Your most scary flight

Lots of scares over the years, including some close calls in Vietnam. But even before that I had a memorable flight here in the US. We were flying a C-130 from Florida, I think, back to home base in Topeka, Kansas. It was late at night, and there was a line of thunderstorms stretching from Texas up to Lake Michigan. We didn't really want to go home, but the command post said they needed our airplane that night. Orders are orders. I don't remember all the guys I flew with, but on that flight, it was Capt. Neil Curley.

As we approached the storms, we could see lots of lightning. I asked Center if there were any pireps, and the controller said no airliner had even attempted to get through or over the storms. We knew we couldn't fly as high as those guys, so into the fray we went. Orders are orders.

The turbulence started immediately, and it took both pilots to keep the wings mostly level. There was no way to control our altitude. Radio contact was gone... nothing but static. I looked out at the right wing, and during a lightning flash, I could see it flexing up and down. Holy crap! How much stress can that wing take?

At one point, we entered a period of hail. There were blue sparks all over the windscreen just in front of my face, and I remember thinking if that glass breaks, I will die.

Our navigator was a new guy, just out of nav school. He was trying to give us heading changes based on radar, but the truth was, all we could do is try to stay upright and ride the updrafts and downdrafts. Now and then we'd pop out of the clouds during a lightning flash and see the towering cumulous all around us.

Eventually we came out the other side into calm darkness. I don't know how long we were in the thunderstorms, but now we had no idea where we were. After a while, we discovered we were near Tulsa, Oklahoma, a long way south of our course to Topeka. But we did re-establish radio contact and were cleared direct to our home base. I don't think there was any conversation the rest of the way, other than necessary checklists and ATC communications. Now, more than 50 years later, I clearly remember walking down the crew entrance stairs onto the wet parking ramp, and thinking about kissing the ground.
 
Only one that I'd say was scary. I was flying home in the club PA-28 from my second Gastons Fly-in, circa 2007, about a year since I passed my PPL ride. The ride over was bumpy (northern Arkansas/western TN in June), so everyone suggested I go home high, 9500, to be in cooler more stable air. Forecast is decent, potential scattered TS starting mid-afternoon on, so I depart 9am to get out before the anticipated activity.

About the time I reach 9500, I find I'm flying through a corridor of clouds, but the corridor is going my general direction so I roll with it. Until I find that I'm walled in to the front. Bang a 180 and find a wall to the rear, I'm now walled in on all sides. Look down, can see the ground, so I start spiralling down through the hole. About the time I get established in bank, lightning flashes across the windscreen, the thunder is loud enough to be heard through the noise cancelling headphones, and then the heavy rain. I tell center that I'm switching to flight service to get some advice on which way to run. As I'm talking to radio, the turbulence starts. After a few seconds it dawns on my to check my gauges, and I find my bank is 45* and increasing with increasing airspeed approaching redline.

I tell radio to standby, yank the throttle to idle (shock cooling be damned), shallow the bank, and gentle pull until I bring the speed down to Va. I then continued to do nothing but pretend to be an IFR pilot and keep the bank at standard rate and speed at Va as I buck and bronc down through the clouds. I locked onto those gauges as if my life depended on it.

I come out the bottom at 3500ft, storm still building, and I ask radio for guidance. They give me a vector they say will quickly get me away from the strom, so I head that way and get back with center to tell them what happened and where I'm going. I spent the rest of the flight bouncing along at 3000 (deck was still about 3500 give or take). Radio said I should not encounter any more convective activity along my path, and I prayed that was true. I think I was still a little shaky when I landed.

I called my CFI the next day and started instrument lessons.
 
I've been fortunate...or at least young and dumb enough...to not have many scary moments.

When I was a fresh PPL, I was out building time on XCs. One on particular flight I was cruising at 5,500, fat, dumb, and happy on flight following. I happened to be looking out the left side window when I caught a split second glance of a Mooney (I remember the tail clear as day) going the opposite direction, level, and just a wingspan away. As fast as it was there, it was gone, then I felt the slight bump of wake to confirm I didn't imagine it. I queried the Center controller if he had anything on radar and told him what just happened, he said he wasn't showing anything. I was young enough it didn't really affect me. Fate is the hunter.

