Coolest and Craziest Aviation Stories

SkyChaser

Pattern Altitude
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SkyChaser
So, I'm riding back with my family across the central US (for what seems like the millionth time in the last month or two). After spending more time on the phone than is probably good for me, finishing several books, and entertaining an eight year old for a few hours, I'm rather bored of staring at the scenery I could probably see with my eyes closed. Anyone care to share their coolest or craziest aviation story? Most of the ones on Google aren't that cool or crazy, so I thought I'd ask here.
 
Eeriest flight we ever had was a night flight a few days after 9/11 when they opened the sky to IFR only. The ATC silence and everybody’s mood was something unique. Not cool, not crazy, but in a way the most memorable flight of my life. Made me appreciate how much we take our country and our freedom, including our flying, for granted.

But if you want cool and crazy the one I think of first is the guy that passed out from carbon monoxide and his plane landed itself safely in a snow covered field after it ran out of fuel.

https://www.faa.gov/pilots/safety/pilotsafetybrochures/media/CObroforweb.pdf
 
Well there was that time when I was hanging out in front of the grade school with a bag of candy. I'm not exactly sure how it ties in to the subject except that the judge classified me as a 'flight risk.'
 
I plead the 5th in this thread as well as the flying under bridges thread. Never happened!
 
I’ve got one; low key and not crazy, but it still makes me smile.

A couple of flights after my first solo, I was signed off for solo flight from Morristown to a nearby airport. The first day I exercised that privilege, I taxied out and took off behind a new Gulfstream. Ten minutes later as I overflew Somerset, I gave way to a Stearman that had just departed. Then, as I was approaching Solberg for landing, I again gave way, to the Metlife blimp, which was approaching the mooring it used there for the summer.

In just 19 miles, I felt I had flown through 150 years of aviation history.
 
On my first solo outside the traffic pattern, I bombed my friends with a dozen Twinkies and hit one of them on the head.

I was told it tasted great and the ones caught in a towel were not even mooshed.

Totally legal. Crazier things ensued...
 
Two that come to mind.

I have done a gear up landing in a Champ.

I have aborted a landing at 5ft AGL (go around) in a Glider to go land at another airport.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
I had an engine failure at 100 ft agl on take off. I survived, the plane did not.
 
I answered a phone call on final approach once.
 
On my first solo outside the traffic pattern, I bombed my friends with a dozen Twinkies and hit one of them on the head.

I was told it tasted great and the ones caught in a towel were not even mooshed.

Totally legal. Crazier things ensued...

So basically, you used the Twinkie defense?
 
Earlier this year I was headed to Rough River ;) in a 172. The tailwind pushed my ground speed to ~ 170kts.

That was pretty cool until I tried to land.
 
Quit beating’ round the bush. Who called ya. What did they want. What did you tell them.

Was my buddy I'd known since I was 7.
"Hold on, I'm landing the plane."
"WHAT?!?!?!"
"Yeah, give me 20 seconds."
land
"OK, I'm taxiing what's up?"

I don't remember the rest of the convo.
Then it must have been the tower calling to tell you your radio was on 121.5.

:D
Untowered field. :)
 
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ...

But I survived it!
 
Not really crazy but I swear my Cherokee (Broom Hilda aka BH) has a jealous streak. Every time a new controller is rated in the tower I take them up for a ride to get a feel of what its like on the other side of the radio. That is, the ones I like and have proven that they're not complete asshats. I've taken many new controllers up and have never experienced any type of malfunction when I take the guys up. I've taken five girls up and every time, something breaks or malfunctions. First ride - left strut found leaking after cross country landing. Made it back home with one of the softest landings I could muster. Second ride - amp meter goes wonky - replaced with new volt/amp meter along with new Plane Power alternator and voltage regulator. Third ride - starter takes a dump - replaced with Sky Tec. Fourth ride - alternator wire shorts out NE of Phoenix on the way to Sedona and I'm watching the volts steadily drop on the way back to Tucson with a 20 kt headwind. We landed with 11.9 volts left in the battery and I'm glad the radios didn't quit. On inspection I found the output wire burned in two. Fifth and latest ride - tachometer decides to break. I haven't flown since as I'm replacing the old tach with an engine monitor.

I've found that girls cost me a lot of money and not just the one I'm married to or the two I've helped create. Oddly enough, BH has never had an issue while flying with those three.
 
