First Time on a Plane: Where Did You Go?

[Saint Willy]

69 years ago - NY to Paris

hooly dooly!

[Davis Knowlton]

^My Mom with three sons - 5, 3 and 1 - I was in charge of passports. My dad - a wise man - had gone ahead and was already there in his new job at SHAEFE.

[qwerty]

SFO (San Francisco) to LHR (London).
I was 17 and was traveling with my mother, aunt and two big sisters.

I enjoyed the trip, but in retrospect could have enjoyed it more!

[Fondles]

Brisbane to Washington DC, had to change a windscreen in an Armoured car I built.

[OhOh]

Manchester to Calgary with a change at Toronto. Myself, my new wife and a Gordon Setter.

No quarantine, humans or dog.

[pickel]

Manchester to Calgary with a change at Toronto. Myself, my new wife and a Gordon Setter.

You were already married by the time you took your first flight?

[strigils]

LHR to NCE with parents on my first foreign holiday in 1973

[Troy]

Hercules: Brize-Norton to Saintes 1978. We spent most of the flight playing football, using the cargo door as a goal.

[panama hat]

You were already married by the time you took your first flight?

He also said he was in Canada first, from China then the UK . . .

Singapore rather than Birmingham in March 1988 seemed a good idea.

It still does.

I'm sure it was/is.

[moose65]

Dubbo to Sydney, Fokker Friendship.
On my way to School in Sydney.

[Shy Guava]

I think my first flight was Brisbane to Perth in early 1965 - can't remember what the aircraft was.

Funny thing was I packed an 8 inch Bowie hunting knife in my carry on by mistake. They noticed it at security, they said tsk tsk, make sure you leave that in the bag. Travel was so easy in the past.

About 3 years after my first flight I remember flying from Brisbane to Mt Isa with about 10 metres of primacord, detonators and perforating charges in my suitcase. I don't believe there were any security checks at all in those days. If my recollection is correct, the plane was an Electra. There was a bar in the tail of the cabin where you could sit and get pissed - very civilized.

[sabang]

Would also like to add a longest journey trip by air to see if anyone can beat it, all were connecting flights with 2 to 6 hours transit time at each airport. Bangkok - Sydney - LA - Miami - Rio - Fortaleza. Saw the sun come up thru the window of a plane 3 days in a row getting to work, it was all done in business class and I don't believe anyone sane (or tall) could have done it in cattle.

Lets see-

British Virgin Islands- Pto Rico- Miami- O'Hare- Heathrow- Singapore- Hong Kong

That was a return journey, done in one shot. Took about 38 hours from memory.

The outward journey was even more 'epic', as it also involved a return flight from London to Amsterdam. But seeing as there were stopovers in Sing, Ldn, Amsterdam & BVI it doesn't really count.

[Lostandfound]

Ibiza. 1972

[Pragmatic]

1970. Luton to Hanover on a Britannia prop. I wus flying out to join my unit based at Bergen-Hohne. Age 18.

[Iceman123]

First flight Edinburgh Scotland to Mallorca Spain 1974

Longest flight - Adelaide to Nashville via Ghuanzhou and New York. Business class but took over well over 40 hrs.

[MarilynMonroe]

Longest flight - Adelaide to Nashville via Ghuanzhou and New York. Business class but took over well over 40 hrs.

That is long!! Must have been tired!

I went from Seoul to Narita to Montreal before which seemed long.
Also, went from Montreal to O'Hare to Seoul which was insane because American customs takes forever. I said never again going through the US to Asia.

[armstrong]

Left the UK somewhere. I think Gatwick but it could also be Heathrow or Norwich. To sunny Yugoslavia, Dubrovnik.

[Topper]

As a kid, we did a family trip driving from Albany, Georgia to Sacramento, California to visit my father's parents for a few days and then drive back. While we were there, my mom and grandma were out and about in our car and totaled it. Mom spent about a week in the hospital before she could be released and since the car was totaled, we had to fly home. I think I was 8 or 9. As a kid you're excited as all fook to fly on a plane, but also having to take care of your mom while doing it.

However, my next plane flight was from Jacksonville, Florida to Honolulu on a work assignment when I was 19. I learned what it was like to travel on the company's tab.

[helge]

1982 from Odense to Søndrestrømfjord/kangerslusuag- Greenland via Copenhagen

Next, and more exiting. Str. Fjord-Paradise Valley by Cessna or Piper or something

to a freshly bulldozed and graded 1000 yard strip of sand

You would wish landed on the dry riverbed. Gravel and small stones smashing the belly of our poor plane.

Trout and musk country

If you'll take a look, you'll see the biggest forest in Greenland

Not my video, but looks pretty much the same 30 years later

[hallelujah]

What about your worst time on a plane?

I was flying from London to Bangkok with Austrian Airlines in 2007 and we had shocking turbulence for the whole of the London - Vienna leg. I'd been back for a wedding, so I was already feeling pretty fragile after the weekend's excesses and this almost sent me over the edge. I was shaking like a shitting dog, gulping for air, yet I turned to the left of me to see an Austrian businesswoman sipping a glass of wine, barely batting an eyelid and calmly reading a newspaper.

Clearly, the horrors of the turbulence had been magnified by the the beer fear and, since this experience, I always try to avoid drinking the night before a flight.

[Saint Willy]

She might have if you power chucked all over her...

[hallelujah]

She might have if you power chucked all over her...

I was almost at the point of asking her to hold my hand!!!

[S Landreth]

What about your worst time on a plane?

I think a couple years ago. Over the water,…..ANA smoke in the cabin (there were some frightened passengers), emergency landing south of Tokyo. Overnight and then another flight/plane into BKK.

Edit: There are some Veterans on this forum. Could get interesting

[bestvue]

1956- 6yr old Army brat. Evacuated from Tripoli Libya due to Suiz crisis. Don't know what sort of plane or even where we went.

[Saint Willy]

What about your worst time on a plane?

Flying home from Palembang to Jakarta, after witnessing a solar eclipse, on a local flight during a wet season thunderstorm. Flight was bouncing all over the place, lighting off the starboard bow.

2 of my kids were throwing up with mom joining them and my eldest was hyperventilating and asking if we were going to die...