First airplane ride

Silvaire

Silvaire

En-Route
Joined
Oct 10, 2012
Messages
4,799
Display Name
Silvaire
I was 13, they took me up in a 172. Here's the thing, we lived in northwest Indiana and I hadn't been higher than an overpass before so maybe it had a bigger impact on me.
 
Delta, 1986. Business trip, Orlando to Santa Barbara, regarding the gun elevation servo for this beast:

1762697376286.jpeg
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Southwest airlines in the 1970s here.

That's when I started smoking.
Click to expand...
I started smoking in utero, but the 70s transatlantic 747s in livestock class really cemented the memory of eye- and nose-burning menthols. Remember when flying was classy? Me neither.
 
I was flying to my grandparent's place in New Orleans from Will Rogers World Airport in OKC which at the time seemed like the biggest airport in the world which seems crazy now. Speaking to my grandmother about the flight and she said "Make sure you look out the window after it lands so you can watch the back of the engine fall off" Which of course translates to me being on a plane full of people talking about the engine falling off.

I was glued to the window and this quickly became my favorite part of flying as a kid. It was so loud and awesome for those 10 seconds.

1762698821815.png

Modern day thrust reversers are boring visually but I still love the sound when they are engaged.

This is such a core memory
1762699176931.png

First time I flew in my dad's Cherokee as a kid I told my friend who had never flown before, "Just wait until you hear how loud it is when we land."
I was a touch disappointed that the GA experience didn't include the rush at the end.
 
4 in a Connie I think. Minneapolis to San Francisco, or so they tell me, I don’t remember. First I remember was Portland to Great Falls in about 1961 in a DC6. That’s when I started having impure thoughts about Stewardesses.
 
Posted this before... some time in the mid 90's. I'm on the left. Grass strip owned by one of our farm landlords. His son John on the right and his tri-pacer. He said he bought the plane to use the engine on an experimental, but it flew so nice he couldn't bring himself to scrap it. Anyway, I still farm around that strip, and this day introduced me to the high I've been chasing ever since. It took me 30 years, but i got there.

I was happy I later got to thank Dean & John for that day and a few other times they took me up. It was pretty cool getting to talk to him about my training and show him pictures of my plane when i bought it. Later, we talked over pictures of my engine rebuild and RV project shortly before he passed. He was always a tinkerer and started a few homebuilts before finally finishing one in retirement.

IMG_20211105_211018286.jpg
 
1946, Piper Cub, with my Dads instructor. Pure thrill!

Next was an emergency 3 day pass home, DC 3, Super Connie from Ft Gordon GA to Washington National, regular
Connie back to Augusta. Not a fun trip, overall.
 
1967. I was a 21-year-old news reporter working in Green Bay. The TV station chartered a small plane to fly me to Land O' Lakes to interview Jim Lovell, who was vacationing there after a space shot. A year later I was a student pilot in the Air Force. I had only three airplane rides before my first lesson.
 
1945 as a baby in the baggage compartment of a Piper J-5. Dad was already an instructor back then. Mother had soloed but stopped going up alone after I was born. It was just our little family up in the beautiful blue sky.
 
I was about 10, Dad (not a pilot, except for R/C models) bought me a plane ride at the local airport (Ramapo, now closed) for my birthday. Almost certainly a C-172, I sat in front and Dad sat in back and of course the pilot let me fly the plane. The main thing I remember was the apparent size of the vehicles on the ground as we climbed... "The cars look as small as Tonka trucks... now they're as small as Corgi cars... now they're as small as Matchbox cars...!"

7 years later after learning to fly elsewhere I was renting 172s from that FBO.
 
Not sure - either the back seat of (probably) a 172 flown by a family friend or with my dad in a Navion. Probably middle schoolish age (but back then, it was called junior high...).
First commercial flight was from Detroit to Chicago for a job interview after I graduated from College (got the job).
 
Half Fast said:
Delta, 1986. Business trip, Orlando to Santa Barbara, regarding the gun elevation servo for this beast:

View attachment 147015
Click to expand...
Raytheon? There was another defense contractor back then, Del something or another. I lived there until 81 and Delta wasn’t there. I visited frequently and don’t remember Delta. Did you maybe buy the ticket from them and fly on something else?
 
I was 4 years old when my mom and I flew from North Carolina to meet my dad in Lawton Oklahoma in a DC-3. That is my earliest memory, so it made a big impression on me in 1956. In 1973, I dropped out of college for a year to dive for treasure in Central America. I was part of a group looking for the Spanish Galleon named Atocha. Mel Fisher eventually found that vessel off the coast of Florida. When I flew to Utila Island from the Honduran coastal town of La Ceiba, my ride was a DC-3 again. The pilot kept the tailwheel off the ground as he taxied the plane to the "terminal" on the crushed coral runway. Those flights were a big part of my interest in becoming a pilot in 1976. That, and the fact that we didn't find the Atocha's treasure...
 
I don't know how old I was but my mother and I took a flight on a Piedmont Regional turboprop from Lynchburg VA to New York to visit her parents in Mamaroneck. My younger sister was with us also. When I was about 13 my dad took us to an EAA fly-in at New London VA and I got a ride in a side-by-side rag&tube taildragger. I watched as the pilot operated the control stick, saw the cables move and move the ailerons, and the wings reaction to bank the airplane for a turn. I immediately knew that I could do this! Five years later I started taking flying lessons near Richmond.
 
luvflyin said:
Raytheon? There was another defense contractor back then, Del something or another. I lived there until 81 and Delta wasn’t there. I visited frequently and don’t remember Delta. Did you maybe buy the ticket from them and fly on something else?
Click to expand...

I was with Martin Marietta, today Lockheed Martin, and visiting Delco in Santa Barbara. Delco is probably who you’re thinking of.