The only time I've had the hair on my neck stand up might sound silly, but was when flying over the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri at 1,000 AGL. I was flying lower than usual on that trip to stay clear of the bases and visually thread my way around some scattered T-storms. Now I've flown over remote areas before, including some rather sparse areas of Ontario, and never considered the risk that much. But for some reason that day it popped in my head that if the engine quit, there wasn't a clearing, road, or anywhere I could put down safely, and if I went down in the trees I'd be on my own for quite a while. First time I've really considered my own mortality while flying an airplane. I must be getting older and wiser, or at least the former.
 
Ordinary day in Vietnam, early in 1970. Operating a UH-1H on routine missions out of Chu Lai. The weather was normal for that time of year, with clouds and haze. I got word to pick up a Navy petty officer at Quang Ngai and take him out to a boat. That was it—no other coordinating instructions such as the location of the boat. I thought let’s give this a look and do what we can do. We land at Quang Ngai, the pax comes out, gets on board, and says fly heading 093. I ask how far and he says he doesn’t know exactly, but estimates 30-40 NM. Off we go eastbound, crossing the coast line shortly, and on our way out over the South China Sea. Not seeing anything on the horizon, at all. Flying 093 degrees with autopilot precision, though. Fly and fly, and after 20 to 25 minutes I see a dot out there. Damned if we’re not heading straight at it. Yeah, it was close to 50 miles out but at least we found it. Worrying about engine failure now took a back seat to worrying about the next phase of the mission: offloading my pax securely.

I got closer to the boat and started coming up with my plan. One of the problems with that particular mission is that we had not been assigned a radio frequency, so I have no way to contact the boat except by over flying it.

Soon the boat is right there. It’s making good speed into the wind, and I notice choppy waves in the water. It’s a small boat, which I was informed later was a Coast Guard cutter. What it was doing in that part of the world I never figured out. It was a boat just barely large enough to have a helicopter landing pad. It also had tall radio and radar antennas of every description in the immediate vicinity of the pad. I notice it’s flashing lights at me but I don’t know their code.

Circling the boat at low altitude I could see an individual with a helmet and goggles on a platform adjacent to the helipad. He was waving semaphores in each hand. Little good that did. So I figured an approach azimuth that gave the maximum clearance from the antennas and swung wide around to set up for landing. So far, so good, except that the boat was really going up and down as I could see by getting closer. And the little man was waving those flags faster.

About 100 meters out I was down to a manageable speed but realized that pad was rapidly moving target, rising up and down, up and down. So I approached to a high hover over the pad, noticing that after waving his flags in a blur, the little man had dived over the side of his platform and disappeared. At least we were temporarily safe, having dodged obstacles successfully, so far.

Now the problem was the pad was going up and down at least 15-20 feet if not more. But I had good aircraft control and plenty of power so it was game on. As the boat would rise, I would drop a bit to catch it at the top and follow it down, but not too much. Up and down the pad and I went until I got the rhythm of it. On about the third or fourth up and down cycle I got within about 5 feet and firmly planted the collective down, getting us on the deck with a jolt but still moving which was an exceedingly strange experience.

Pax debarked immediately. As soon as he was clear I saw the little helmeted man peek his head up and start waving his flags or paddles, I honestly forget which. But it was moot. I asked the crew were we clear left, right, and overhead? They said yes so I waited for an upswing and pulled max torque straight up at the top of the heave. I think the Navy was glad to get rid of us. I was pleased, also.
 
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MauleSkinner said:
Good news is you came out on the other side, not the original side, so you didn’t have to do it again.

Question, though…was the airplane usable for whatever it had to be home for?
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These are the same aircraft used by the hurricane hunters, so I think it was probably right back to work.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I know we have some old bold pilots in here, and probably some young and dumb ones too. So let's hear your most hair raising aviation tale.
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Turbulence southeast of Yakutat in a Cub last November was the worst flight I've had in 25 years. It's not too hair raising aside from the fact that it was bad enough to make the engine sputter a few times during the negative G. The Garmin G3X accelerometer only indicated +2.5/-1 G but it must've been the rapid oscillation between those two extremes. There were localized 70 knot winds being sucked through glacial valleys into the ocean by a "bomb cyclone" that was 1000 miles south from where I was flying. It would be 30 minutes of perfect calm interspersed with 2-3 minutes of hell. You know it's not good when you're at full power, Vy and you're still descending at 1000 fpm @ 500 AGL!

