Now that was pretty cool!

[AdSo81]

Jumpseating home on a UAL flight out of PHL-DEN in 2006, walked past a few Marines sitting in first class on my way to the back. Shortly after everyone was seated the captain came on and was telling us that those marines were escorting one of thier fallen comerades back to Colorado. Everyone applauded.

Now, being an evening flight in PHL, of course we were late getting into Denver. The airplane pulled up to the gate to a waiting honor gaurd, hearst, full police escort and the family of the fallen soldier. Every person on the entire airplane (757) just stood there, no one saying a word and not a single person leaving for the connections many were already running late to catch while they took the casket off the airplane, loaded it into the hearst and drove away with the family following behind. By the time I looked around I realized nearly every single person (including most of the crew) had tears in their eyes and were hugging eachother. A truly, truly poignent moment that put everything into perspective. What an honor for that crew to be able to take that boy back to his family.

 

[clr4theapch]

Back in 78' when I made my first solo... taking out the first Piper Tomahawk from the factory back to Florida... as a new pilot, climbing around the morning fluffy clouds during sunrise all by myself....
Seeing many shuttle launches between and above cloud layers.....

making an emergency dead stick landing on I-75 from 8000' in the middle of the moonless night with the fine help from Moody AFB controllers..

The excitment of my first airline job offer.

My first walk alone around the delta Ramp in Atlanta (pre-911) around the heavy metal....

Seeing my first St. Elmos fire from the j/s of a B767..

Watching air refueling between a KC135 and a KC10 over Arizona...

As a dispatcher, helping my crew through an inflight emergency situation..

 

[legendskid_44]

First Solo xc back in 2004 to TVC, Thought i was getting intercepted when two blackhawks pulled up on both sides of my chickenhawk. So i did what my instructor told me and tuned to 121.5 and did a radio call. All the blackhawk pilot said was "looking good, enjoy the rest of your flight" he saluted and both broke off to the west. Wish i had a cam on that one.

Another time flying from Michigan to Florida in a 182, just in northern ohio had two lightening bolts hit the ground on both sides of the aircraft...(i decided to divert to tolodeo and wait it out)

On the same trip above just passing Jacksonville, had a controller give a traffic alert about a 74 off my 9 @ 6miles.....How the hell could i have missed that.

Parelleling the A380 goign into MCO when it was on its tour around the world

 

[414Flyer]

Christmas day, 1999, was heading back into Kailua-Kona on a Volcano tour flight. I spotted some puffs of most on the horizon a few miles away, went to investigate. 3 Humpback whales were swimming just under the surface and they started playing and breaching on their backs.

Around that same time in 2004, was flying between Iceland and Greenland in a Piper Cheyenne. Spotted these very bright clouds ahead, that took forever to get to them. I never really did, just went under them. Turns out those were Polar Stratospheric Clouds, which are actually mainly nitric acid and are seen at really high latitudes near winter solstice.

 

[David_L_Wilson]

10,000 feet in a Cessna 150

Flew over Oklahoma City. It made me feel like an airline pilot.