So since we are a very international mob here let’s share some good and bad flying stories.
I think my fave flight was flying on xmas eve/xmas day, London-Singapore-Melbourne. The pilots came on board dressed in santa suits and we had xmas dinners and got gifts! Surprisingly the plane was half empty.
Another time, this was before 9-11, I arranged for young Miss Seagoon ( age 15 ), and her friends who were travelling with us, to visit the cockpit. They were allowed to experience the landing into Singapore, they sat in the cockpit. . ( and that’s a lovely airport at night , the harbour is so pretty with all the lights )
my dad worked for a multi-national so i travelled a lot growing up.
i remember flying business class on Malaysian Airlines in something like 1987 or so. It was our family and like 3 other people on the whole top floor of the 747. The flight attendant came up to me and asked how i would like to be addressed (i was 9), i said your majesty as a joke…they referred to me as your majesty for the rest of the flight.
another business class flight around the same time (give or take 5 years), coming into land at Kuala Lumpur when there was a tropical storm happening, pilot tried 5 times to land, each one more turbulent that the last. me aged ~7 or 8 throwing up progressively louder and more violently with each touch&go.
also through a perk of my dad’s work, i got to fly on a private jet (Gulfstream i think) Melbourne to Wellington. Sat in the cockpit from takeoff to landing with a headset on. was cool
for the record, i have not flown business class since the 80s.
edit - oh yeah, and that time i flew to Argentina and the plane had an engine failure 2 hours after we’d passed NZ. I was sitting window seat over the wing, and was watching out the window. saw something that looked like that vapour like you see on take off and landing sometimes on a cold day, all wispy-like…then it got a bit thicker and blacker. then there was a small bang and little puff of extra smoke. then the seat-belt lights came on and the pilot very very causually told everyone that we had had an engine failure and would need to turn back to NZ.
I’ve got another one for ya. Barely took off from Anchorage, Alaska. Around a 500 meters AGL, a flight crew come bolting towards the rear of the aircraft screaming “WHERE’S THE MANUAL!!??” Everybody looking around shitting themselves haha. Me included.
Turns out we had multiple bird strike. When deboarding after landing you could see the front of the plane riddled with red splotches. Like some giant paintball gun shot the plane.
Oh man I also remember going up to the cockpit on a Melbourne-Darwin Ansett flight back in 1988 or so. Such a shame my own son will likely not experience that (unless he becomes a pilot himself of course).
My least favourite flight would have to be on a work trip across the Cook Strait between Auckland and Christchurch, in a small (I think Saab) commuter turboprop. Went through a storm so bad that I swear the wings were about to come off… the only flight I’ve ever been on where a round of applause broke out on landing and the pilots looked physically relieved afterwards.
Melbourne to Toronto 14 years ago (via Sydney and Vancouver), ~28 hours all up. I was withdrawing from nicotine and couldn’t sleep a wink. It was a torture I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Flying from Bali to Sumbawa about 20 years ago as a kid. 12 seater airplane. Takeoff was held up for half an hour while the pilot unscrewed the panels containing wiring behind all the cockpit controls etc and tinkered around in there for a while , which was in plain view😬
Best flying experience was during the airline pilots strike. I had to go to Adelaide on business, and caught the dreaded army cargo carrier there. Which was interesting in its own way but NOT COMFORTABLE. Rows of high school moulded plastic seats welded together and bolted to the floor with seatbelts superglued onto the plastic. Only some of the bolts were loose and the whole confection wiggled and groaned whenever we hit a patch of rough air. Felt like a Centrelink waiting room with added sound effects and no toilet.
On the way back, however, I scored a seat on a 12 seater private jet - single line of seats, sheepskin seat covers, ample leg room, luxxury food, and the pilot did a low altitude sweep over the Coorong which was humming with birdlife and full of water. That flight was magical. We stopped in Mt Gambier to re-fuel, so I got to see the blue lake which was very blue. Also some of the best fish & chips I’ve ever had at one of the hotels. All courtesy of the plane’s owner.
