I was going to label this as First Frights, but then it dawned on me that I would be limiting the chances for learning from others rather drastically, not to mention putting a strain on the brain of some of us older members to try and remember out first fright. It also dawned on me that i had at least three frights in J3s. This way we can list em as we remember em. Actually there is a forrh fright in a J3, but that one was something a stupid buddy of mine did.

Here goes:

My first flying fright occurred while I was flying a borrowed J3 from Palo Alto to Half Moon Bay. I had loaned the small J3 club the prop off of my Champ, in exchange I could fly the J3 for gas only whenever it was not scheduled. This was my first time to fly this J3, I was out over Crystal Springs Reservoir poking along about 1,500 feet above the water. I decided to check out stall characteristics before getting to Half Moon Bay. I started into a power on stall and was approaching the expected stall speed when, whap, the damned thing does what felt like a partial snap roll to the right. All of a sudden the blue sky turned to blue water. As it rolled over I instinctively tried a hard left stick but nothing happened, What the hell broke? Did a wing fall off? The water was coming up. Never trained for this! What to do? Pulled throttle back, feet back, hands on the upper braces and took a second to figure out which way was up. Plane had turned from northerly to almost south with the right wing pointing vertically down into the water. Only thing I could think of was to push on the left rudder. That helped lift the right wing. Now the world almost looked recognizable. Since the airspeed had risen during this fright time it was no problem to get the plane back under control. It probably all happened in three or four seconds at most. Never made it to Half Moon Bay that day. Went direct back to Palo Alto while re-hashing and rehearsing everything I had ever heard about wheel landings.

Trim

wow cubs dont do that what was wrong?

Last year I flew the "Cessna's to Oshkosh" for the second time. I had the Landis nose fork and 8.50s all around. This had the plane sitting in a nose high attitude, yes it looked like a tail dragger. To simplify the departure of 40+ aircraft the organizers decided to use the runway that most closely matched the course to Oshkosh, ( I believe it was 2 at Dodge County). This gave us a gusty 15-20kt left hand direct crosswind. Shouldn't be a big deal to handle.... I was the lead of element B in the flight. On receiving the take off signal I put in full throttle and was checking gauges when, WHAM, I caught a gust and the airplane jumped about 20 feet in the air, crabbed about 30-40 degrees to the left, the left wing dropped, I had full right aileron in with no response. A quick glance at the airspeed showed me at 40 mph! I got the nose down and quickly gaining speed flew out of it. Again the whole thing lasted 2 to 3 seconds but they were the worst few seconds of my 17 years of flying.
When I got home I got a field approval an replaced the 8.50 nose tire with a 7.00.

Robert

I was leaving Greenville Maine early one morning.We had a pretty good right crosswind with gusts but nothing I had not flown in before.I had my wife and baggage in our cub.Normal take off would be a couple hundred feet.I opened the throttle and had just pushed the stick forward when a gust hit and I found us about 15ft in the air and being blown left off the runway.I instinctively crabbed into the wind and was absolutely amazed that we kept flying.I swear when we popped off the ground the airspeed indicator had not moved.Scary and tense for a few seconds.My wife bless her soul is a very calm passenger.My buddy was behind me waiting to go and said it was a pretty spectacular take-off.Scared him.

Bill

I was ferrying a C 210 from Minnesota to Tanzania a few years ago when I lost my alternater at night over the Sahara Desert. It was three hours into a twelve hour flight, bad weather in Moroco prevented me from turning back forcing me to fly seven hours in actual conditions by flashlight. The problem was I only had one flashlight and half way until dawn I needed to change batteries. I was REALLY careful because if I dropped part of my mini Mag lite I would probably spin in. Needless to say I was sucessful and managed to find the Ivory Coast. Now I carry a headlamp AND a flashlight!

Check out the "accident analysis" forum, page two, "cessnas midair in colorado" (sorry,I am a complete hack at this computer stuff, don't know how to move it over here). I have done some scary stuff before, but this one takes the cake. I now consider myself the luckiest guy alive!

My scariest flights thus far have involved really poor visibility from forest fire smoke. Returning from JC a few years ago, I got hung up some some smoke viz that was definitely below 1 mile. Smoke is strange in that it can gradually degrade until then next thing you know, you're in IMC. I diverted to a better airport and got a ride, but I did have to fly on instruments for a few minutes (dumb!!)

