no problems flying, BUT...

...I had a lucid dream in which the 757 I was on (back, right, behind the wing) struggled to clear a mountain, only to find there was one right behind it, into which we gloriously plowed.

The weird parts were: a) I fealt the squishing and fatal crunch of everything and it HURT, b) my consciousness (i.e. the point in space where "I" am) carried forward 50 feet or so INTO the mountain (like it had soul-momentum or something) before the dream was over, and c) I was ok with it!

Honolulu to Atlanta


the plane had an engine go out about 400 miles from shore wee did an emergence landing somewhere in California and sat in the plane for 3 hours while they "fixed" it got back in the air and had to make a second emergency landing in Fort worth, they had us switch planes. They did a very good job of flying and landing the plane and if they did not tell us about the engine problems after the first landing we would have never known.

The bad part was that when they switched planes we got a smaller one with less cargo space and they told us that all non necessary luggage would be delivered to our home by UPS in the next few days. About a week later we received our 100 lbs of fresh pineapple that was stored in a very hot UPS facility for too long, noting makes a better souvenir of a once in a lifetime vacation then receiving a truck load of rancid fruit

I got seated next to Jumbo McFattykins. He breathed very noisily and had a body odor problem. And his fat spilleth over.

If it were up to me, I would make it so that, if you couldn't fit yourself into the standard seat, you had to be stowed below deck in the cargo hold.

/crate 'em up!

IHateYourFaceYo

go to hell and never bother us again.

heavymetal Duh, because each engine contains a reighndeer that has eaten some of Santa's magical flying deer food.

Obviously, reindeer is not a word that you know how to spell much. Planes floating might be beyond your grasp as well.

Southwest flight, coming back from Vegas to Portland, OR. I had a seat on the right hand side, right by the wing. I heard the engine STOP.

That in and of itself didn't concern me too much since the plane has multiple engines. What concerned me was the fact that they kept trying to re-start it.

Ever try to start an older car on a cold day?

Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na

Gee, they seem really insistent on re-starting that engine.

Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na

I wonder if we should be concerned?

Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na

Why aren't the flight attendants saying anything?

Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na

(engine starts) Yay! I can relax now. (Engine stops again)

Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na

(uh oh)

Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na Na-na-na

They finally got the engine re-started and the rest of the flight was uneventful.

I was on an archaeological expedition, and we were supposed to land in an improvised airfield near some 4000 year-old Greek style ruins. Odd stuff. There was also some legend about the place, something about the place being bad mojo, and dying there would cast your soul to oblivion. I was in one transport, with 2 others. Old military things, IIRC.

So we were on approach, and were going to do a quick lookaround to see how to best land. Suddenly, out of nowhere, these three fighters come out of nowhere, and the lead gets clipped and the two planes go up instantly. We make it out, but something hits our cockpit, and it holds long enough to keep us alive until we hit ground.

A couple people died...one a lot later. We had to OD him with sedative...his lungs were filling with fluid, and we didn't bring the right kits...

But eventually we find this so-called treasure room...it's a friggin' planetarium with some constellations and a pink gas cloud. Needless to say, I was pissed. I could have seen that shiat in 3rd grade.

"Combat landing" video...or at least it's the best I found on a quick search: Video

Looks...um...well...scary.

Well, when i was just learning to fly, a gust of wind flipped my cessna 150 upside down. That was pretty scary. Thank God i had wheels on the top.

Smilin Jay FYW

Watching the fat farker waddle down the aisle towards me with his eye on the empty seat next to me.

Trolley_Dolly
Blowing the first officer during some really bad wake turbulence. I wonder if he ever healed...

Heroine.

On a long-ass flight from Hong Kong to Chicago, I sat in the rear-most seat next to a smokin' Chinese girl from Shenzen.
We spent half the flight making out after talking about her boyfriend at Notre Dame.

Oh wait...you said scary?

Burbank is fantastic. I flew for the first time in about 10 years last month, JFK to Burbank. Perfect flight the whole time, down in Burbank with a smile on my face.

Then I tried the Burbank approach in Flight Sim. That's a tough airport to land at, good thing they took out the gas station across the street.

I was in this really tiny plane flying from PA to Indiana or vice-versa. There were two people flying the plane, and two pilots riding in back (hitching a ride to another airport?)

