getting easier...I must be building up upper
body strength.

Well...not too bad, the plane was at a slight angle but at least out
of the way so I started thinking about lunch and was walking toward
the restaurant. I turned just in time to see that my plane was
starting to maneuver itself past the parking spot toward the ledge
leading down to the second level. I ran and grabbed that strut just in
time!! After pushing her back in place, I reached in and pulled out
the brake and thought..."Oh so that's what it's for!"

"I learned about flying from that," more or less...

On Fri, 03 Jun 2005 19:04:30 -0400, Andrew Gideon
wrote:

Doug in NYC wrote:

I learned
the importance of pulling out the parking brake before walking away.

That sounds like there's an interesting story there.

- Andrew