Where were you going on your first airplane ride?
Sep 3, 2021 23:44:56 #
1st flight was from Atlanta, GA to Texas for Air Force Basic training.
However, my 2nd flight was the most memorable. I flew in a C-130 from MacDill AFB (Tampa), FL to Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam in 1965. We made the trip with no layovers, just 5 stops, about 2 hours each, for fuel & crew change. Total trip was 52 hours with 42 hours flying time. All of the web seats were old and stretched… hard to find a place where your rear didn’t rest on the metal frame for the seats. At altitude, front was sweltering hot and back was freezing cold. We were packed in there… I think there were 60 of us. Each of us had a duffel bag, a foot locker, tools boxes, an M-16 with 3 loaded magazines. There was some electronic equipment in the back.
By the way, I received that M-16 and magazines/ammo a couple of hours before the flight. That is the 1st time I had ever seen an M-16. We had M-1 carbines in basic. Still had not fired the M-16 when I dug a foxhole and spent some time in it... later got a chance to fire hundreds, maybe a thousand rounds or so.
However, my 2nd flight was the most memorable. I flew in a C-130 from MacDill AFB (Tampa), FL to Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam in 1965. We made the trip with no layovers, just 5 stops, about 2 hours each, for fuel & crew change. Total trip was 52 hours with 42 hours flying time. All of the web seats were old and stretched… hard to find a place where your rear didn’t rest on the metal frame for the seats. At altitude, front was sweltering hot and back was freezing cold. We were packed in there… I think there were 60 of us. Each of us had a duffel bag, a foot locker, tools boxes, an M-16 with 3 loaded magazines. There was some electronic equipment in the back.
By the way, I received that M-16 and magazines/ammo a couple of hours before the flight. That is the 1st time I had ever seen an M-16. We had M-1 carbines in basic. Still had not fired the M-16 when I dug a foxhole and spent some time in it... later got a chance to fire hundreds, maybe a thousand rounds or so.
Sep 4, 2021 01:40:01 #
Sep 4, 2021 07:51:26 #
I was on the way to Lackland AFB Texas for basic traning on a Eastern airlines 727 in 1969.
Sep 4, 2021 08:22:06 #
Sep 4, 2021 08:39:04 #
Sep 4, 2021 09:23:26 #
From San Diego to Hawaii to go surfing. It was 1964. I was 20 years old.
Sep 4, 2021 09:38:22 #
Sep 4, 2021 09:54:22 #
My girlfriend and I went on a promotional flight on a 707 from Idlewild, now JFK. The cost was minimal, and they flew us around for about an hour.
Sep 4, 2021 11:30:08 #
Sep 4, 2021 11:38:25 #
West Germany on a Viking. Very noisy from the twin props engines.
Sep 4, 2021 12:46:32 #
Disneyland, of course.
tramsey wrote:
I was going to State Highway Patrol School.
Sep 4, 2021 14:10:43 #
aberthet
Loc: San Clemente, CA
cedymock wrote:
I was going up to 3000 feet to jump out .....................with parachute.
Same for me. My first airplane ride in 1969 was in a De Havilland Dragon Rapide to do my first parachute jump in France. The Dragon Rapide was a twin-engine British Biplane made of tube and fabric. It really looked like a Dragon. You can google the beast to see it.
Sep 4, 2021 15:27:12 #
aberthet wrote:
Same for me. My first airplane ride in 1969 was in a De Havilland Dragon Rapide to do my first parachute jump in France. The Dragon Rapide was a twin-engine British Biplane made of tube and fabric. It really looked like a Dragon. You can google the beast to see it.
Amazing. Caused me to read up on the Dragon and the Gipsy 6 engine, an airplane and engine I knew nothing about - Thanks! By my count, they built 797 aircraft of various configurations, had 22 crashes and killed 87 people. No idea if that is a good or bad ratio compared to other aircraft of the period or modern aircraft.
Sep 4, 2021 15:57:08 #
olddutch
Loc: Beloit, Wisconsin
TriX wrote:
Amazing. Caused me to read up on the Dragon and the Gipsy 6 engine, an airplane and engine I knew nothing about - Thanks! By my count, they built 797 aircraft of various configurations, had 22 crashes and killed 87 people. No idea if that is a good or bad ratio compared to other aircraft of the period or modern aircraft.
I believe that was a Gypsy Queen engine. The same ones used in the De Havlen Dove.
Sep 4, 2021 16:08:46 #
aberthet
Loc: San Clemente, CA
TriX wrote:
By my count, they built 797 aircraft of various configurations, had 22 crashes and killed 87 people. No idea if that is a good or bad ratio compared to other aircraft of the period or modern aircraft.
The De Havilland Dragon Rapide aircraft were introduced in the early thirties and were certainly regularly flown until the late sixties. At the time flight navigation aids were not what we have today and weather reports not very accurate, so I can assume many of these crashes happened in bad weather. Most of them were flown in the UK and northern Europe which are regions known for having low cloud ceilings most of the year. Since they also saw service during WW2, it’s possible that some of the crashes were related to hostility.
When I flew in it at the age of 19, I was not too concerned about the safety of the plane but by the fact I will have to parachute out of this perfectly good airplane into Ether and hoping the canopy will open as I was told it will do.
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