My mistakes were only looking at winds aloft (forecast to be ~30 knots) and PIREPS (there were none due to remoteness) instead of the windy app. I also should've just bitten the bullet and flown 5 miles offshore, which is what I did on the way back, reading the waves to avoid turbulence, and it was not bad at all, even though windy app said conditions were 75-80% as strong as the really bad day. Of course I didn't want to go offshore in case the engine quit. Overall I should not have gone on the trip, but I did, learned some stuff, and the airplane is none the worse for wear after a close inspection. My helmet at the least saved me from some noggin bruises, at most might've saved me from a concussion because I did hit the internal tubing above the pilot seat several times, despite having the seatbelt as tight as it would go.

Turbulence is at about 2:35 and I didn't actually film the worst of it.
 
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flyingcheesehead said:
I was on my way to Michigan one fine summer day in the pre-datalink weather days, bumping around at 9,000 feet in a broken layer a ways south of Green Bay. Thunderstorms weren't forecast, but I was looking up and ahead when I hit the breaks in the layer just to be sure.

And then, right when I flew into it, a cloud got excited. With nary a bump, all of a sudden my VSI did a backflip and the altimeter was winding up like crazy. I pulled power back to idle and pushed the yoke forward until I was up against Vne, but the VSI was still pegged at >2000fpm. I called Green Bay Approach and told them I was in an uncontrolled climb, just in case they had anyone above me. Eventually the cell spit me out, and I descended down to 13,000 and continued on my way.

I may have also had some words for them about not warning me about that storm cell when the frequency was very quiet, but they said they weren't painting anything. That's when I realized the plane was still dry too. The lesson there is that there was likely nothing that could have shown me that cell was going to do what it did, other than possibly a stormscope. Since there was no precip yet, nobody on the ground had it on radar. Of course, even onboard radar wouldn't have painted it, and that's with no delay like we have to deal with when using NEXRAD datalink today.

A few minutes later, Green Bay told me "okay, NOW we're painting that cell."

TL;DR: Brand new building thunderstorms hide themselves very well, but they're still scary.
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Had an experience just like this in a Baron in Texas; short 30 nightime IFR minute flight, called FSS right before launching and get the "radar is clear" briefing. Next thing I know I'm in a cloud with severe turbluence and lightning everwwhere hoping that the 40 year old airplane would hold together. Radios became so staticy that comms were not possible. When it spit me out the other side, I cancelled, then diverteted to the nearest airport. Weather became very stormy at intended destination so I ended up sitting there for 2 hours. It was a long time ago so maybe T-storm forecasting wasn't quite as good. It is #2 on my list.

3rd on my list would be in the 747 freighter at 30W over the north atlantic, about 90 minutes from the closest airport, when the Main Deck cargo fire warning came on and stayed on for an hour. There are no fire extinguishers in that compartment (other than crew-operated handheld) so the procedure is to depressurize and descend to 25,000, which we did. They say you have 18 minutes to get on the ground before survival is unlikely with a maindeck fire. We got into some cloud/turbulence at 25,000, and the First Officer came to the cockpit from his crew rest carrying his portable oxygen. He exclaimed that we "must be coming apart" since the airplane was shaking (turbulence) and we needed to ditch. Fortunately we disregarded that input. Luckily in the end it was just a false alarm, but it was fun flying M 0.92 to Shannon for a pint of guiness during the debrief!
 
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I don’t have scary flights. I just have scary things happen on normal flights….

Not sure if that’s better or :dunno:


The times that really come to mind:
1) approaching the airport to cross midfields and enter the downwind on the other side in a bright yellow non-electric piper cub (read: no adsb out), a lance doing the exact same thing blows by me at 120+ kts 30 feet off my port, same altitude.
(He grinned and waved at me on my roll out while he was taxiing to the FBO)
(No it wasn’t Jim or Neal)

2) taking off on a mega humid southern Tennessee afternoon at 300’ AGL in a carb’s 172 when the engine coughs… long enough to start looking for which trees look most soft. Of course engine roars back to life and I continue on my merry way.

3) again in the bright yellow non-electric piper cub, I’m flying around low minding my own business when I look to my 3 o clock and see another non-electric night yellow piper cub 25’ below me pass below.

4) the one time in the fast business aircraft I fly when ATC vectors me over an airport at 3000’ 20 nm from my destination… right under where another airplane was doing steep spirals. I get an RA to descend and immediately wake up all the pax with some negative Gs.
 