We started hitting some turbulence, which can be pretty hard to ignore in such a small, noisy plane, but I was doing my best to read my book. Suddenly, the oxygen masks dropped down. I started to panic a little and turned to the pilots behind me. They shrugged and said something like "oh, we probably don't need them. The pressure seems fine..." The oxygen masks had dropped accidentally. Five minutes later, someone finally brought the masks to the attention of the OTHER pilots (the ones flying the plane), who exclaimed that they didn't realize the masks had dropped - they had never pushed the button.

And there was the time a plane landing at Midway ran out of runway. Ran over a car and killed a kid.

I remember that. I was working then. My grandma could never remember that I worked for SkyWest, not SouthWest and rang up my mom freaking out. I was actually working ORD flights then so we got to hear ALL about it.

Once, I was flying from Sharm El Sheikh to Cairo on Egypt Air... first off, Egypt Air is scary as shiat just to think about, look at, whatever... talk about old and busted planes.

Anyhow, the worst part is, this gargantuan arab lady was was seated next to me (I had a window seat). And I mean, she was so huge that they had to literally wedge her into the seat, and then brought out a seat belt extenstion!

I had to piss that whole damn flight, but there was no way this guy was gonna even try to get up.

/complementary beverage... DID NOT WANT
//still traumatized

Nothing too bad yet. Had the pilot-side door pop open right after takeoff one time. Getting a little lost when you're solo and likely to bust a surface class B or the FRZ if you stray off-course is a little disconcerting.

Then there's always getting told there's another plane nearby that you just can't spot. That's never fun.

Hopefully I won't have anything to add after tomorrow's flight.

Mine:

I once got caught in wake turbulence because I was landing too close behind a small airliner ahead of me on final to Scranton. The runway is on the edge of a cliff, so if you undershoot, you splat. Plane rolled 90 degrees right in 3 seconds, yoke hard left having no effect. The roll wasn't violent but it was like trying to stop a cement mixer bare handed -- obviously a force greater than the plane could resist. For a desperate second I thought that I'd have to try rolling it all the way around since it didn't want to go anywhere else (and I'm not qualified for aerobatics). As the plane went knife-edge it dropped below the flight path of the airliner, the condition cleared and I recovered. Involuntary wingover at low altitute.

The lesson was in how I ended up too close. I was number one to land in a right-hand pattern (i.e., clockwise pattern). Airliner was number two to land in a left-hand pattern (counter-clockwise pattern). But it was moving a lot faster, so we both ended up turning base at about the same time in opposite directions (toward each other). So then control says to let him land first. I widened the turn to open up some space, but I still ended up with not enough separation when I turned final. Should have said fark it at that point and gone around the pattern again, but hey, control said it was OK, right? Wrong. Learned never to substitute anyone else's judgment for mine.

on my flight back from moscow, a bunch of american protestant evangelists started praying and witnessing. not only were they returning from an attempt to ruin one of the oldest christian churches in the world, they began harassing this nice woman next to me, who politely explained that she was hindu - and that only encouraged them. i was sure i was next. it couldn't get any worse.

then they began the inflight movie: robots.

followed by sahara.

did i mention the flight was also filled with crazed american families who had just adopted russian children with whom they could not communicate at all, many of whom were old enough to be extremely, screamingly terrified once they figured out they were being removed from their country?

i was pretty sure that cosmic justice was going to crash the plane into greenland.

flying from chicago to germany, after the *seafood* dinner, everybody started lining up for the bathroom. I was about 5 rows in front of the bathrooms, and my 6th sense made me look up in time to dodge a woman as she started to puke up her shrimp in cream sauce.

I ducked, but she still got me hair on the side. I then had the fun of explaining to the german stewardesses what had happened with out know the word puke in german.

*BONUS the lady that puked on me was traveling with her 10 and 11 year old nephews, who were seated behind me and kicked my seat for 5000 miles.

Had a summer job preparing hunting lodges for the paying customers that fall. Most of these places were pretty remote, and required me to fly in via float plane.

One time, as we're taking off, the pilot swore a couple times, told me to hang on, and started to do a canyon run down the river that branched off the lake between the trees. We probably had maybe 5' on each side of the wingtip for a good 4-5 seconds before we managed to get above treetop level.