Another good one was from Alice Springs to Sydney over the western plains of NSW. It was just on sunset, and we got high enough that we could see the whole terminator from the plane windows - that is, behind us was broad daylight, then a fuzzy zone, then black night ahead of us. No clouds, you could see the darkness creeping over the land as the sun set.
I’ve done a fair bit of flying in my years but I can’t think of a single eventful tale to tell from them lol
No misbehaving passengers, no plane troubles… all pretty boring. I did miss a plane to Thailand once in 2014 because I was too busy chatting in Nandos (so before the international entry/customs in Melbourne Airport) and didn’t realise it was so close to boarding/didn’t take into account how long it’d take to get through customs and then get to the gate which was a bit of a hike. Ran but didn’t make it. That was embarrassing. The annoying thing was I was REALLY early to get to the airport.
Told family and friends the plane had been cancelled until the next day rather than admit what happened. Luckily nobody checked online to see if it was a lie… but I did admit it to my family only earlier this year what actually happened.
Best flight - got upgraded to business class on a Cathay flight from HK to Melb. Fell asleep at one point in the comfy seats and I swear when I woke up, the flight attendants put a blanket on me and tucked it around my arms.
Worst flight - flying Caledonian airlines from Toronto to London (Gatwick airport). The food warmer was down so everyone enjoyed a very cold meal. Hot water ran out halfway through due to some technical fault. My parents were quite miffed. Thankfully it’s only like 6-7 hour flight.
I don’t have many stories. I have such a PTSD trigger response to the Barefoot Investor though because when I was coming back from Sydney, I had the middle seat and I’m also fat so this middle age grumpy Karen was giving me death glares because I have the audacity to be fat meanwhile I had no idea because I was trying not to have a panic attack (I hate flying).
So since we are a very international mob here let’s share some good and bad flying stories.
I think my fave flight was flying on xmas eve/xmas day, London-Singapore-Melbourne. The pilots came on board dressed in santa suits and we had xmas dinners and got gifts! Surprisingly the plane was half empty.
Another time, this was before 9-11, I arranged for young Miss Seagoon ( age 15 ), and her friends who were travelling with us, to visit the cockpit. They were allowed to experience the landing into Singapore, they sat in the cockpit. . ( and that’s a lovely airport at night , the harbour is so pretty with all the lights )
my dad worked for a multi-national so i travelled a lot growing up.
i remember flying business class on Malaysian Airlines in something like 1987 or so. It was our family and like 3 other people on the whole top floor of the 747. The flight attendant came up to me and asked how i would like to be addressed (i was 9), i said your majesty as a joke…they referred to me as your majesty for the rest of the flight.
another business class flight around the same time (give or take 5 years), coming into land at Kuala Lumpur when there was a tropical storm happening, pilot tried 5 times to land, each one more turbulent that the last. me aged ~7 or 8 throwing up progressively louder and more violently with each touch&go.
also through a perk of my dad’s work, i got to fly on a private jet (Gulfstream i think) Melbourne to Wellington. Sat in the cockpit from takeoff to landing with a headset on. was cool
for the record, i have not flown business class since the 80s.
edit - oh yeah, and that time i flew to Argentina and the plane had an engine failure 2 hours after we’d passed NZ. I was sitting window seat over the wing, and was watching out the window. saw something that looked like that vapour like you see on take off and landing sometimes on a cold day, all wispy-like…then it got a bit thicker and blacker. then there was a small bang and little puff of extra smoke. then the seat-belt lights came on and the pilot very very causually told everyone that we had had an engine failure and would need to turn back to NZ.
I’ve got another one for ya. Barely took off from Anchorage, Alaska. Around a 500 meters AGL, a flight crew come bolting towards the rear of the aircraft screaming “WHERE’S THE MANUAL!!??” Everybody looking around shitting themselves haha. Me included.