I heard about this guy that was scud running about 400 AGL over 7000’ terrain. He saw a tower on his nose and did a little jog to miss it. He has kept this screen shot to remind himself what an idiot he is.
 

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Closest to a Code Brown I've come so far was a solo night currency flight in Slidell, LA, taking off to the north. I'd recently done a couple of clear skies night landings but it was a decade prior to that I had done any decent amount of night flying, and really I was just looking for an excuse to go flying. I was a freshly-minted CFI but instructing part time while still in the Navy, might have had 10 hours of dual given at this point and probably 250 TT.

Weather was OKish, few miles visibility, ceiling just barely high enough for pattern altitude, but I was just staying in the pattern so brakes released and throttle to the firewall. Rotated, nose came up above the treeline at the north end of the field, and complete and utter pitch black in front of me. One of the few times I've actually said "oh ****!" out loud in a plane. Eyes immediately back inside on the instruments, made the left turn to crosswind and as soon as I was wings level I breathed a massive sigh of relief as Slidell was fully in view once more. Did the full pattern and landed, taxied back, gathered myself, and did about 6 more that night as it turned into great practice.

The only other major scare I've had was at that same flight school, same plane, a few weeks prior, when a student tried to kill us by not flaring for landing coming back in from a long cross country. He'd needed help the entire way and I guess had just given up at that point as we came back to the home field. At a minimum I keep my right hand under the corner of the yoke when I'm not the one landing, so I was able to take the controls quickly, but it was very concerning how far down the approach he went with no indication of a round out. He didn't say a word the entire taxi in or shutdown. Once we were back in the office I kind of chuckled a little and said, "yeah, we're gonna need to work on those some more." I'm pretty sure that was the last flight he had with us at that school.


*ETA: Not true, had another student try to kill me in Gulfport. A bit more experienced by that point, but still with a lot to learn. Misjudged an approach in a busy pattern and let a student fly us into 737 wake turbulence behind a Navy P-8 also doing touch-and-goes. Felt slightly better about it when a much more experienced instructor did the same thing months later.
 
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I've got 2 for a tie.

One was over 40 years ago now, as a crew chief on a Navy CH-46 on a dark night sitting through an instrument training flight. Had the aft gear box oil supply line (big f'n oil line) sheared off at an improperly installed AN fitting. Between the time I found the leak, pilots noted the increasing oil temp, and we touched down on the edge of airport property, we'd pumped all our aft gearbox oil overboard and were likely seconds away from wadding that helicopter up like a paper ball.

The second one was a couple of years ago, flying some gentle rolls and 3g loops in my trusty little Sonerai. The VW 1835 engine is carbureted, and has no starter (hand prop only). Pulled up in the vertical, intending to do a humpty-bump, over rotated slightly past the vertical and unconsciously pushed the stick to correct (wrong move!!!). The engine quit immediately and the prop was stopped. I was about 4,000' agl at this point. And, since there was nothing I could do but hopefully attempt 1 air start before landing off-field was assured, I just pulled it on over in a sloppy humpty and let the airspeed build on the downline. At 125mph, the prop started turning again, and the engine started and ran like a swiss watch the rest of the flight. I wasn't scared till it was over. But, my knees were a little weak when I climbed outta the cockpit that day. Never made that mistake again.
 
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Taking off from Jackpot Nevada(5200-foot elevation), on an 85-degree day, runway 15(6300 feet), 200-foot obstacle 5000 feet from the runway. We are 100 feet off the runway in ground effect when the engine decides to die >2/3 of the way down the runway. Cut power. We make it back onto the runway, go past the yellow chevrons at ~20 knots. The gravel we are riding on goes down 20 feet, we stop right before entering tumbleweed. Turn on the engine, it works. Turn around on a dime(free castoring nosewheels!), go full power, get back onto the runway, and then park and debug using JPI. Booked another night at the casino, and took off the next day, to continue the journey to Oshkosh.

Flight was less than a minute, but it is the scariest I have ever had.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I trust there were numerous near misses of which I remained blissfully unaware and probably asleep in the back. The two times I accepted an invite to sit in the cockpit, I both regretted. One was a night low level refuel in an MH-53. The other was an MH-47E in the Colorado mountains at night in winter. Military helo pilots play for keeps.
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I need to hear this story, as I probably know some of the persons involved!
 
