What was your favorite flight?

One of my favourite in-flight moments was on an Air New Zealand 747-400 flying from LHR-LAX and I had chance to go and sit on the flight deck, superb experience, awesome views.
My favourite flight however was on 6th July 2000. It was flight SN2174, my first ever flight with Sabena. It was also my first flight on an Avro RJ. The steward greeted us with “welcome aboard the best flight of your life”. During the safety demonstration he said “when we crash into the sea make sure you don’t get eaten by the sharks”. He was making jokes throughout the flight, which made it a fun experience. When we landed his final words were “welcome to Brussels. Sorry for the delay but what’s fifteen minutes in a lifetime!!” I only hope he continues to work for SN Brussels.

Mongu – yes it is an Aztec. I flew one once but I seem to remember it was a 6 seater (including pilot) rather than 7. Can’t help you with the routing for your flight though as I have no local knowledge of the area.

Aye, but you have to get to Zambia in the first place! I bought some tickets last week (I’m going down again next month) and its about £1,000 all in from IOM, economy with BA. And that’s not including internal flights, because I’m going to be a brave boy and drive up to the Copperbelt, past all the army roadblocks 😮

cheers for that Mongu – between 5 that aint so bad!

Preston – there were/are no scheduled flights. Only other option was to fly scheduled down to Lusaka and take it from there.

One of the charities flew to Mfuwe twice weekly from Lusaka in a Cessna Caravan I. They informally offered to take us, but it wasn’t flexible and meant flying down to Lusaka to make the connection. Plus, I generally dislike happy clappy lets write off all the debt man, charity types!

The charter slightly more all in ($4,000 for an Aztec+pilot+fuel for 10 days), but it gave a lot more flexibility and besides which it was fun! And between 5 people, that isn’t too much more per head. About 100 minutes each way, and I could watch the ETA tick closer on the pilot’s GPS unit. Beats economy class on BA from London the previous week 🙂

My old man hired the same plane the following month to fly with some colleagues to a board meeting in Sun City, Joburg. That must have been a horrendous flight in a piston twin – about 1,500km so I presume they must have tanked up en-route, probably in Harare, Kariba or Bulawayo if my geography serves.

Would any of the pilots here know what sort of routing would be taken, flying from Northern Zambia to the Johannesburg area? This was in the days when Zimbabwe was considered safe, alhough whites were still beaten up regularly- so I think they would have risked a refueling there.

Mongu, just out of interest proportionally what was the differance in price to hire the a/c? Cheaper due less fuel costs, landing fees etc, or more expensive as there are less operators?

Couldn’t figure it out for mysen!!

As only ive been on Charters mine aren’t very interesting..

Either LBA-LCA G-MONZ A320 1995 As it was my first time from LBA and the A320 seemed so smooth at the time…

Or MAN-LCA TF-ABU Tristar 1999 Fantastic surprise instead of the Monarch A300 what a machine..

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Me too!

My other fave is a charter flight with a difference. I actually chartered the plane.

It was only a 7 seater twin Piper (Aztec?) but I sat in the front, right hand seat. I vividly remember taxiing to the runway, and my door was still open. I kept nudging the pilot, and he just said don’t worry 😮

In the end he leant over me and latched it closed as we were rolling down the runway.

Flight was from a small airstrip in Northern Zambia (Chingola) to the grandly titled “Mfuwe International Airport”.

CGJ-MFU

Chingola has I think the largest open cast mine in Africa, which we flew over. Interesting experience to say the least, as I had been on a tour of the site the previous week,

Pic 1 is the aircraft exterior, 2 is the interior (my mother and grandmother) and 3 is the destination

Originally posted by EGNM
Kab i thought u’re fav was the Druk 146?

keeps changing!:D 😀 :p

In 1999 I flew in the cockpit of the Trislander. From the front I had excellent views that you do not normally see plus it was windy so landing was quite bumpy and the pilot was an interesting man so in the end it was extremely fun!

Heathrow – Philadelphia with BA on a 744 in December last year. My mates dad is a senior captain on the triple seven with them and came with us to the airport. We got our flights dirt cheap in economy.

When we got to the airport Steve (My mates dad) would just go up to people offer his hand to shake, flash his staff card and say ‘hi…Steve’ and they would fall at his feet and give him anything!

We got upgraded, lounge access, fast track check in and security control and tonnes of free BA merchandise plus free hotels and meals when we got to Philly.

The flight itself was amazing, we were personally invited to the flight deck by the Captain when we landed over the tanoy and we were waited on hand and foot.

Without a doubt, a flight in a Piper Cub floatplane from Jack Browns Seaplane base in Florida. Fantastic. 1/2 an hour spent doing circuits on a lake. I flew 7 circuits. I’m not a pilot, so it was the first time I had ever landed ANYTHING. Brilliant, fantastic, undescribable! Worth every penny.

A very close second is taking a Cessna 172 out of Tucson, and overflying AMARC, before doing 3 circuits of Pinal Air Park, Marana to see the 140 airliners stored there. WOW

For a commercial flight, it has to be flying into Kai Tak on a 747.
Such a shame you can’t do it any more.

Willow

I suppose flights I get to film on have been the most fun. In this repect I’ve hung out the side of a Jet Ranger helicopter racing up the River Clyde and I’ve also done air to air from an RAF Bulldog trainer at Leuchars. That day was good cause I got to taxi in a Tornado as well !

Kab i thought u’re fav was the Druk 146?

Mine has to b the 4 B741 secotrs jumpseat on TF-ATE on work exp – awesome on a 747 for the first time and as crew – walk around checks, refuelling, cabin announcements and Duty Free!

MAN-TFS-MAN-AGP-MAN 25/26-10-02

I’ll never forget them!

RIP ATE!

My favourite flight was my first flight. In a Boeing 707. 🙂

my fav. flight till date is DEL-CPH on SAS B767……the scenery of the Hindukush mountains was unforgettable!

Best flight was LGW to MBJ via KIN on 13/4 1999–it was a brand new 777(* we were expecting a DC10but they had got rid of themthe week before!) We couldnt get over how huge the plane was when we got off at Montego Bay and we were able to see it go back off to London even though it was pitch dark! It was a good trip as the holiday was a freebie courtesy of our local radio stations phone in competition !

My favourite flight wasn’t a commercial flight either.

Whilst on holiday visiting a friend in New Jersey 4 summers ago, I was treated to a flight by her boyfriend in his boss’ little 7 seater Piper (unsure which type exactly). The highlight of this particular flight was flying over the length of Manhattan at only few thousand feet – flying over Harlem, Central Park and seeing buildings such as the Empire State, Chrysler and the Twin Towers from a fantastic viewpoint. To top it all off, we then flew around the Statue of Liberty – a particular bonus as we run out of time on our city tour that day and had to miss out the ferry ride and a visit to the Statue. After flying around the statue, we then headed back to the airfield in New Jersey. The whole flight only lasted about 25 minutes but it was breathtaking. I managed to catch some of it on video too, thankfully.

My favourite commercial flight was probably the flight over to EWR with VS on a B744 – despite travelling stand-by and having been ‘bumped’ off the first flight we checked in for and hoped to get on AND being delayed by 8 hours due to a electrical sub-station fire in T3 LHR, the flight itself was soopoib.

New York, New York – so good they mugged me twice!!!!