/he apparently didn't realize the huge propane tanks on-board were FULL.

Then there was this one time my squadron was bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We were coming in from the north, below their radar but we came in too low. I made it but my wingman George Zip wasn't so lucky.

Probably not as scary as most, but sitting in a plane at the Detroit airport waiting to take off, they had already de-iced the plane's wings once. We got in line for take off and it was dumping so hard, they had to come over and de-ice the wings and engine again. I was not down with this. Then I had to fly to Chicago Midway where the runways were just covered with snow. Farking scary. At least I got laid that night.

1.The roller coaster that is the departure from John Wayne. It felt like a fighter jet takeoff, straight up, then it immediately feels like they cut the engines and glide out over the water because of noise restrictions over Orange County (total shock the first time) you can always tell who on the flight has never done that before.

Videos:
UA757 out of SNA
WN737 out of SNA

In both videos you can hear the engines power back after takeoff and the plane doesnt climb again until its out over the ocean.

Oh, long thread. I doubt I will check it for responses in the morning.

1)Losing half the engines flying out of O'Hare, making an emergency landing at Midway (Chicago's smaller airport). Shortest flight I ever took.

2) Flying out of Beijing to Hong Kong. First the cabin filled with what looked like smoke. It didn't smell, so we figured it was the AC. Then when we are in line on the runway to takeoff, all of a sudden the engines go full throttle without any sort of warning over the intercom or any sort of instructions. We scrambled to put on our belts and saw the flight attendants making a mad dash to find seats. Well it was Dragon Air... I hear that if you are in that situation and cannot find a seat, the best thing to do is lie flat in the aisle.

/got nothing

I was in this plane crash...

http://www.wispolitics.com/1006/planepic.jpg

/seriously
//faa inspector was surprised we walked away from it

I'd had my pilot's license about 6 months and thought I'd visit my sister in Wellington as my first long-distance solo. (about 400 miles from Auckland). Going over the Tararua Ranges I hit a storm, it got dark so quickly. I got slightly worried when I seen a tree level with my wingtips. My sister asked me if I enjoyed my flight.

I was on a 737-sized plane. I was seated at the window seat just behind the wing. I noticed as the pilot started the take off roll that the flaps were not down. We rotated and lifted off but then the plane started shuddering mushing. Right then the pilot extended the flaps. We crashed and died.

True story except for that last sentence.

I fly gliders.

My most physically terrifying moment was my first deep stall. I never knew a person could sweat that much.

The closest I have come to crashing was when I almost went into a spin while starting a circuit at 1000' and 25kts above stall speed. Needless to say we stoped flying that day.

Friend took us up in his Skyhawk 172, would do a drop like a stone suddenly air pocket gig, scaring the criap outta me. Got used to it after a while, but still...

When I was in fourth or fifth grade, my uncle and his buddy took took my me and my sisters up in a little single engine plane. He flew us all over the south side of Chicago doing things like buzzing our house at an extremely low, and in retrospect, unsafe, level.

As it was getting dark, he flew us out over Lake Michigan. When we were far enough out so that the lights of Chicago seemed really far away, my uncle's buddy switched off the engine, only he didn't tell us that he switched of the engine. He pretended that we ran out of gas, and that we were going to crash into Lake Michigan. My sisters and I were pretty farkin' scared. He restarted the plane a couple minutes later and flew us back home.

He and my uncle thought it was hilarious.

Even when I was ten-years-old, I knew that was farkin' stupid. What if the plane didn't start again? Farkin' arsehole.

/By the way, my uncle's buddy was killed in 1990 when he crashed the helicopter carrying Stevie Ray Vaughn and members of Eric Clapton's crew back to Chicago from a show in Wisconsin. The asshat was probably showing off.

Nothing really bad has ever happened with me. However there are a couple times that always stick out in my mind. Funny thing, they were both on the same flight.

Flying to Wasington DC. During take off, we start speeding up on the runway. Almost at take off speed and the engines cut and we come to a quick stop. Returned to the gate, sat on the plane for 30 minutes, then finally took off. No one ever told us anything about why we aborted the first take off.

Then landing in DC, it was storming pretty bad. Horrible turbulance. Plane dipping, pretty deep a couple times. Landing was HARD, I'm surprised it didnt break something in the landing gear.

