A aviation & planes forum. AviationBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » AviationBanter forum » rec.aviation newsgroups » Piloting
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Nostalgia



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old November 25th 07, 07:14 PM posted to rec.aviation.military, rec.aviation.piloting
Tina
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 500
Default Nostalgia

On Nov 25, 12:12 pm, "Panic" wrote:
Some thought to ponder when someone asks you if you miss flying. A

Subject: Pilots, Navs and good old aircrew

You won't have all of these memories, but enough of them to make you
smile . . . . .
Some may be hard to understand unless you've been there.

WHY IT'S GREAT TO BE A PILOT, NAV and just be on board a great flying
machine!!

Sunset visual approach into Manchester , NH in
DC-9...Pretty young flight attendant on jumpseat...." MacAuthor Park "
on ADF playing softly on the cockpit speakers......then greasing it
on........Sweet !
(also illegal)

Looking up through canopy of A-4 at top of Mt. Etna in
Sicily , inverted over the top.......wingman tucked in tight.

First carrier landing in T-28. Bulletproof and invincible.

Flying close finger tip formation in a flight of four.

Losing an engine in an F-84F while taxing back to the ramp
after a mission.

Terminating afterburner at 1.85 Mach in an F101 and
experiencing deceleration so hard that I flew off of the seat and into
the harness so hard that I had strap bruises on my body, and needed a
change of underwear.

Full afterburner take off in a clean F101 in 20 below zero
weather at night.

Somehow, all the jet-lag and other problems had a
compensating balance!

Doing formation join-ups in the F4 around big beautiful
columns of Cumulus out of every fighter base.

Sunrises seen from the high flight levels that make the
heart soar.

The patchwork quilt of the great plains from FL 370 on a
day when you can see forever.

Cruising mere feet above a billiard-table-flat cloud deck
at mach .86, with your chin on the glare shield and your face as close
as you can get to the windshield.

Knowing you got to land a fighter on a five thousand foot
runway, that is covered with hard packed snow, and no drag chute.

Punching out the top of a low overcast while climbing
10,000 feet per minute in AB.

The majesty and grandeur of towering cumulus.

Rotating at VR and feeling 400,000 plus pounds of airplane
come alive as she lifts off.

The delicate threads of St. Elmo's Fire dancing on the
windshield at night.

Going thru Mach 2 in the Hustler..

The twinkle of lights on the Japanese fishing fleet far
below, on a night crossing of the North Pacific.

Cloud formations that are beautiful beyond description.

Ice fog in Anchorage on a cold winter morning.

Seeing the approach strobes appear through the fog on a
'must do' zero, zero approach when there is no other place to go.

Seeing geologic formations that no ground-pounder will ever
see.

Having the "bitch' announce over interphone that you have lost
engine oil pressure on #3 while over Greenland in a B-58.

The chaotic, non-stop babble of radio transmissions at
O'Hare during the afternoon rush.

The quietness of center frequency at night during a
transcontinental flight ... or over the Amazon at any time.

Watching St. Elmo's fire all over your windscreen in the
winter night skies over Alaska .

The welc ome view of approach lights appearing out of the
mist just as you reach minimums.

Finding yourself in a thunderstorm with 750# bombs hanging
on your wings.

Lightning storms at night over the Midwest .

Picking your way through a line of huge Thunderstorms that
seemed to go all the way from Chicago to New Orleans

The soft, comforting glow of the instrument panel in a dark
cockpit.

The dancing curtains of colored light of the aurora on a
winter-night North Atlantic crossing.

Passing 30 west . . .

The taxiway names at O Hare before they were renamed: The
Bridge, Lakeshore Drive , Old Scenic, New Scenic, Outer, The Bypass,
Cargo, North-South, The Stub, Hangar alley,

The majestic panorama of an entire mountain range stretched
out beneath you from horizon to horizon.

Lenticular clouds over the Sierras.

The brief, yet tempting, glimpse of runway lights after
you've already committed to the missed approach.

The Alps in winter.

Watching a fellow pilot do an engine out flameout approach
and making it in an F-100.

Seeing a "dumb" bomb you drop hit a target and knowing you
had all the parameters right.

The lights of London or Paris at night from FL 350.

Squall lines that run as far as you can see.

Exotic lands with exotic food.

Seeing Tokyo lights at night from thirty five thousand feet
stretching from horizon to horizon.

Maneuvering the airplane through day lit canyons between
towering cumulus clouds.

The deep blue-gray of the sky at FL 430.

The hustle and bustle of Hong Kong Harbor .

The softness of a touchdown on a snow-covered runway.

Hearing the nose wheel spin down against the snubber in the
well after takeoff. A delightful sound signaling that you were on your
way!

Old Chinatown in Singapore before it was torn down,
modernized, and sterilized.

Watching the lightning show while crossing the ITCZ at
night.

Long-tail boats speeding along the klongs in Thailand .

The quietly turning paddle fans in the lobby of the Raffles
Hotel in Singapore .

Dodging colored splotches of red and yellow light on the
radar screen at night.

The sound of foreign accents on the radio.

Luxury hotels.

To paraphrase the eloquent aviation writer, Ernie Gann, The
allure of the slit in a China girl's skirt.

Sunsets of every color imaginable.

The tantalizing glow of the flashing strobe lights just
before you break out of the clouds on approach.

Yosemite Valley from above.

The almost blindingly-brilliant-white of a towering cumulus
cloud.

A cold San Miguel in Angeles City after a long day's
flying.

The Diamond Horseshoe at Itazuke.

Ocean crossings and in-flight refueling.

Hearing every sound a single engine fighter makes at night
over the open ocean. BR

The taxiway sentry (with his flag & machine gun) at the old
Taipei downtown airport.

