My first non-commercial flight

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Where did you do the glider course? I did my course at Syerston in about 1998 and the solo flight at Hendon due to bad weather at Syerston - still have my "Gonef Ora Burton" mug somewhere...

At RAF Halton near Aylesbury, 613 VGS sticks in my mind... The CFI looked just like Viper from Top Gun!
 
We have a few Kiwi’s he so I will add mine. I seem to be the lucky one, my first of 6-7 NCF’s was Christchurch to Oamaru on ZK-WIL a Beachcraft B200 King Air, turbo prop, owned by the company I worked for, part of Goodman Fielder (GFW as it was then).
It was a work related trip of about 50 minutes each way. I got to sit on the couch (being the most junior on board) but that was better than the toilet seat. Seating was 4 + 2 individual seats, a 3 seat couch, and the toilet seat.
I remember it well as the CEO was on board and a couple of other senior exec and I had not been introduced to them before. The way down was all work, the return was work until one of the managers asked me to play hostie, cheese, biscuits, grapes and Steinlarger beer.:mrgreen::mrgreen:
 
As a baby in a Piper Cherokee 6. These days I have done up to GFPT on my license, need to get around to finishing it one day. Still have my PPL exam & 5 navs to do. My father owns a 2000 C172 SP so I regularly fly with him. :)
 
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Does the first ever corporate charter of a QF 747 to Antarctica count as a non commercial flight? If so thats my one.
 
In the late 90's I flew as a passenger on a Westpac Rescue helicopter and in 2003 I flew in an Antanov from Longyearbyen in Norway to a camp much further in to the arctic circle followed by a helicopter flight up to the North Pole.
 
Around 1977, on a Bristows S61 from Aberdeen to the Beryl Alpha platform in the North Sea.
It was a fairly sombre arrival as they had just had a fatal accident.
Smuggled back a load of duty-free cigars on the return trip; how times have changed.
 
A Cessna 172 out of Moorabin Airport when I was about 11. Have done many more over the years, including a 2 week flying trip around Australia in a Cessna 172 which is a great way to see the country.
 
Back in the early 70's an army Dehavilland Caribou out of Grafton to Lismore then a Huey out of Lismore
 
Growing up in central Qld, our next door neighbours had their own Cessna. I was often invited with them to go for a lunch jaunt to the grandparents - a 10 minute hop which would have been over an hours drive. When living in Sydney enjoyed helping the bf keep his hours up with jaunts over the blue mountains. My job was to look out for landing spots. Still can't help doing it. He wasn't instrument rated at the time so we occasionally got stranded on the western side waiting for the clouds to clear.
 
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I think I would have been only about 12yo, my dad knew a guy who had some sort of restored (maybe replica) two-seater Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5 or possibly replica Sopwith Camel or something similar and I got a quick ride in that (goggles and all!).
 
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1987ish, just out of Uni and in my first job. Within 6 weeks I was on the corporate jet (a BAE something or other) from Edinburgh down to the English Midlands. I'd only ever been on coughpy charters before and the accelaration was exhilerating.
I was on the up! This was going to be it, I'd made it into the world of private flying! I was the man!
Alas it took 20+ years to repeat the experience.

Although that didn't take away the sheer joy last year of a private day trip around Spain and France in a 9 seater dassualt thingy.....
 
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My first flight was probably some light aircraft out of caloundra in the early 1980s, 1981/2 maybe. After that a DC3 joy flight at the Christmas party of FNQ airlines (or whatever they were called) in about 1984 from cairns.

Got to fly a 152 in about 1990 when a uni mate took me flying just after he had got to the solo stage. Then a gilder in about 1997 on an intro flight - got to do the control from about half way down the runway and then to turn around and line up for landing. The real pilot then took over.

First ever non-commercial, was a C130 (Hercules) out of Darwin into an old WW2 airfiled called Narbalek, which is in Arnhem land somewhere.

Much more likely that you landed at the Narbalek mine airfield. I'm not sure about it's history in WW2 but I would have thought the area was too isolated back then to be effectively supplied. Happy to be corrected.


Sent from the Throne
 
My first one was a Cessna back in 1998 flying over the Nazca Lines in Peru - amazing stuff but a bit scary when the pilot and guide both had petrol burns on their arms! And again a Cessna in 2009 when I went tandem sky diving in Torquay, Victoria. That was awesome!:p
 
RAAF flights for me.

Not sure of the order, but some semi-memorable flights were;
  • twice in my life I've been to Tasmania, twice for funerals and twice I didn't know the deceased!! I was part of the honour guard for some ranking officialdom. I can't remember details of both (the first was a Herc I think) but one we flew from Laverton to Launceston aboard a Dakota. Now we were always warned that the Dakotas wings "flapped" so I was looking for that (they didn't flap) but we did hit some fairly severe weather. For a young guy with a seemingly insatiable appetite, that suited me just fine.....I ended up with about 4 rat paks for lunch while the righful owners were busy regurgitating their breakfasts........was the first time I realised I don't tend to get air sick (or sea sick). Seating was an uncomfortable affair along the webbing attached to the fusalage.
  • In contrast, I also scored a lift from Laverton to Richmond aboard one of the Prime Ministers 707s (I think it was Richmond Town). Full dress blues and the real corker for me as a lowly AC, was to be served by sergeants who called me "Sir"! (Aparantly anyone flying aboard the Prime Ministers aircraft was referred to as either Sir or Ma'am). Got bumped in CBR and had to finish the trip by train (what a come down).
  • Plenty of Hercs and once a Boo Boo. One Iroquios and some Macchi trainers out of East Sale (super fun). If I remember correctly, we were fitting a circuit board we made up at Laverton to warn of open canopy. Apparantly, (trusting my not so good memory here) a couple of guys were sucked out of the macchis in Great Britain simply because they forgot to close the canopy. I think that was the story, some plane guru may be able to correct that if I'm wrong........time frame for all these was either 1980 or 1981. Oh, I also got to marshall in an F-111, which was something not many get to do I guess.
 
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First for me was sky-diving, probably a Cessna. Since then have been on numerous charter flights mainly in a Beech 1900C.
 
I have never been on a non-commercial flight. And not sure I want to start now.

I do not like the look of 2-seat, 4-seat aircraft etc. I would prefer not to travel on anything smaller than say a Dash8-200 or Dash8-300 and any non-commercial flight on bigger aircraft would be way out of reach.

Commercial flights are enough for me.
 
I have done a few flights for work on charter flights.

I have a flight coming up soon on a private plane to a customers cattle property to check out what we can do for remote communications.

That will be a hard day, might have a helicopter ride as well that day.
 
A spectacular flight in a 4 seater, Cessna, in the middle East. We flew right over Nazareth, the Galilee, and directly over the ruins of the ancient synagogue where Jesus preached. Once-in-a-lifetime experience.
 
On a retrieval, Pilatus PC-12, always asked to sit in the co-pilot seat on the way up, never been refused... I suppose this part of my life was pre Sept 11
 
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