In a Cessna 152. It was really, really windy, and that's a really small plane.

Flight from Vegas to LAX. It was in 2004 when half of California was on fire and my Southwest flight flew directly over one of the areas burning. Of course, all that rising hot air meant violent turbulence strong enough to bounce people out of their seat, even with a belt on. And then, the smoke began to come in the plane. Of course all the air is filtered, but the cabin was filled with the smell of burning wood, and you couldn't see anything except red smoke outside the windows.

Like a poster above me, I'm also the guy on the flight that looks around nervously, while listening and analyzing every creak, moan, and bump of the plane. I can not relax on flights. Flying scares the shiat out of me. As far as bad experiences, here are a few:

On a flight to Little Rock, Arkansas to Lexington, KY, the 737 I was on began leaking from the engine. Guy on the other side of the aisle asked the flight attendant "uhhh is the engine supposed to be dripping?" Flight attendant responded with a comforting "hmm, never seen that one before." Made it back without a hitch, so I guess it was nothing.

On a second flight from Atlanta to Louisville, we took off out of Hartsfield into a thunderstorm. Into. A. Thunderstorm. Literally less than 5,000 feet up, we inevitably hit bad turbulence. The plane began shaking violently with the overhead compartments rattling loudly and the cabin light flickering on and off. Imagine every plane crash scenario you've ever seen in a movie, and this is exactly what the inside of this plane looked like - sans the oxygen masks. Fortunately, I haven't been on a flight where the oxygen masks popped down. (*knock on wood*).

But, scary as those two were, this last one beats them all. Lexington, KY farkers will remember the ComAir flight 5191 flight that crashed in Lexington last August, Killing 49 with 1 survivor. I was scheduled to be on this flight to go to San Diego for ESRI (GIS Software) training. About three weeks before, I rescheduled the class, and, of course the flight. It didn't occur to me that I was scheduled to be on that flight until about a month and a half later when I was going through some papers and found the itinerary that I realized just what fate had avoided me.

/will never fly again if avoidable
//really.

only flown twice so i cant say much. only thing i can say is that i slept with my head on the window from florida to chicago. when i woke up, my forehead was partialy frozen to the window.

Hmm.

Flying Delta.

/the horror

A few years ago, going between Philly and SFO during the winter. Arriving in Philly, in freezing rain, the plane landed and started fish-tailing and would not decellerate. We went down the entire runway and left at the last taxi-way. On the way back to SFO, there were extremely gusty cross-winds. Something you never want to hear your flight crew say just before touching down is, "Brace yourselves!" With the plane crabbing into the wind, the rear wheels touch down hard, and the plane jerked to align with the runway.

In retrospect, though, the scariest would be flying out of National Airport in DC in 1980 (or was it 1981), two planes before the Florida Air flight attempted to take off and hit the key bridge. But in that case, I didn't know what was going on back in Dcoontil after we landed. I later ran into the pilot of that flight and he had to listen to the radio while that was going on. Doing the right thing, he violated FAA regulations for noise abatement and kept full throttle until his plane had reached cruising altitude. The Florida Air pilots, were not as thoughtful, nor had enough de-icing, and results speak for themselves. Still will not fly in or out of National to this day.

One time, flying via Zurich to see my girlfriend for the first time in months, I was sat right at the back of the plane. After takeoff from Zurich, the seatbelt lights go off and the attendants start wheeling out the drinks trollies. As I'm at the back, I got served first. She pours my coffee, hands it to me, and I put it on the tray...then WHUMP!! we hit a buttload of turbulence, my coffee lifts off the tray and onto my lap, soaking my trousers. The seatbelt light comes on and the attendant wheels off the trolley and belts herself in.

Okay, it wasn't particularly scary, but when I arrived at Narita trying to look my best for my girlfriend, she couldn't stop laughing because she thought I had pissed myself.

Damn you, turbulence.

Folks, to drop a thousand feet in a second would require a vertical velocity of about 700 miles per hour. That's faster than the plane is moving forward. I know it feels like a lot when it's happening, but it's really only 10-20 feet unless you're in some really gnarly turbulence. The vast majority of air travelers have never experienced anything more than moderate turbulence.