Sean...you being "uncertain"...HMMM...I don't believe that. :)
Doug...you of all people...being scared in an airplane...NAW...I don't believe that one either.
;)
My worst flight was during the mid-summer of 1967. I was sitting in the right seat checking out a new Captain on the 1946 Douglas DC3.
We had just left Vancouver Intl. (CYVR), were at our cruise altitude and making a full overnight stop at Calgary Intl. (CYYC).
On board besides myself was our newest Captain, our Flight Engineer, one male Steward and eighteen tradesmen (plumbers, carpenters, electricians) all sobering up and heading back to the oil rigs of Calgary.
By all calculations we felt we should be leaving the rain behind us when the pounding started. I was reading a copy of "Ace McCool" in a copy of "Private Pilot". This was one of my favourite articles and one of my favourite magazines. I was startled, I looked up and all I could see was what looked like hail or ice hitting the windscreen. The pounding was getting harder and louder as the ice was flying off the props and hitting the aluminum sides of the aircraft just behind us.
Before I could open my mouth the aircraft rolled left almost sixty degrees, I heard several screams through the headphones as the steward lost the coffee pot and hot coffee went all over him and the flight engineer. I instinctively leaned forward to the left and down to add carb heat as I thought we had picked up carb ice, dam, my seat was too far back, I couldn't reach anything, then the aircraft veered up and right pushing me back into the right side of my seat and banging my right arm on the cowl flap controls. I think I was still trying to figure out what to do with this magazine as I had just purchased it. My right arm was numb, it was lacking sensation, maybe I broke it I thought.
The DC3 rolled down and left almost ninety degrees now pushing me forward in my seat belt, I couldn't grab the flap or gear handle on the floor on my side as I still had the magazine in my left hand, you know I must have paid three or four dollars for that magazine back then, maybe that is why I held onto it or it could have been I hadn't finished my "Ace McCool" article.
But, I could clearly see our new Captain now, yes by gosh I thought, nicely pressed white shirt, four gold stripes, wow, (mine were covered and smeared in oil), he was even clean shaven and his black hair slicked right down with brylcream (hope that is how you spell it), he didn't have enough strength to hold in opposite rudder, he was perspiring, me, I couldn't move, maybe I should have let go of my magazine.
I looked at the instrument panel, the vertical speed was pegged down, the gyros had tumbled, the airspeed was all the way in the red, the altimeter, oh oh, the altimeter, dam we were rolling and only at nine hundred feet.
Yes folks we hit that rocky hill dead on.
I remember sitting on this large wet rock, just sitting there, so I finished reading "Ace McCool".
Oh, yes we were all killed, there were no survivors, well you didn't think there would be did you? ;D
Well guess I better mosey down to the barn and stand in the corner for a bit, I am sure there will be a few comments on this one.
;D LMAO
Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug
