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Topic: Flying
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TommyPaineatWork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2956
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posted 08 April 2003 01:15 AM
I've flown on commercial jet liners about ten times, although not in the past.....18 years or so. My fear increased with each flight. It's a full blown phobia, with irrational fears like claustrophobia and the feeling that the floor is about to open up beneath you. Funny, I'm not claustrophobic anywhere else, nor do I have a fear of hieghts. It's a control thing.....and the lack of contingencies for things going wrong. I like to have contingencies. I think, however, I wouldn't be so afraid to learn to fly my own small plane, if I had the time, money and desire. [ 08 April 2003: Message edited by: TommyPaineatWork ]
From: London | Registered: Aug 2002
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TommyPaineatWork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2956
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posted 08 April 2003 01:51 AM
.....Sometimes I wonder if, at base, my fear is at all irrational.A complete stranger is going to take you 35,000 feet away from the surface of the Earth, and hurtle you at great speed through a very cold atmosphere you can't even breath in if you were exposed to it. In a vehicle with about a hundredty billion parts, maintained by someone very concerned with things like "profit". I'm told gravity is a weak force. All the same, I'd like to keep it on my side as much as possible.
From: London | Registered: Aug 2002
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Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
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posted 08 April 2003 11:40 AM
I love flying. I wish I could do it more, but it's so expensive!But I don't know how to pilot. I don't think I'm really interested in learning how - I just enjoy being a passenger. I don't even mind turbulence. I think it feels so neat to be suspended in the air like that. After September 11th, I swore I'd never fly again because the pictures of the WTC freaked me out so badly and I had nightmares for weeks about the last moments of the people on the planes. But I seem to have gotten over that, and I would fly again now.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
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Mr. Magoo
guilty-pleasure
Babbler # 3469
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posted 08 April 2003 11:43 AM
I can't deny that I'd love to fly, but since I don't even have a driver's licence, that seems a ways off.I do have to wonder out loud though: if a city dweller gassing up an SUV for a pointless jaunt through the backroads is a waste of technology, fuel and time, how does one justify gassing up an airplane and tooling around the skies? If you want to get from point A to point B, isn't transit the better choice for most?
From: ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø, | Registered: Dec 2002
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oldgoat
Moderator
Babbler # 1130
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posted 08 April 2003 10:52 PM
I took a couple of introductory flying lessons in Cessna 150's. Lotsa fun. Regrettably, I never had both the time and the money at the same time to follow through. I started skydiving in '68 in Massachusets, 'cause I was only 16, and you had to be 18 to join an affiliated club in Canada. When I turned 18 I resumed up here for a while. For a while I had taken off in a plane many times, but only landed in one once. You wouldn't believe the junky old Cessna 172 our club had. CF-LEZ; should have been scrapped years before. (so should Jan Felkowski, the pilot) You were safer jumping out of the thing than landing in it. Haven't thought about those days in ages Aviator, thanks for reminding me. edited to add: Aviator, if you like old planes, you may be interested to know that my first jump was out of a Norseman. Certainly not something anyone would nickname "lightning", but one of the classic old workhorse Canadian bushplanes. [ 08 April 2003: Message edited by: oldgoat ]
From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
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posted 08 April 2003 11:27 PM
I would love to fly low in a small plane again. I've only done that once. I was hopping from Toronto to Buffalo (medium-size jetliner: please forgive the amateur terminology, but what did I know?), then Buffalo to Rochester (wee tiny thing), then Rochester to Ithaca, NY. I will never forget being led out of the Buffalo terminal to the wee plane that was to hop us to Rochester. There were only eight or nine other passengers, and no one else had luggage bigger than a briefcase. An overwhelmingly handsome pilot motioned me out of line, took my bags from me, and ... opened up the nose of his plane!!! Stowed my bags inside!!! skdadl melted then, and never quite recovered from the magic of that flight. Inside the plane were sixteen seats in eight rows, we passengers separated from the pilots only by a wee curtain. The whole way, we were close enough to see the branches on the trees below. Before and since, I have always hated flying, but I could not get over how wondrous a sensation it was, to feel so close to the earth I was passing over. I was grinning ear to ear. I must have