ACC'rs with a Power / Glider Scholarship, what was the craziest thing that happened at camp/in the air?

Everyone Flying
1

Just a FAQ. Wanna hear about your guys experience at camp or in the air.

2

I did both…the craziest thing…they let me go solo…more than once aswell

3

I got in the air.

The cadets in my Sqn think I’ve been smoking crack.

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4

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

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6

I was flying a solo cross-country exercise on my flying scholarship, pottering from Southampton towards Thruxton or similar in my high-powered C150…

Looked out towards left side of aircraft - oooh - a Puma(?) about 50 yds away. Gulp! Looked out to the right - oooh - a Sea Harrier about 20 yds away!! Bigger gulp!!

Think they were from Boscombe, certainly got my attention!! :laughing:

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7

Back in the 70’s when I did my gliding scholarship at RAF Gaydon, I did three solo flights. The first solo went well until I started to land. 9000ft of runway and a single traffic cone. Traffic cone 1, TMk3 0.

For the second solo I was given another glider. All went well again until I - yep, you’re right - came in to land. The skid on the underside of the Kirby broke.

For my third solo, OC 637 said to me that I had made history but not in a good way. He warned me before I took off - ‘do NOT break this glider’.

I took that on board and the third solo went swimmingly, thank god. I think the OC was only too glad to give me my wings and get rid of me!

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8

if we’re allowed to share PPL stories

During a training lesson, early on my instructor called out “aircraft below, right handside” and sure enough there was a Hercules, and amazing feeling in what was only my second or third lesson to a have a Hercules fly underneath me!

On one occasion I was flying into an airshow (GA static display) I went to call for “landing instructions” only to hear “Hurricane approaching from the North, 5 miles to run request landing instructions…” I asked my wife to look out to the right and sure enough the Hurricane came into view, after its run and break we entered the downwind and followed in the Hurricane!

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9

I did my solo in a Viking mid 90’s at RAF Sealand, was dragged off camp half way through to go straight into a weeks gliding course. Did my solo after 3 days as I’d had a fair few hours going gliding and flying all the time (those were the days!) for the rest of the week I got a fair few launches in and the best suntan I’d ever had. We had a German chap who came to do his gliding course, not sure who he was really…probably an exchange cadet. He got nothing but German war comments and we got a load of grief about the world cups. Brilliant time and for a German he had a brilliant sense of humour. We all kept in contact…letters in those days…:expressionless:

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10

I hope that was AirProx’d :stuck_out_tongue:

I did my gliding out of Cosford. While doing circuit training, we heard an Apache crew on the radio saying they were crossing the zone. After a few moments of nervous scanning trying to find it, my instructor took control, put the Vigilant on its side, and pointed to the Apache which was about 200ft below us. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.

Also straying into PPL war stories, during training we were asked by Newcastle Tower to hold just outside the zone. Shortly after, a Typhoon came in to land - we almost fell out of the sky watching it before following to land ourselves.

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11

I just about knew my left from my right, so over-loaded all the way! :slight_smile:

Not quite cadet time - basic pilot trg at RAF Church Fenton, in the mighty JP3a. Demo’ing my (very basic) aero sequence to my instructor; just came off the top of a loop, when he said suddenly “I have control!” I was a bit disappointed as it had been one of my better efforts…

Then I saw why; he had spotted an A-10 low-level. We had 10 mins of tail-chasing, best fun ever!! :laughing:

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12

My civvy gliding club gave me two memorable incidents. I was on circuit as a visiting spitfire was coming in on the other side. Then giving way to me on finals turn was awesome.
The other was when I was manning the radio as a 15 year old and ended up taking to Red1 and telling him to change his course to go over the other side of town as we had lots of gliders in the air at the time.

The benefits of being the nearest airfield to one that held an airshow, we got some great flypasts and visitors

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