Turns out we had multiple bird strike. When deboarding after landing you could see the front of the plane riddled with red splotches. Like some giant paintball gun shot the plane.
Oh man I also remember going up to the cockpit on a Melbourne-Darwin Ansett flight back in 1988 or so. Such a shame my own son will likely not experience that (unless he becomes a pilot himself of course).
My least favourite flight would have to be on a work trip across the Cook Strait between Auckland and Christchurch, in a small (I think Saab) commuter turboprop. Went through a storm so bad that I swear the wings were about to come off… the only flight I’ve ever been on where a round of applause broke out on landing and the pilots looked physically relieved afterwards.
Melbourne to Toronto 14 years ago (via Sydney and Vancouver), ~28 hours all up. I was withdrawing from nicotine and couldn’t sleep a wink. It was a torture I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Flying from Bali to Sumbawa about 20 years ago as a kid. 12 seater airplane. Takeoff was held up for half an hour while the pilot unscrewed the panels containing wiring behind all the cockpit controls etc and tinkered around in there for a while , which was in plain view😬
I flew Melbourne to Toronto via HK (cause it was much cheaper). HK-Toronto leg was like 16 hours. Never again.
Best flying experience was during the airline pilots strike. I had to go to Adelaide on business, and caught the dreaded army cargo carrier there. Which was interesting in its own way but NOT COMFORTABLE. Rows of high school moulded plastic seats welded together and bolted to the floor with seatbelts superglued onto the plastic. Only some of the bolts were loose and the whole confection wiggled and groaned whenever we hit a patch of rough air. Felt like a Centrelink waiting room with added sound effects and no toilet.
On the way back, however, I scored a seat on a 12 seater private jet - single line of seats, sheepskin seat covers, ample leg room, luxxury food, and the pilot did a low altitude sweep over the Coorong which was humming with birdlife and full of water. That flight was magical. We stopped in Mt Gambier to re-fuel, so I got to see the blue lake which was very blue. Also some of the best fish & chips I’ve ever had at one of the hotels. All courtesy of the plane’s owner.
Another good one was from Alice Springs to Sydney over the western plains of NSW. It was just on sunset, and we got high enough that we could see the whole terminator from the plane windows - that is, behind us was broad daylight, then a fuzzy zone, then black night ahead of us. No clouds, you could see the darkness creeping over the land as the sun set.
Flying into (and out of) Lukla airstrip Nepal in '99. On a school trip… that was a very bad idea.
2nd scariest moment of my life.
I’ve done a fair bit of flying in my years but I can’t think of a single eventful tale to tell from them lol
No misbehaving passengers, no plane troubles… all pretty boring. I did miss a plane to Thailand once in 2014 because I was too busy chatting in Nandos (so before the international entry/customs in Melbourne Airport) and didn’t realise it was so close to boarding/didn’t take into account how long it’d take to get through customs and then get to the gate which was a bit of a hike. Ran but didn’t make it. That was embarrassing. The annoying thing was I was REALLY early to get to the airport.
Told family and friends the plane had been cancelled until the next day rather than admit what happened. Luckily nobody checked online to see if it was a lie… but I did admit it to my family only earlier this year what actually happened.
Best flight - got upgraded to business class on a Cathay flight from HK to Melb. Fell asleep at one point in the comfy seats and I swear when I woke up, the flight attendants put a blanket on me and tucked it around my arms.
Worst flight - flying Caledonian airlines from Toronto to London (Gatwick airport). The food warmer was down so everyone enjoyed a very cold meal. Hot water ran out halfway through due to some technical fault. My parents were quite miffed. Thankfully it’s only like 6-7 hour flight.
I don’t have many stories. I have such a PTSD trigger response to the Barefoot Investor though because when I was coming back from Sydney, I had the middle seat and I’m also fat so this middle age grumpy Karen was giving me death glares because I have the audacity to be fat meanwhile I had no idea because I was trying not to have a panic attack (I hate flying).