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Once, I took off from Tahoe International in 0-0 visibility and made sure I stayed above the Glide Slope and on the localizer. Once I got out of the muck, I said “Never again!” BTW, I didn’t have my IFR, either. Of course, this was using my Microsoft Flight simulator.
 
It was not a dark and stormy night.

It was a bright, sunny, cloudless morning in late March. I was airborne, of course, flying a Stearman biplane level at exactly 501 feet above the Atlantic surf along Daytona Beach. Tens of thousands of college students on spring break were sprawled all over the warm sand, the crowd stretching from Miami to St. Augustine. It was the perfect spot we'd been looking for.

Ostensibly, I was towing a banner advertising Ron Jon's surf shop, flying back and forth, up and down the coast. I'd been assigned the region from New Smyrna Beach northward to Flagler Beach. Surreptitously, I was on yet another top secret assignment for the Agency, running a trial of a new chemtrail mix. The crowd of nearly naked young sun worshipers was exactly the test group we needed.

The test mix was a radical new sunscreen and only a secret dosing of a large mass of subjects could prove its efficacy. The new blend was promised to protect the subjects from dying of melanoma thirty years hence. Of course, there were those in the Agency who argued that it did this by killing them with brain tumors in only twenty years, but we don't need to debate the science right now. After all, the sunscreen had been tested extensively on bats and had gained the approval of the renowned Wutan dermatology expert Dr. Phau Chee. Never mind that the Center for Dermatitis Control was arguing that the chemical was only effective if the user also covered his skin with three layers of wool clothing.

I was trying to be as alert as possible, given the distractions of bikini-clad femmes just below. Shortly before takeoff, I had received a classified text message alerting me to the potential for trouble. It seemed that word of our top secret program had been leaked to the American Academy of Dermatology. The dermatologists realized how our little scheme might impact their revenue stream and they were most decidedly unhappy about the matter.

I pondered how the information leak might have occurred. I supposed it was possible, though doubtful, that it had come from the beautiful Russian dermatologist who kept buying me drinks at the Boot Hill Saloon last night. Since I couldn't recall anything I said after the third boilermaker, I didn't really have any evidence she was the one so I dismissed that idea. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed to be Ted, my chief who oversaw the mixing and loading of my tanks. Ted's father was a dermatology tycoon who owned a nationwide chain of drive-thru skin care clinics and stood to lose a fortune if the spraying worked.

No matter the source of the leak, I knew there were risks this morning. Nevertheless, I wasn't really expecting heavy flak and ground fire. As I began my turn at Flagler to begin another southern pass, what I had mistaken for a simple fishing boat proved to be something else entirely. From the hold sprang a veritable army of enraged dermatologists wearing their white lab coats and carrying AR15s. Suddenly I was in a swarm of tracer bullets.

A Stearman loaded down with sunscreen and towing an advertising banner isn't the most maneuverable bird in the sky, so my options for evasive action were limited. Due to the weight of the chem trail tanks, the plane wasn't carrying any serious armament that morning but it still seemed that a counter attack was my best option. I pulled my KelTec P-32 (manufactured at their nearby Cocoa Beach plant, by the way) from my pocket, stuck my arm out, and began my strafing run on the boat.

I suppose those derms had never been in a firefight before as my little peashooter sent them diving for cover or diving overboard. The attack was over, but the damage to my lovely Stearman had been done. She was losing power and if were to limp back to the space shuttle runway, which the Agency had secured for this mission, I would have to reduce my load somehow. It flashed through my mind to drop the Ron Jon's banner, but that would mean giving up the advertising revenue and so was unthinkable. The only thing to do was to use the dump valve on the chem trail tanks, so hundreds of gallons of experimental sunscreen went straight into the Atlantic.

And that's why, if you dine on fresh Florida seafood this summer, you will notice that none of the grouper or snapper are sunburned.
 
501' puts you in violation unless everyone is under 12" tall.
 
This really hot redhead landed at our airport and right away I start hitting on her.. err sorry, strike up a conversation. After a few banters (you know the classics...., come here often, is it hot in here or is it just you, if I followed you home, would you call the police) I was pretty much heading into a strong headwind as she shagging all my best pitches.. anyway struck out, but she let me down like a 172 on a perfect final equipped with the Cessna Land-Oh-Matic...

Afterwards I come to find out it was Patty Wagstaff...

Gents I am here to tell you that her beauty is a good as her flying..
 
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