Flight/Planes

I hadn't flown from the flying club I was member of in the past and on a whim decided to drive down there and have a chat with the folks in charge with a view to flying from there again. This is Prestwick Airport which is south of Glasgow on the Ayrshire coast and quiet as far as aircraft movements with a very long runway and mostly fog free which makes a great alternative. A wee bit of trivia it's the only place in the UK where Elvis set foot on a transit when he was in the army.

Anyway I get to the flying club and can't help notice that there are two C-5 Galaxy heavy lifters on the tarmac near the clubhouse, this was very unusual. I was used to seeing C-141 Starlifters which are big enough and Prestwick was a base for USAF Military Airlift Command.

CFI gives me a hi viz jacket and says MAC families are going on a tour of one of the C-5's go join them, wow! Sure enough we gathered on the tarmac and were met by guy wearing a flying suit rank of captain who takes us on a tour of one of these enormous planes. I can't describe how astonished I was at the sheer size of every aspect of this machine, my mate Scott who was a Royal Air Force helicopter pilot reckoned he could fly his Puma straight into the cargo bay and after seeing it I could believe him.

I should have thought of this but George W was on a UK visit and the two C-5's brought his limo and all the mobile infrastructure required, the top folks travelled on Air Force One.

As a bonus there was a 747 being serviced there so I got to clamber all over that too and wonder of wonders a short display by the Red Arrows RAF display team. I have no idea why they did that but as always they were simply amazing.

So many aviation stories :)
 
I hadn't flown from the flying club I was member of in the past and on a whim decided to drive down there and have a chat with the folks in charge with a view to flying from there again. This is Prestwick Airport which is south of Glasgow on the Ayrshire coast and quiet as far as aircraft movements with a very long runway and mostly fog free which makes a great alternative. A wee bit of trivia it's the only place in the UK where Elvis set foot on a transit when he was in the army.

Anyway I get to the flying club and can't help notice that there are two C-5 Galaxy heavy lifters on the tarmac near the clubhouse, this was very unusual. I was used to seeing C-141 Starlifters which are big enough and Prestwick was a base for USAF Military Airlift Command.

CFI gives me a hi viz jacket and says MAC families are going on a tour of one of the C-5's go join them, wow! Sure enough we gathered on the tarmac and were met by guy wearing a flying suit rank of captain who takes us on a tour of one of these enormous planes. I can't describe how astonished I was at the sheer size of every aspect of this machine, my mate Scott who was a Royal Air Force helicopter pilot reckoned he could fly his Puma straight into the cargo bay and after seeing it I could believe him.

I should have thought of this but George W was on a UK visit and the two C-5's brought his limo and all the mobile infrastructure required, the top folks travelled on Air Force One.

As a bonus there was a 747 being serviced there so I got to clamber all over that too and wonder of wonders a short display by the Red Arrows RAF display team. I have no idea why they did that but as always they were simply amazing.

So many aviation stories :)

A former USAF officer who worked for me had been a pilot for one of the designated C-141 a/c that flew support/maintenance missions that accompanied then Vice President George H W Bush on overseas travel. He had some great stories, many dealing with Bush himself.
 
My first flight

I'm fifteen years old and had never been on a plane but had a passion for aviation living under the flight path for Glasgow airport all my life. As my mother never tired of telling people that I had ideas above my station one of those was to learn how to fly. We were poor so little money around even for food at times, I worked a paper round and washed taxis and saved everything I could.

Seeing all these planes overhead inevitably led to me becoming a plane spotter (sad I know), and whenever I could I walk to the airport and hang around the lounge with guys with the same passion. This was about a twenty mile round trip.

Hanging around the airport I wandered over to the flying club one day and was welcomed in and chatted with instructors and members and even got to sit in the cockpit of a Cessna 150, I didn't sleep that night I was so excited by the experience and now I was determined to experience flight. I saved until I had enough for a flight and walked to the airport the anticipation electric as I got to the club. I helped the instructor get the plane out of the hangar and that was a thrill in itself but...

The weather was closing in and the instructor cancelled the flight, the disappointment I can't describe but every pilot quickly learns about weather. A couple of weeks go by and I get to the airport for another attempt and I hook up with the CFI (chief flying instructor), and he's saying weather looks marginal I'm not sure about this, you've never flown before and you might not like the potential turbulence. I didn't say anything but he obviously saw the look of disappointment on my face and said 'ok, let's give it a go we can always turn back early'.

I learned how to pre-flight the plane, got in the left seat, started the engine and worked through the checklist with him. This wasn't an air experience flight it was treated as lesson one of the syllabus so I taxied out to the holding point of the runway passing airliners and one thing I won't forget, as I taxied past a biz jet the pilots gave the wee boy in the plane a wave which I returned. So we get clearance to the runway and line up. Words I was to hear many times from my instructor 'follow me through' which means hands and feet lightly on the controls so I can get a feel for the movements and he asked me to take charge of the throttle, what? Yup you's gonna fly this plane!

Talking me through this we barrel down the runway and in no time we're airborne, I'm in awe as the ground drops away and in short order we level off at a thousand feet just below the cloud base as it's totally overcast. He hands me full control as I now fly the plane striving to maintain the same altitude in the chop which didn't bother me at all, learning to trim the plane and learn the basics of the instruments. Now know this, the local area has spectacular scenery and seeing this for the first time breathtaking despite the really crappy grey weather but eventually we have to go home.

I roughly know where I am but how do we find the airport? CFI is giving me a heading but it's all looking murky out there and as we get closer there it is, the airport has turned the runway lights to max and that was a glorious sight the only colour out there. I followed through on the landing and taxied back to the club, did a debrief and made my first entry in my log book. To say I was hooked on flying is an understatement. The plane I flew was a Cessna 150 registration G-AWPP which you can look up on Google for pics and an accident report (I didn't break it).

First flight at fifteen at seventeen I was crewing military fast jets.