I thought I flew Delta. Orlando was a Delta hub back then, but I could be mistaken. As I recall, we flew into LAX then took something small up to SB.
 
1978, JFK to Heathrow on a DC-10, Laker Airways. I thought it was the greatest thing ever.
 
1953.... I had had polio and been taken by ambulance from our home NE of the Quad Cities, to University of Iowa hospital in Iowa City. When I was released after a few weeks, a friend of dad's flew him out in his (practically new at that point) Cessna 195 to bring me home. Imagine a 5-year-old in the back seat of the C195, staring out the window at a full moon over the snow and listening to that round engine!! Oh, yeah....instant love affair!

Jim
 
1967. 14 years old. In 172 (that was already old) with my uncle and a couple other adults, going to the Abbottsford airshow. Big day. I don't remember the flight home; probably slept through it all. Wandering around the airshow all day in the hot sun will do that.
 
Half Fast said:
I was with Martin Marietta, today Lockheed Martin, and visiting Delco in Santa Barbara. Delco is probably who you’re thinking of.

I thought I flew Delta. Orlando was a Delta hub back then, but I could be mistaken. As I recall, we flew into LAX then took something small up to SB.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Delco.
 
Half Fast said:
I was with Martin Marietta, today Lockheed Martin, and visiting Delco in Santa Barbara. Delco is probably who you’re thinking of.
Click to expand...

I’ve visited and done projects with both major optics players in SB/Goleta.
 
Half Fast said:
Yep. Lockheed’s Santa Barbara Focalplane business is located in the former Delco building.
Click to expand...
Worked with them on a few projects, and was working with Uncle Ray on next gen EODAS when I retired. Don't know if the company won that business, but I supplied into L3 on the original EODAS for most of my career. Just a few of the many programs/platforms I worked over my time.
 
First ride was in my grandfather’s Aztec from Eunice, LA to Panama City airport (the old one at the east edge of the bay). Second ride was the same in his Navajo. Third was from PC back to Eunice in a Turbine Commander owned by one of his buddies. I actually was a bit disappointed in the Commander since I was riding in the jump seat and had no outside view. Still beat a 9 hour car ride.
 
A discovery flight in a Cherokee 140 in 1972 or thereabouts, with my then girlfriend (now wife) in the "back seat".

Followed by a few years later after I got my first full time job out of college, in a Cessna 150 taking my first flying lesson
 
bcool said:
A discovery flight in a Cherokee 140 in 1972 or thereabouts,...
Click to expand...
So, in other words, you began your aeronautical journey on the straight and narrow path of low-wing enlightment, but then....
bcool said:
...in a Cessna 150 taking my first flying lesson
Click to expand...
you succombed to the dark side and backslid into high-wing hell.

From your avatar, I assume you, like the prodigal who found himself eating with pigs in a foreign land, eventually repented of your evil ways and came home to low-wing righteousness. May you be forever blessed.
 
Mine was in a very ratty Cherokee 180 with a very strange individual in the left seat.At that point in life (12-13?) I didn’t care what or who,I just wanted to fly.
 
My first ride was in the late ‘60s when I was about 2. My dad would strap me and my older brother into the back seat of the Champ. We were too small to be able to see out the window, so we just wanted to do loops and wingovers. I think he said one time that we called them undercroaks and overflips.

I have a memory of Dad with one foot on the entry step taking a couple of hops on the other foot while getting in…he must’ve set the throttle a little high when he propped it.
 
Last edited:
1970-something. Our radio club was paired with a CAP group to do traffic spotting on Labor Day, I was in the left rear seat of a 172 and that was all it took. I was hooked. It just took forever to accomplish my goal.
 
I was three weeks old and my Uncle took me flying... my Mom was not happy with him, but it was too late, I was addicted.

I grew up with two Uncles who flew. One of them, my Uncle Clarence Swindle, not only flew, but he was an A&P/IA and managed the Perry Lefors Airport in Pampa, TX. This weekend, I got to give two of his Great-Grandkids their first airplane rides. They both loved it and are ready to go again. I've given a lot of first rides over the years, but these were pretty special!

Taylor was really excited, because when she looked down as we were flying... her name was on the hangars! I'm based in Taylor, Texas! She also thought it was cool hearing all of the Taylor radio calls.
578081697_10234804389363323_7261453943265903126_n.jpg
578542389_10234804389403324_6502699769662821846_n.jpg


And one of me around their age about to go for a ride with my Uncle Terry. Check out those bell bottoms!
IMG_8992.jpg
 
Last edited:
First flight I was a CAP cadet got a ride in a c119 from summer cap . First commercial flight was from Boston to Newark to Texas for Air Force basic try
 
Went to a local college in Pennsylvania and my Dad took a job in Wichita - flew (American, I think) out to visit for Christmas break. Toured the Cessna plant. Flew home - fascinated. That Spring I did a “discovery flight” for $5 in a Piper Cherokee. Took/passed my check ride in a Citabria that December (1966). Never went beyond Private SEL and didn’t fly for 37 years. Now retired and having fun with my Ercoupe.
 
1957, Eastern Airlines DC-7B from MDW to MIA. To visit the grandparents over Christmas vacation at school. 2nd first flight was in the front seat of Uncle Art's J-3. Uncle Art was a P-38 pilot during the war.
 
Half Fast said:
So, in other words, you began your aeronautical journey on the straight and narrow path of low-wing enlightment, but then....

you succombed to the dark side and backslid into high-wing hell.

From your avatar, I assume you, like the prodigal who found himself eating with pigs in a foreign land, eventually repented of your evil ways and came home to low-wing righteousness. May you be forever blessed.
Click to expand...
Right on, brother!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top