"Interesting" flights...

[Ivan]

How exactly does one convince the Captian to allow you on the flight deck while in flight?

Not anymore

You may try it on a parajumper An-2 in the UK though

[VVM]

if your flying over or anywhere near the usa, you are never going to get onto the flightdeck, which is understandable i supose.  however, i have heard of people getting onto the flightdeck over other countries quite easily.  just ask a flight attendant to ask the captain.  i have never tried it myself so i dont know if it is actually that easily, or if people just tell me these things coz they know i would really like to visit the flightdeck myself!!

[Triple_7]

I've only flown commercialy 3 times that I can think of.  But all 3 had something crazy or disturbing.

First was a Northwest Saab 340 from DTW-FWA.  I went to that little restroom in the back, just start to take care of buisness when this little anouncment of "please make sure your seatbelts are.....begin our decent into Fort Wayne.  That was a horrible time.  My seat was in the front, so I just crawled along the isle in between air time.  We were taking such steep dives and sharp level offs that I litteraly floated weightless for a couple seconds before being crushed to the floor on another level off.  Made for a fun end to that trip  I was like 11

The worst ever was the TWA flights to/from North Carolina.  I was by myself with that annoying assistence (only 12 or 13 at the time) Flight from FWA-STL was severly delayed.  After a long wait we were finally out of FWA on the rickety ol J-31.  Rough flight, watched rivets rattle, arrived into St. Louis,walked in with one of the pilots, and he handed my ticket to a lady at the desk...she just looked at it with one of those (OH $HIT) looks.  Grabbed me by the hand and we litteraly ran to the other end of the terminal to catch my flight to RDU  :-/  Last one on board and they were waiting on me  DC-9 wasnt much better.  On the return flight our DC-9 had isues right after takeoff...we returned to the airport, an hour later boarded another 9 and made the flight.  Then the J-31 back to FWA aborted takeoff right as we began to rotate.  Those little aircraft were so tiny and so rough I never want to be on one again, took longer to fly from FWA-STL then STL-RDU :-/

Last flight was a couple years ago...short trip to Seatle.  I dont know if it was a rookie pilot or an old one trying to liven things up...but after a redeye to Detroit and having no sleep for 30 hours or so I wasnt impressed.  It was around 8 AM (I made it to DTW between 4-5 AM)...we were on a NW CRJ to FWA...took off like a rocket...smooth flight...then slammed into the runway at FWA even though it was a clear windless day, had to have bounced a couple times  :-/

There are more little stories from the flights but dont want to ramble on to long.  So

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

Those damn placards...I thankfully never got one...but I guess it must feel like you're standing in the middle of a huge spotlight..No thanks...I am fine on my own

[BFMF]

if your flying over or anywhere near the usa, you are never going to get onto the flightdeck

After the flight has ended, and if the pilot is nice and isn't too busy, sometimes they will let you step into the flight deck.

On my first commercial flights while shipping out to Basic Training, I talked to the pilot while everyone was getting off, and he let me step into the flight deck for a few minutes. Since I was a student pilot at the time, we had something in common to talk about

[Omag 2.0]

Flight from Monastir to Brussels ( Citybird 737): I was seated next to this BIG Arabian looking guy, expensive suite, dark designer sunglasses, suitcase attached to his arm... Turned out to be a diamond-trader un route to Antwerp. Nice fella, but at first I thought it was a mob-guy...  ;D

Scary moment: Virgin Express flight from Rome Fuimicino to Brussels: moments after take-off, I noticed a sudden loss of power and a sinking feeling, accompagnied by some sort off buzzer sound... freaked me out completely! Only a while back I learned on a website by a female pilot, the sinking feeling is pretty normal. It's when they start retracting flaps and set everything to do the climb-part of the flight... but at that moment... Jeez...

[Hagar]

Only a while back I learned on a website by a female pilot, the sinking feeling is pretty normal. It's when they start retracting flaps and set everything to do the climb-part of the flight... but at that moment... Jeez...

It's also the point where they reduce power to comply with noise restrictions around most major airports. This always seemed a rather stupid thing to do over highly populated built-up areas & makes it the most dangerous part of the flight to me.

PS. The only time I've ever been scared on an aeroplane was at this exact point after taking off from Newark NJ in a severe storm on a DC-10 hangar queen. I thought the wings were going to come off.

[Jakemaster]

Well, Ive had a few, but my most interesting was when I was going to Charlotte to visit my aunt.  I was one of those 'unaccompanied minors' at the time, but by then I had flown so much and already fallen in love with flying and aviation that I wasnt at all scared.  Bad weather was looming over Charlotte, so first we were diverted to Charleston, SC for about an hour.  That was pretty crappy cause at first they wouldnt let me and another minor leave the plane, but finally one stewardess took us to get ice cream.  Then we finally got airborne again and when we were approaching charlotte, the weather was horrible.  As we descended through the clouds, the plane shook with turbulence.  I ddnt like it too much, but I was okay.   The same cant be said for the large African American woman in the seat next to me.  She was gripping (I mean death grip) the armrests and screaming "Oh Lordy, Lord!" for the whole decent.  I found it hilarious, but didnt laugh cause it wasnt funny.  We made it down safely, and all in all it was an interesting flight.

