BTW, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?

[Streetcar]

From hearing audio from the flight, the passenger sounds like he flew a lot. He was using flying terminology

 

[Diggin It]

I took ground school and have a little stick time. Had an uncle who was an instructor pilot and co-owned his plane. I could never afford that hobby.

Same here. Had about 10 hours in a Cessna 150 at Keesler.

Flying is the easy part, landing is very tough

Getting off the ground was a breeze. Getting back on the ground in one piece is why I stopped taking lessons.

Question number two... did anybody recognize the line from a movie, which I quoted in the title?

 

[Jstpssng]

wasnt that AIRPLANE

Yes. There were many great one-liners in tha movie, as well as the auto pilot shown in Diggin It's pic above.

 

[grsthegreat]

Same here. Had about 10 hours in a Cessna 150 at Keesler.

Getting off the ground was a breeze. Getting back on the ground in one piece is why I stopped taking lessons.

Na, landing was easy enough, and i learned in a crappy piper tomahawk. Back then i soloed with about 20 ish hours training with instructor. I could have tried earlier, but learning in van nuys air traffic area was quite intimidating. Heck, C130’s were constantly taking off. Messed up the air something fierce. Funny thing was with that junk plane, i took off and landed with 2 people onboard with no issues at Van Nuys airports short airstrip, but once instructor stepped out of plane, i had a bear of a time getting the plane to land. It kept getting caught up in ground effect. Not enough weight.

i transitioned to massive right runway and landed no issues. The instructor screwed up. Afterwards he told me i should have filled the tanks prior to solo flight. More weight.

oh well, that was a long time ago, and moved onto real airplanes. Even purchased part of a piper turbo arrow IV retractable. Man, that was a fun plane to fly.

dont do much flying anymore, just with friends in their planes. Too dang spensive.

 

[MossRoad]

That guy did a great job!

As for me, no pilot's license. I was around airplanes most of my first 24 years of life. I'm fairly confident I could do that, but I'd want a nice sunny, calm day with a really looooooooooooooooong runway.

Instrument flying freaks me out. Especially low ceiling. Taking off knowing you're gonna break into the clear is one thing. Coming down through it and them telling you it's clear under there, but yeah, is it? Yikes. Never liked flying in clouds and rain. Never.

 

[MossRoad]

Na, landing was easy enough, and i learned in a crappy piper tomahawk. Back then i soloed with about 20 ish hours training with instructor. I could have tried earlier, but learning in van nuys air traffic area was quite intimidating. Heck, C130’s were constantly taking off. Messed up the air something fierce. Funny thing was with that junk plane, i took off and landed with 2 people onboard with no issues at Van Nuys airports short airstrip, but once instructor stepped out of plane, i had a bear of a time getting the plane to land. It kept getting caught up in ground effect. Not enough weight.

i transitioned to massive right runway and landed no issues. The instructor screwed up. Afterwards he told me i should have filled the tanks prior to solo flight. More weight.

oh well, that was a long time ago, and moved onto real airplanes. Even purchased part of a piper turbo arrow IV retractable. Man, that was a fun plane to fly.

dont do much flying anymore, just with friends in their planes. Too dang spensive.

At the first airport I worked at, they had two Tomahawks. This was 1979. There was a trucking strike or something that caused fuel delivery problems. We had to fly our planes to larger airports in the area for fuel, and sometimes I'd hitch a ride for fun. One day, in a Tomahawk, it was so windy that the cars going east on the toll road below us were passing us.

Took us just about an hour to get to a town 20 miles away. Filled up. Took about 5 minutes to get back!

I distinctly remember sitting in the right seat with my hands on my legs. We were bouncing all over the place. Then my hands hit the ceiling then my legs then the ceiling again. Then I just held them against my chest. For some reason, I thought that was great fun.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

16,000 hours, mostly jet time. It’s what I do to fund hobbies.

 

[grsthegreat]

The tomahawk was truly a scary plane. Never liked to look back thru cockpit glass at tail……while flying. Wasnt sure what kept it on.

 

[MossRoad]

The tomahawk was truly a scary plane. Never liked to look back thru cockpit glass at tail……while flying. Wasnt sure what kept it on.

Itty, bitty screws and bolts. Maybe some rivets, too!

 

[orezok]

I got my single engine in the early 70’s. I added a glider rating in the 80’s. Flying a glider really teaches you how to actually fly an aircraft as you have to become one with it or end up in an off field landing. An engine is a great substitute for poor airmanship.

A couple of years later I was up for my biennial for power planes and scheduled it with an instructor I did not know. When you fly gliders, your approach for landing is always high. I did the same thing with the power plane and was several hundred feet high on final as I was used to in gliders.

I threw the plane into a slip to lose altitude and hit the numbers to impress the instructor. As I was still in a slip just 30 feet or so off the ground, out of the corner of my eye I could see the instructor slowly moving his hands toward the yoke to save us from crashing.

I wiped it straight about 10’ off the runway and put right on the numbers. I’m not sure the instructor was impressed