Seventy-thousand-foot-high thunderstorm clouds in the
tropics.

Sipping Pina Coladas in a luxury hotel bar, while a typhoon
rages outside.

Chinese Junks bobbing in Aberdeen harbor.

The smell of winter kimchee in Korea .

Watching the latitude count down to zero on the INS, and
seeing it switch from "N" to "S" as you cross the equator.

Wake Island at sunrise.

Oslo Harbor at dusk.

Icebergs in the North Atlantic .

Contrails.

Pago Harbor, framed by puffy cumulus clouds in the late
afternoon.

The camaraderie of a good crew.

Ferryboat races in Sydney Harbor

Experiencing all the lines from the old Jo Stafford tune:

See the pyramids along the Nile .
See the sunrise on a tropic isle.
See the market place in old Algiers
Send home photographs and souvenirs.
Fly the ocean in a silver plane.
See the jungle when it's wet with rain.

White picket fences in Auckland .

Trade winds.

White sandy beaches lined with swaying palms.

Double-decker buses in London

The endless expanse of white on a polar crossing.

The Star Ferry in Hong Kong,

Bangkok after a tropical rain.

Mono Lake and the steep wall of the Sierra Nevada range
when approached from the east.

The bus ride to Stanley ... on the upper deck front seat of
the double-decker bus.

The Long Bar at the Raffles.

Heavy takeoffs from the "cliff" runway at Guam .
Landings in the B-767 when the only way you knew you had
touched down was the movement of the spoiler handle.

Jimmy's Kitchen.

The deafening sound of tropical raindrops slamming angrily
against the windshield, accompanied by the hurried slap, slap, slap of
the windshield wipers while landing in a torrential downpour in Manila .

Endless ripples of sand dunes across the trackless miles of
the Sahara desert.

Miller's Pub in Chicago

German beer.

Oktoberfest.

The white cliffs of Dover

Oom-pa-pa music at Meyer Gustels in Frankfurt

Fjords in Norway.

The aimless compass, not knowing where to point as you near
the top of the world on a polar crossing. The whiskey compass on a steep
tilt.

The old Charlie-Charlie NDB approach into Kai Tak.

Brain bags crammed with charts to exotic places.

The Peak tram in Hong Kong .

Breaking out of the clouds on the IGS approach to runway 13
at Kai Tak, and seeing a windshield full of checkerboard.

An empty weight takeoff in a B-757.

The bustle of Nathan Road on a summer day.

Sliding in over Crystal Springs reservoir for a visual
approach and landing on 1R in SFO.

The smell of tropical blooms when you step off the plane in
Fiji.

The quietness of a DC-10 cockpit.

The rush of a full-speed-brakes descent at barber pole in a
B-727.

Deadheading in First Class.

The Canarsie approach into JFK.

The Eiffel Tower

Max gross weight takeoffs.

Cross-wind landings at 29 Kts/90 degrees

Good co-pilots.

Man-sized rudder pedals as big as pie plates.

Leak-checking your eyelids on a long night flight.

And, as one friend so perceptively pointed out, payday!

Making an aural null range approach.........

Then there was Venus coming up before the sun in the
Eastern sky, giving the horizon a light show like no other!

And the best ..watching countless rounds of 23/37/57 MM
being shot at you, at night, and ALL missing.

Rollout after your third CAT II approach of the day (
Munich , Nuremburg, or FRA)

100 Knot tailwind in smooth air with a 100 mile visibilty
day in a 182.

Flaming out while hovering into the refueling pits at Khe
Sanh just after a big shootout in Laos.

A successful night trap on the last pass prior to 'Bing'.

Instantaneous envelopement in total darkness while
eastbound at
sunset: .95mach/FL450.

Six miles from touchdown. Over-gross, engine-out (one
left),
losing altitude, approaching 'ground effect'. Beautiful, reliable
ground-effect.

Trading out the old 450 gal tubs for 335's and for the first time
being able to climb to just above the solid European cloud deck enroute
to Aviano instead of plowing through it all the way.

The fresh trout that you picked out of the stream at Gorgottso's;
the mussel risotto at Nino's; the sauted peppers at Orsini's - all
consumed in the company of your squadron mates and downed with liberal
quatities of red wine, grappa and cigars!

Add your own thoughts and keep it
moving....................


Thoughts from someone who spends some time at a lot less than 200
knots in a SEL airplane:

Experiencing the total loneless while standing beside your car at
night at an isolated uncontrolled airport and watching your husband
taxi out in his Moonwy and take off into the night.

Being in the Mooney while taxing out at that same isolated airport at
night with your husband, feeling totally together in the cockpit, then
watching the runray lights disappear under you while your parents are
watching from the parking lot, and realizing they are experiencing the
same profound loneless you yourself had felt,

Being at ILS minimums at night going into a strange airport, breaking
thru the cloud floor, like looking under a sheet, finding approach
lights in front of you, and telling your husband, who is hand flying
the approach with his head inside the cockpit "You are visual."

Crossing the Long Isand Sound in a storm at a few thousand feet,
seeing the sea thru breaks in the clouds being torn apart by winds and
thinking how lucky we are to live the life we do.

If you fly, you know you don't have to be a few thousand feet above
the Long Island Sound in IMC to know you are lucky to live the life
you do.
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Nostalgia Panic Piloting 4 November 26th 07 05:06 AM
Aviation nostalgia... Jim Baker Piloting 4 May 27th 04 05:01 PM
F104 nostalgia Bjørnar Bolsøy Military Aviation 0 February 3rd 04 01:13 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 08:23 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 AviationBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.