The only other flight that really puckered my seat was during my night cross country in southern CA. Flying over the coast range from Burbank to Santa Ynez, I encountered some pretty solid moderate turbulence in a 152. Full throttle, idle, full throttle, idle, sink, climb, sink while trying to climb, hit head on headliner, hand slip off throttle, wonder if flying is really for me...apologize to SBA approach for breaking altitude, give PiRep, sleep well.

Don't forget that your "buddy" could have done some stuff too.

When I was taking flight lessons, I didn't want a kid that just got his license to teach me so I found an seasoned older guy to teach me.

I was pretty convinced that my flight teacher liked to try to scare me. One of the first few times we flew together he told me to have the plane ready and he would meet me at the plane. I got to Spanish Fork and there was about a 20-30 knot wind. No one else was flying and I didn't even want to unhook it because it was slamming the tiedowns pretty hard so I waited for him to get there. When he arrived I said " we aren't going to fly in this are we?" He just smiled and said, "you don't get many good days like this to learn to fly in the wind"

Well, one day I asked him if we could fly up one of the canyons and he said "No, but we can fly down it". We went about 20 miles down the Wasatch Range in my ugly old 172 while we gained altitude. As we were about to go behind the mountain he said "I'll show you why you don't want to get too close to these mountains". He proceeded to fly what looked like about two wings lengths from the leeward side of the mountain right near the peak on what appeared to be a perfectly calm day.

I never had any idea that air could beat a plane like that. The airspeed would go from 160 to 20 and the stall warning horn sounded like a little kid honking a horn. The wings went from horizontal to vertical and back what seemed like several times a second. All I could do was hold on and try to keep my head from hitting the roof and window. I was watching the wings because I knew that were going to come off any second. Well, we survived and needless to say I haven't done that again.

I can't say I was scared because as far as I know my teacher didn't have a death wish and I have the utmost confidence in him. But he certainly got my attention fast! We are still friends and we fly a lot together.

One time I was scared, I was by myself and flying close to the windward side of the same range in my 150. I had just started to solo and as I got close to Provo Canyon the little 150 started climbing while level at 1800 fps. I started diving what seemed like straight down and I was still going up at 200 fps and that mountain was getting a lot closer! I didn't know if I was going over the top or into it. I leveled off a little and got some distance from the mountain and stayed there. That is the same day I learned that Cessna 150's aren't the best mountain planes!!!

I got a couple more stories like the time the 150 was going 164 Ground Speed on the GPS but they will have to wait. I love to fly and the scary times are when you really learn fast. Plus there's no chance you will ever forget what you learn while puckered!

flying with the airlines with bullets in your carry on.

A note to anyone who decides to share their story in this thread:

Craft your account carefully so as to not incriminate yourself in the eyes of the FAA, or anyone who would find it necessary to seek punitive action for your escapades. There's a lot of history with this at BCP, and it's not always obvious to the newcomers who may not have read the Newbie Guide in its entirety.

I strongly agree with the warnings to be careful of what you post to a public on line forum.
In my first posting on this thread there is a mention of one item that a stupid buddy of mine did.
You will not see it here on this thread. It is most likely an OK event, but I have no intention to chance it.

I chose the word FRIGHT specifically because it is usually caused by an EXTERNAL and generally UNFORESEEN factor, and not a continuation of consciously wrong and or stupid decision.

The important thing, to me, is that some of us may be able to learn some hard lessons the easy way.

Above all, be careful out there.

Trim

Sooo..

I was a student pilot in about 1988, and I rented this 152 in San carlos Ca. People always talked about this 152 and said it has a real nasty stall, but it was the only airplane on the line and I wanted to do some airwork before my test. So I rented it. I take it out over the hills to a lake between Halfmoon bay and San Carlos (SQL) to try some turns and stuff. Boring. I notice it is flying a little loose, but hey it's flying, so I try a stall over this lake below me. It snaps to the left into a spin and lucky for me my instructor told me to let go. Out of the spin we come before VNE. Whoa, now I've flown about 5 152's to this point and none are like this one. Worse, it now has a heavy wing, so I take it home very slow and careful. After I land and park it, I think "hey I have an A&P, lets see what the hell that was about. In two minutes I find the the control tree behind the panel is "broken off at the base." The radio stack is all scratched up on the back side, and the thing with the chains and all is just in low orbit back there. No shit, I told them about that one, but they did not give me a discount on the rent. Same as two weeks later when an engine quit and I glided into a sac area airport, 20 buck off.

They went out of biz, I wonder why.