Flying?

[Lindley]

Flying is generally ok. Mostly I hate not being able to have meals on long flights. Full flights definitely suck, but if the flight is not full, I can usually spread out a bit and just read or sleep the whole way.

Airports are just plain suck. I've yet to find one that is better than tolerable, though I think 90% of that is that I have yet to find a decently comfortable seat in one and I have a tendency to show up 90 minutes or more early for the flight. Add in the food and beverage prices and it can be really bad...

Too many of you are limiting your assessments to the Big Iron experience and large international hub airports. Flying, and the airport experience, are so much more than that, and most of you don't have any idea.

Quite the contrary. I have dealt with small airports and smaller planes. I hate being in small planes with a passion and have found that there is really only two differences between small airports and larger ones. One is the time factor. Small airports mean shorter amounts of time between when you deplane and when your bags show up at baggage claim and a shorter walk to the curb/rental car counter. The other difference is that you frequently have to walk up the stairs to get on board. As someone who has flown with someone requiring a wheelchair, that is a REAL pita. Oh, and then there is that whole experience of running across the tarmac to catch your flight while they are preparing to pull the stairs away even though you made it to the gate in time.

So yes, small airports suck too.

That isn't what I'm talking about.

Consider: You have a free day with nothing to do. So you head down to the local airport to check out the BBQ they're supposed to be having. There's no security at all, just a chain link fence on the perimeter, but the gate is always open during the day anyway.

You walk out onto the ramp, admiring the aerobatic planes practicing their maneuvers a few hundred feet overhead and the equally impressive 2- and 4-seat craft parked around you. The BBQ food is good, and before long you get to chatting with some of the owners of those planes (who are of course here for the party).

One of them offers you take up you in his kit-built RV-8, no charge. Why? Because he thinks you'd enjoy it, and he's a nice guy. During takeoff, he skims along in ground effect until the last possible moment building speed (a soft-field technique, even though there's a paved runway here), then pulls it skyward, trading kinetic energy for potential energy. He lets the airspeed bleed off but levels well before reaching the stall speed.

He then demonstrates a few basic maneuvers in his airplane. You can tell the plane is very powerful; the 2-seater screams along at 180 knots indicated during level flight. He even lets you take the controls and try some 60 degree steep banks.

Unfortunately, he says, he can't demonstrate rolls since you aren't wearing a parachute. Not that there'd be any practical need for one, but the regulations are clear.

He then takes the you back to the field, keeping an eye out for those planes practicing in the aerobatic box above the runway. You land, climb out, and decide you want that airplane.

But the day isn't over yet. Another owner offers to take you up in a WW2-era Champ, which is a completely different animal. Where the RV-8 was powerful and responsive, the Champ maxes out at about 70 knots, which is right around the RV-8's minimum controllable airspeed. In fact, the Champ doesn't even have an electrical system, which means no radios to report your position and monitor other traffic, so keep an eye out. You fly with the window open, arm rested in the opening, and play with the controls a bit. This plane is unlike any other you've been in---banking doesn't do much, it's all about the rudder. It also doesn't have any kind of flaps, so when it comes time to land, the pilot twists the bird into a forward slip to lose altitude fast. The entire flight is probably at no more than 1000 feet AGL. You get back with a new respect for stick-and-rudder skills, although you don't intend to be taking one of those on any long cross-countries any time soon (if you want to arrive within a year).

That's a good day.

 

[Canadave]

The worst for me was flying WestJet from Ottawa to Saskatoon. There was no direct flight, so we had to change planes in Calgary—meaning that on the way out, I watched on the GPS as we flew right over Saskatoon, and onwards for another hour west.

Man, that would suck. The first time I took a direct flight back from India, I watched as we left and then started heading north ... and then further north ... and I was like ummm, the US is in the other direction! But it turned out we were basically flying over the pole (or somewhat near, rather), which was kind of awesome in itself.

Yeah, that's pretty typical, actually. We're used to seeing world maps laid out flat, and think that a straight line is the shortest distance between two distant points. But because the Earth is a sphere, the most direct route usually involves an arc to the north or the south, depending on which hemisphere you're in. It's called a Great Circle.