looked ridiculous. Everyone else on the flight was engrossed in documents, and skdadl was gasping and grinning at being so close to the treetops. Omigod, but that was beautiful. Really, it was. I will confess: a few minutes into the flight, the overpoweringly handsome pilot pulled the curtain open and looked back at us. He saw the idiot grin on my face, and obviously got a kick out of giving a passenger a kick for a change. We were supposed to go on to Ithaca on the same plane, with the same crew, after we landed at Rochester. But we sat in the Rochester waiting room for too long a time, and then someone told us that our plane had had engine trouble, and we'd be folded into a bigger plane coming from somewhere else. Just before we got up to board the (utterly boring) jetliner that finally took us to Ithaca, the stupendously handsome pilot of my beloved but ailing wee plane walked up to me and stopped for a moment. I am such an idiot. I smiled politely, gathered my bags, and continued on to the already doomed encounter in Ithaca. I want to fly close to the treetops again. I am so afraid in the big jets that I have to turn my mind off, but I remember the wonderful sense of connection with the earth that I had in that wee (apparently crippled) plane that flew from Buffalo to Rochester. And, of course, I've never forgotten the lovely man who flew it. *skdadl kicks self around block several times*
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
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oldgoat
Moderator
Babbler # 1130
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posted 09 April 2003 12:18 AM
Nothing like being in a small plane skdadl. You know it's not impossible to rent one with a pilot and go for a ride, though not something most of us could afford every day. They would probably frown on my bringing a parachute. They would probably frown at you asking for an overpoweringly handsome pilot. Although if we went together, and the threesome got awkward, I could step out!Aviator: Thanks for the info on F LEZ. It surprizes me it lasted that long, but I guess it had an overhaul or something. Used to be on a hot day it couldn't get a load of jumpers off the ground, and it seemed to go through more oil than gas. I googled our old pilot, Jan Falkowski. He was an absolute wild man, and had a lot of great war stories about being shot down with the free Polish AF. I knew he had written a book about himself, but I just found he was a fairly famous Polish ace. I always half thought he was bullshitting, but here he is, and the story is just like he told it. http://www.stenbergaa.com/stenberg/index.html?item335c3.html I'm really glad you started this topic. My sister was sort of acquaintences with him, I'll have to send her some pictures I found. edited to add: it doesn't say in the story, but he crashed his own aircraft in that incident. [ 09 April 2003: Message edited by: oldgoat ]
From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jingles
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3322
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posted 10 April 2003 01:03 AM
I am a couple hours short of a commercial license, but ran. out. of ....money.Then, since time has passed since I last flew, my medical expired. Now, there isn't much point in getting a commercial license when there aren't any jobs, unless you want to work for Osama (But he has a terrible dental plan). Even flying a 172 is too damn expensive.
From: At the Delta of the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2002
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Flowers By Irene
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3012
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posted 11 April 2003 12:45 AM
I haven't been in a plane in years, last time think I was ... 12? That would be a 737, when my family went to Florida... or rather, I guess, coming home from Florida.Funny, I can't remember either of those flights really at all. Must've been quite boring. I do remember, though, the three previous times I've flown quite well. When I was 9, and my family had gone up north (I'm not sure exactly where in N.O. we were - most summers we spent on Manitoulin, but that summer we also stayed for two weeks somewhere else, all I know for sure it was North of Lake Huron) for part of the summer, a friend of my Pa's was around and showing off his new toy - a 5 seater-something-or-other with pontoons. I remember quite well walking out to the end of the dock, more excited than you'd think a nine-year old could get, and flying over the forests, lakes, and occasional logging road; at times quite low, barely above the trees, at times it seemed from the very top of the sky - on three separate absolutely beautiful August afternoons. I haven't really thought about it lately, but now I want to fly again.
From: "To ignore the facts, does not change the facts." -- Andy Rooney | Registered: Aug 2002
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Aviator
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3299
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posted 13 April 2003 12:49 PM
Pilot humor. There are three things in aviation that are absolutely useless:1. Runway behind you. 2. Altitude above you. 3. Gas left in the pump. And, remember, every take off is optional, but every landing is mandatory.
From: British Columbia | Registered: Nov 2002
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