[Jakemaster]

Oh ya, forgot that I should tell of my funny landing experiences.  Heres a few:

Coming back to houston from New York with my brother.  It was raining (not important, just setting the mood) and when we came in, the plane floated for a sec then SLAMMED into the runway, bounced up a few feet, the slammed back down again.

Last summer, on a Continental 757, came back to houston.  Musta been windy, the plane was shaking around on short final.  The landing was alright tho.

Stopping in Tampa for a little bit when going back to Houston from West Palm Beach, Soutwest 737.  Pilot musta pulled up to flare a little early, the plane floated down the runway before slamming into the ground, no bounce, but fairly unpleasant.

Finally, just recently, coming home from Ft Lauderdale on a Continental 757.  As we touched down, the plane rocked side to side.  Very um smooth but shifty landing.

One more, not landing, flying somewhere (all I know is it was Southwest) and we hit turbulence.  It was fairly strong, the plane was moving all about.  The worst was at one point we fell (must have been 50 to 100 feet down) and we went semi-weightless for a sec, that was not pleasant (I didnt puke, but i didnt enjoy it)

So, as you can see, Ive had my fair share of flying and interesting flights.

[cspyro21]

I haven't had many hair-raising flying stories so far, but I can think of one (which isn't really that scary either )

It was a flight from LPFR - EGGD, in an A321 (I think.) We were on final, and it was rather windy, so the aircraft was being rocked about a bit. As we corssed the threshold, I noticed one of the wings drop slightly and a very small flare. Then we hit the tarmac with a thud, and we came in so hot that I slid along my seat (and I had the seatbelt on).

And about the flightdeck business, yea, if the pilot's nice enough and the flight's ended, he'll let you on. I remember on a flight from EGLL - YSSY, and we were halfway to our first stop for fuel (Singapore) when we (my brother and I) were allowed into the flightdeck, and as you can imagine for an 8 year old who liked flying that mwould have been quite an amazing sight

[EGNX]

Well nothing really interesting has happened on any of my flights execpt the usual turbulance and bad weather landings. But a few years ago (before i was born) my parents were on a flight back from their holidays (Spain i think). They were delayed for a few hours due to severe lightning storms, and eventually the weather was stable enough for them to Take off. About 10 minutes after take off when the plane was climbing through the storm a huge flash of lightning and a deafaning bang shook the aircraft and all the cabin lights flickered. The pilots immediately turned around believing to have been struck by lightning, and landed at their orogin airport. They checked the plane for damage and found nothing and took off again.  :o

One thing that did happen to me was when i was traveling on a Tu154 to Bulgaria, and very shortly after take off from East Midlands in thick fog i could hear the sound of an enging spooling down then a low boom and shudder then it spooling back up again.  ??? I dont know what happened there but it scared the Sh*t out of me?

[TacitBlue]

Kind of sounds like a compressor stall. I mean, I've never heard one myself, but I imagine that's what they would sound like.

[EGNX]

Kind of sounds like a compressor stall. I mean, I've never heard one myself, but I imagine that's what they would sound like.

Thats probably sounds like what happened, or it could of been someing to do with the APU.  :P

[Mobius]

EGNX and Jake reminded me of a couple of stories from when I was flying.  For my aerospace class in high school, two other students and I along with an instructor were taking a three legged cross-country flight, and right in the middle of one of the legs, the instructor turned to us and asked if we'd ever been zero-G, and we all said no, so he took control of the airplane and quickly pushed the yoke forward, and we dropped like a stone.  It was an intersting, and exhilerating experience, to see the maps and pens and things around the cockpit start floating in front of your face for even a split second.  Ever since then I've wanted to try that again, but I don't think I could ever do that to myself in an airplane, at least not until I get a few hundred more hours.

Another experience I had, was when it came time to do my night cross-country flight.  During that day, there had been some rather nasty storms all around the area, but by that evening, the last storm had started to move off to the east.  Coincidentally, the airport my instructor and I were flying to were off to the east also.  So I got to the airport around 8 PM and we talk about whether or not we fly with the storm still relatively close.  We decided to go as the storm was moving more north-east, and would probably be out of the area by the time we were airborne.  So we took off, and got a flight-following from Madison ATC.  As we were flying, we could see distant lighting flashes way to the north, so we called ATC to see if they had any weather near us, or in our way, and they said the radar was totally clear.  So we kept going, but about a minute or two after hearing from ATC that there was lighting or anything in the area, the entire airplane lit up with a huge flash.  I just sat for a second to figure out what had just happened, and whether or not we were still flying and everything was still working, which we were, and everything still was, so I wasn't too phased by it, until I look to the right at my instructor whose eyes were like dinner plates and he had that "holy-s**t" look on his face, which freaked me out a bit.  But everything was fine, and we didn't hear any thunder, and ATC said they still didn't have any lightning flashes on their scope.  So we figured it had been a discharge of static electricity or something that had built up on the airplane, like St. Elmo's fire.  So that was pretty interesting.  Also interesting, was the odd ~70kt headwind we had on the way back up at 4000 ft, when it was calm at the surface.

If you're interested.....St. Elmo's fire on an MD-11

[cheesegrater]

The worst was sitting next to an obnoxious couple. I'm also tall so the seats crush my legs. I never want to fly economy again.