Flight instructing in a Warrior back in the 80s. Doing slow flight with a student on a hazy summer day and had my head down explaining something related to what we were doing.
As I looked up a Baron went in front of us right to left at our altitude. It was close enough that I can still see the Baron pilots red tie to this day.
Scared the crap out of us. We called it a day after that
 
Busflyer said:
Flight instructing in a Warrior back in the 80s. Doing slow flight with a student on a hazy summer day and had my head down explaining something related to what we were doing.
As I looked up a Baron went in front of us right to left at our altitude. It was close enough that I can still see the Baron pilots red tie to this day.
Scared the crap out of us. We called it a day after that
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I have had some near mid-airs. One time, flying from Kalamazoo to Wisconsin with my wife, daughter, son-in-law and newborn granddaughter, we were heading southwest to go around the south end of Lake Michigan. Normally I'd go direct across the lake, but not with an infant on board.

We're cruising on an IFR clearance when suddenly, South Bend Approach says, "Bonanza 85-Tango, turn right, no, left and descend immediately!" I start right, then bank left and push the yoke forward, just as a Cessna 182 passes over us, heading northeast at 8,000 feet. Maybe 50 feet above us.

The controller starts apologizing, saying it was a radar pop up, and he was on the line to Kalamazoo Approach to warn them this guy was coming their way at an IFR altitude and not talking to anyone. Without his warning, we would have collided head-on and killed everyone.

Another time, on an instructional flight in a Cessna 150, we were climbing out toward our practice area, and I was head down, looking at the owner's manual. I heard the student pilot inhale sharply, and looked over at him and saw a twin coming straight at us, about to hit us. I grabbed the yoke and pulled hard, and the twin went right underneath us. I'm sure the pilot never saw us.
 
OK it's 1954. I'm a 16 year old solo student flying out of Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale Calif. ( The terminal and control tower stand to this day having been restored by Disney)

I am master of the Aeronca Champ. I am a PILOT !! I bought a war surplus Navy quick attachable seat pack parachute. (I did have it professionally packed) I carried this around in my car to attract pretty girls. ( No girl ever noticed it.)

A huge fly in the ointment were the presence of two other teen aged boys at the flying school. I was 16 they were 18. I was a solo student. They were private pilots and student commercial, instrument and multi engine students.

They started in on me, bad mouthing my flying ability, and making fun of my parachute. I defended my parachute by telling them of all the parachute jumps I had made.
God immediately punished me for lying!

Put up or shut up I was told. "I'll take you up so you can jump" said one of the kids. I went and signed out a Champ. I was doing some pretty serious talking to the Man upstairs. He didn't choose to make the kids get sick or change their minds.

I'm in the back seat of the champ with my chute on and we're heading out to where I shall jump. The other kid is tagging along to watch in a T-Craft.
We arrived over Rosamond Dry Lake at 8-9 thousand feet or so I remember.

I gave my Soul to God and squeezed out the door. I remember wondering when I was going to fall, then saw the Champ between my feet.
The opening was violent and I remember seeing stars in my eyes. I was elated. I had done it, I even still had the rip cord.

The guy in the Champ would circle me then go underneath me. Each time he did this the slipstream would make the chute oscillate. I would curse him then
ask the Lord's forgiveness for taking his name in vain. This continued all the way down. I landed with a splat, elated to have done it and survived.

Both planes landed on the lake bed. I put my chute in the luggage compartment of the Champ and climbed in the back. The kid said I'm flying back with my pal,
You rented the Champ, you fly it back.

My memory is being more frightened of the flight back than the jump. I had not made my X-country yet. I don't remember if I was still restricted to the pattern.
That way he pointed and off they went.

Needless to say I found my way back to GCAT. Those kids never harassed me again. No one would have believed me if I had bragged about it.

I continued jumping out of airplanes. I met my wife in 1956 when she picked my up after a jump.
 
pmanton said:
OK it's 1954. I'm a 16 year old solo student flying out of Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale Calif. ( The terminal and control tower stand to this day having been restored by Disney)

I am master of the Aeronca Champ. I am a PILOT !! I bought a war surplus Navy quick attachable seat pack parachute. (I did have it professionally packed) I carried this around in my car to attract pretty girls. ( No girl ever noticed it.)

A huge fly in the ointment were the presence of two other teen aged boys at the flying school. I was 16 they were 18. I was a solo student. They were private pilots and student commercial, instrument and multi engine students.

They started in on me, bad mouthing my flying ability, and making fun of my parachute. I defended my parachute by telling them of all the parachute jumps I had made.
God immediately punished me for lying!

