What was your best flight ever?

[HPaul3]

What made it your best flight? What were the details? Was there some obstacle or emergency you had to overcome, or was it just a cool day to be out there slipping the surly bonds of earth? I'd like to hear about it.

(By the way, this is a common interview question, so for the moderator nannies in the crowd there is some interview value here.)

Cheers!
HP

 

[Capt TedStriker]

Flying in the Bush....

Here goes..... C-130/Bush pilot flying at its best.

Low level over the copper river in Cordova, AK then "surfing" over the glaciers.... inland AK around Denali .... then low level over the iditarod trail for 500nm.... only to finish off chasing iceflows on US/USSR border.... what a day.... Great wx... good tunes on ics and Homer homebrew/ and Kodiak Reds waiting in the fridge for "desert".

 

[MaxFly]

Great Flight

July 4th, 1998

Was asked to perform a fly-over for a parade in Rhode Island. While waiting for our slot time...flew the VFR corridor down the Hudson River to the Statue of Liberty. Was asked by the controllers to make a tight turn around the statue and head back north. Beautiful Day. NYC. 4th of July. U.S. Navy Plane. Statue of Liberty, WTC.

Will never forget it.

 

[HPaul3]

Right on!

Awesome stories, guys. Keep them coming!

Here's mine:

Four-ship of little white jets, I'm number 4. October 14th. VFR at 2000 feet AGL over northern Arizona. The aspens are turning all sorts of colors--red, yellow, orange, purple. The mountains around Flagstaff are brilliant with fall color. We hold over the mountains for about a half-hour, then leave the holding point just a *little* bit late...gotta make up about 25 seconds to be over the parade at Northern Arizona University on time....we cross the "show center" on time, at about 400 knots, in afterburner, in a 3G turn, 75 degrees of bank. I'm at the bottom of the turn, so all I see is above me is the bluest sky you can imagine, and three gorgeous, gleaming T-38s, with flames streaming aft.

Just might have been the coolest thing I've ever done, in or out of an aircraft. Awesome.

Cheers!

 

[mar]

Lots of good ones

I don't know that I can pick just one and say it was the *best*.

The short list:

--Flying in the passes between Dillingham and Bethel, coming around a corner and finding a small glacier that I didn't know existed; flying further and coming upon the single largest herd of caribou I've ever seen.

--Buzzing antelope in northern Arizona.

--Taking a 12 year old kid on a 30 min intro flight when I was an instructor. Low clouds in the area; gave him the controls; let him turn the airplane and watched him look *down* on a cloud for probably the first time in his life. I knew exactly how he felt.

 

[BacktoAA]

'Round the world in 7 days in Freddie - Eastbound. 18 Hour layover on last day and first day of month in the desert for 2 months tax free, 28 hour layover in Honolulu after picking up NASA guys in Diego who didn't care where we stopped but had the authority to let us go where we wanted. Sure enough, this ball is round.

 

[MLBWINGBORN]

Wow..
Tough question..

Most fun..
J-3 Cub...Summer day in central VA..Giving my best friend his J-3 check out and landing on nothing but grass strips and chasing cows every chance we got..Door nor window was ever closed and we laughed so hard we nearly crashed a few times...

Coolest flight..

Take off out of SFO just as the sun is setting and see the moon rise and 41/2 hours later see the sun rise again as we landed in BOS in a Challenger..Think about it for a minute and you we say...COOL!!!

Picked up a Challenger in flip flops,shorts, and tee shirts and ate banana pudding and BBQ ribs all the way back to LGA with Aerosmith playing on the CD player..Its good to be Captain..

Mike
MLBWINGBORN

 

[navhnt]

Easy one for me...

The fly-off from my last deployment. We get our 12 jets airborne and proceed home as three separate four ships. It's a beautiful winter morning, crystal clear with a few puffy clouds around. After about an hour we see the west coast of the USA come into view, the controllers are welcoming us home as we check in. Very emotional as we are returning from a combat deployment.
We join all 12 jets up about 30 miles south of our base and I get to lead all 12 in a fly-over at 500'. I look down and see all the families and friends standing on the reamp and know that my wife and two little girls are down there watching. We land right in front of the crowd and walk to the waiting arms of our families after six months away from home. I'll never forget it.

NAVHNT

 

[leftseat10]

Like my C-5 brother above, eastbound in 7 days via the big tanker. #12 for landing at Frankfurt, what noice sensors? Rare RON in Aviano, after the flight up the boot from Sig. Picking our way through the Red Sea cause Jeddah didn't want us that day, go figure! Diego and the open Pacific, finally seeing land once again on the west coast. Close 2nds are those early OEF sorties!

 

[KC-10 Driver]

Proudest (and most emotional):

Flying a Noble Eagle sortie over NYC on September 12th, 2001, and looking at fully armed fighters flying actual CAP 80 miles from my house where my wife and kids are sleeping. It's the first time I could say I was truly defending my homeland.

Most fun:

Around the Pacific in 6 days with an awesome crew -- Santiago, Chile; Pago Pago, Samoa; Guam; Honolulu. It's a big beautiful ocean.