Remembering your first flight

ToughOmbre said:

1st flight ever - August 1971, McGuire AFB to Fort Knox, KY. Me and 155 other BCT soldiers from Fort Dix on our way to AIT aboard a chartered 707 ("Modern Air"). Had to turn around 30 minutes into the flight and make an emergency landing at Kennedy in NY (engine trouble).

2nd flight ever - about three or four hours later, same plane (problem fixed?). About 20 minutes in we turned around (more engine trouble). Some guys were a little agitated to say the least. Landed without incident. Needless to say we didn't get on that plane again. Government had to put us up for a night in an NYC hotel. What a zoo!

Finally got to Fort Knox the next day on a United Airlines 707.

TO

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Les'Bride said:

I remember, it was 1978, I was 8 yrs old.

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ccheese said:

My first flight was in a PBM, courtesy of the US Navy. I was not an air-
crewman, just along for the ride. I was 17/18 at NAS Jax, Fla. The plane
took off from the St. John's River, flew around for about an hour and set back
down. Altho I had been an aviation buff since the '40's, this flight got me really hooked.
I still love to fly, but don't get to do it too much anymore.

Charles

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eddie_brunette said:

WOW!!! how does it feel to take off and land on water! The PBY is one of my favourite planes ever.

I see alot of you flew on passenger jets, that I still have to do
I did flew alot in the Aérospatiale Puma(now called the Oryx by the SAAF) when I was in the SANDF and a few time in Cesna's

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eddie_brunette said:

Last night memories took me back to the first time I boarded a plane and took to the skies. I think I was about 12/13 years old(1987) and my dad took us to a airshow in a town call Welkom. Now the cool thing about all this...it was a Ju52!!!! Appearently at that time there were only 3 flying in the world(that is my memory 20 years ago, so i might be wrong)

I have asked my mom to borrow me the photo album, so ill scan the pics. Ive Attached some other pics from web for the time

Now the plane:
SAA - The Junkes Era - 1934 - 1939
Tante Ju or Iron Annie
Junkers JU-52 - Jan Van Riebeeck
The Mainstay of the SAA Fleet in the mid 1930's

This early airliner formed the mainstay of the SAA fleet in the mid to late 1930's. In the 1930's SAA and its predecessor, Union Airways used mainly Junkers aircraft.

Nicknamed "Tante Ju" (Auntie Ju) and "Iron Annie" by Axis and Allied troops, the Junkers Ju-52 was the most famous German transport of the war. Over 4800 examples were built. It served as an airliner, troop transport, light bomber, flying ambulance and VIP aircraft. A Ju-52 served as the personal transport for Adolf Hitler.It was built of corrugated metal skin and paid little attention to beauty, features of a typical Junkers design. Parts and pieces stick out of the airframe, and the corrugated skin, though much stronger than fabric and metal tubes, creates stronger air resistance.

Its most commom work, however, was done with the German Lufthansa. Equipped with luxuaries like a typewriter and oxygen masks, the Ju-52 could fly from Berlin to Rome in eight hours over the Alps, an impressive feat for contemporary aircraft, let alone an airliner. The airliner served on may of the internal routes we know today in South Africa, such as Johannesburg to Durban and Cape Town.

Below are photographs of ZS-AFA, the original aeroplane of the South African Airways Historic flight, faithfully recreated to look like the ones that flew the African skies in the 1930's.

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