First, I would say spending some time somewhere with some close relatives, knowing your plane that brought you there waits for you until you decide to take it back home, watching the sun set after a clear day.
Second, the community of true aviation enthusiasts like on this forum. Which, unfortunately, is not the first contact new people get of GA (usually it is an unfriendly club employee or instructor ).
Breaking out of a cloud layer into brilliant sunshine or, even better, flying straight towards a full moon with the soft light playing on the fluffy stuff below. It really doesn’t get much better than that.
There are many other things, such as going to some small airfield in the middle of nowhere, crossing deserts, flying over the Barrier Reef or Los Angeles at night, the list goes on. That ‘breaking out’ moment still is the most magical thing to me.
Everything. Just flying. Flying over San Francisco and down within touching distance of KSFO. A tricky ILS in a gusty crosswind and breaking out with the runway in the nose. Greasing it on so the pax don’t even notice. Flying a three-turn spin and recovering on the right heading. A nicely flown loop/roll/hammerhead/… A nice auto and greasing it on at the end.
Everything. Just everything.
denopa wrote:
“A good landing. With witnesses. “
Indeed I remember I was given a short approach in a Cub. A SAS 737 was taxiing out, and I came in with a sliding final turn and landed perfect three point in front of it when it was holding off the runway. They saw the whole approach and landing. Then I heard on the radio from the 737: “the boy can land” It still feels good.
Conversely the other opposite is also true. This time I had a pitot malfunction, no IAS. I had the GS on the GPS, but decided to come in fast, to be sure I didn’t stall. This landing was not so good. My plan was simply to hold it off the runway, a feet or so, but I touched down too early and did a jump, and the whole thing did look terrible I’m sure. A SAS 737 was also holding this time, and when I finally turned to the exit I heard on the radio “what a terrible landing”. I wanted to strangle the guy, but didn’t say anything, just taxied to parking. In hindsight I thought of all the things I could have said…
Right now, Corona has turned out to be a good thing (I know it is a stupid thing to say, but let’s just forget about the disease itself). Now we have all the airspace in the world. No holding, no waiting. There still is CAT traffic, but maybe only 20-30% of what it was, and only Widerøe, SAS and Norwegian, who has never been a problem for us per se, just way too many of them (SAS and Norwegian that is). Unlike some foreign airlines with pilots who have never done a GA flight in a mixed environment in their entire life, or so it seems by their talk on the radio.
Going places
For me, too many to list…
Peter wrote:
flying an IAP to absolute minima and spotting the runway lights just at that moment
Jerry
(edited for YT linking and embedding – I just can’t get it right…)
Guess I’ll add a redirected link for now – “Jerry”: http://u.42.pl/17Zv4
Airport in-sight in Hi-Synth-Vis
The “worst things” thread now has 57 posts.
The “best things” thread now has 28 posts.
Taking off at dusk in the Piper Cub from my home strip, flying through the English Cotswolds hills and discovering another iron age hill fort or an unspoiled medieval village nestled in an as yet unseen valley fold. Doubly so if my beautiful wife comes along for the ride. Then landing at the exact moment the light finally fades.