Put up or shut up I was told. "I'll take you up so you can jump" said one of the kids. I went and signed out a Champ. I was doing some pretty serious talking to the Man upstairs. He didn't choose to make the kids get sick or change their minds.

I'm in the back seat of the champ with my chute on and we're heading out to where I shall jump. The other kid is tagging along to watch in a T-Craft.
We arrived over Rosamond Dry Lake at 8-9 thousand feet or so I remember.

I gave my Soul to God and squeezed out the door. I remember wondering when I was going to fall, then saw the Champ between my feet.
The opening was violent and I remember seeing stars in my eyes. I was elated. I had done it, I even still had the rip cord.

The guy in the Champ would circle me then go underneath me. Each time he did this the slipstream would make the chute oscillate. I would curse him then
ask the Lord's forgiveness for taking his name in vain. This continued all the way down. I landed with a splat, elated to have done it and survived.

Both planes landed on the lake bed. I put my chute in the luggage compartment of the Champ and climbed in the back. The kid said I'm flying back with my pal,
You rented the Champ, you fly it back.

My memory is being more frightened of the flight back than the jump. I had not made my X-country yet. I don't remember if I was still restricted to the pattern.
That way he pointed and off they went.

Needless to say I found my way back to GCAT. Those kids never harassed me again. No one would have believed me if I had bragged about it.

I continued jumping out of airplanes. I met my wife in 1956 when she picked my up after a jump.
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Thread winner.
 
Nothing like a lot of you guys, but partial power loss at about 500 AGL on departure really got my attention.

Twice.
 
You guys have some experiences that I'm having trouble comprehending, in terms of scale of risk. Reminds me of guy I knew who took a sniper bullet to the chest during the landing on Okinawa. My little things are trivial in comparison.

But for the sake of humor, I will relate an experience that woke me up at the time. Not as a pilot, not even an actual flight yet....I'm a passenger in the back of a USAir flight scheduled from Charlotte to Albany, and I'm about 18. Everything was completely routine, until the acceleration stopped and the braking started. This was in the 80's, and the ntsb hadn't yet declared that there wouldn't be any accidents, so I'm doing the math in my head. I didn't know what the odds were that everything would be fine, but for whatever reason I wasn't scared at all...maybe because I knew there wasn't a thing I could do about it, except make a note of where the emergency exits were in the event we hit something. I'm just sitting there, processing how my 18 years had been, what I'd said last to the people I cared about, maybe regretting a few things here and there. Pretty serious stuff that seemed like I was pondering for a long time, but in reality it was likely a couple of seconds.

Then the passenger beside me, little old lady, makes a funny face and says "this isn't normal", breaking my train of thought. So, being the ever helpful (I think at the time) but really kind of a jerk turned and said "no, it's an aborted takeoff". She looked confused, so I continued. "It either means there's something wrong with the plane, or something blocking our way, and they're trying to stop the plane before we hit it or run out of runway." Young me wasn't necessarily known for a good bedside manner. Anyway, I go back to pondering my existence, and she's quiet.

A few minutes later...which was really more likely a couple of seconds...she says with relief "Oh, that can't be it. If that was it they would tell us over the intercom." Ever helpful me turns and just says "they probably have way too much going on up there to be worried about talking to us right now." And I finish my thoughts. Apparently we were the only two non-crew members on the thing that had any idea something was unusual, because no one else made a noise until the plane came to a stop. The lady beside me and I shared a glance, which I interpreted at the time as "we're OK", but was more likely "you're a jerk and we're ok".

Pilot comes on the PA and announces that some lowly commuter plane had been in our path so we had to abort the takeoff. That we'd be taxing back, and they'd put us first in line but we'd still be 15 minutes late to Albany. Many groans onboard...like anyone should be in a hurry to get to Albany. Lady beside me asks "why so long", I say it's because they probably don't taxi at 50 mph, she nods and we don't say a word to each other for the rest of the flight.

So to anyone reading along, and to the old lady, I apologize for the long story and for being way less than socially aware then, and often now.
 
Working on my PPL, flying a 172 with my instructor & another CFI in the back seat. Cleared to land at KALN and on short final when another plane zoomed over the top of us so close (heading for the runway) I could count the rivets on its belly

I didn't think it was possible to jump out of your seat with the belts on, but I think both of my instructors did
 
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