Private Manned Space Flights

http://www.msnbc.com/news/902224.asp?vts=041820031935

oh boy...here we go.

Ohhhh very nice. I hope this stuff gets big and comes way down in price so that eventually average people can go in space. I would love to go there some day, that would be so much fun. I already love the view of the earth from flying in small planes, but that is only 5 to 12 thousand feet above the earth.... this would be much nicer

yeah i agree, i love flying too. must be totally different when you're in
control yourself tho. Tell us some stories!

*sits on the floor like a kid waiting for storytime*

Do you want to hear a scary story or a fun story? haha I have both.

both! both!

Okay, lets see I will do the scary story first.

I first started flying on Jan 8, 1998. I still remember that day because it was the first day I have ever made a sale on the internet too

Anyway after a few flights my instructor had me flying about 20 miles from Crest Airport (where we took off) and we were practicing touch and goes at Tacoma Aiport. When we left Crest in the morning the weather was great, as calm as could be. In Tacoma the weather was also great and I was really starting to get the touch and goes and dealing with the traffic controller down. Wasn't too bad.

Finally we decided it was time to head back to Crest and call it quits for the day. As we started getting about 3-5 miles from the Aiport turbulence really started picking up bad. Keep in mind I am still a student pilot and cannot fly yet on my own, so I am totally relying on my flight instructor to keep me alive. I was flying the airplane but since it started getting pretty bumpy and bad he said "I have the controls", so I let up and let him fly the plane. Since it really went from calm to pretty bad in just a few minutes he decided to totally avoid the traffic pattern and just do a straight in landing (which you would normally never do). He just wanted to get on the ground as fast as possible because of how bad the turbulence and winds were picking up. Anyway as we started descending and approaching the runway our headwind quickly turned into a huge tailwind and our ground speed picked up probably from about 40 knots to about 70 or 80 knots which is very very bad. With a ground speed like that we would surely never touch down and would crash so he initiated a go around by putting in full throttle. Since we had no headwind the airplane was struggling to get much lift and we were barely climbing and there was a huge group of fir trees approaching fast. Thankfully we got enough of a climb that we barely cleared the trees and then decided we better land at a different airport.

As we turned crosswind we hit HUGE turbulence. I still remember the towbar that was on the ground in the back of the plane went from the floor of the aircraft and hit the ceiling and then fell back down. I remember feeling a strong pull on my seat belt holding me in my seat. After that we headed towards Auburn airport and things turned extremely calm again and landed there no problem.

Later we found out that the wind was so bad at Crest Airport that the power was even out and few trees had fallen over! I never realized on that day how dangerous that flight was until probably a few months later after I was able to get more experience for myself and to understand how lucky I was. I think my instructor did a great job because since he seemed so confident during that flight I had no reason to be scared. Now if my instructor was panicking like he really probably felt inside I am sure I would have thought my life was over.

Anyway that is my scariest moment ever. I have a few others though

wow man great story!

More! more!

My dad had a Cessna 240 II (seats 8 people) twin engine, and we were flying over the main inlet in the Anchorage Alaska area. we were about 20 miles away from our destination airport located indowntown anchorage, but only about 5 miles off from the anchorage international airport. when the left engine died! my dad started tapping quages and got on the radio to request an emergency landing for Anchorage Intl airport. and they imediately cleared our path for a landing. (with only one engine) the problem was something to do with the feul leveling system i guess it is supposed to use an equal amount fo fuel from each wing or something. but this wasnt happening because gauge had stopped working... anyway long story short we made a very safe landing thanks to the skilled hand of my dad the pilot, and his thousands of hours of flight experience. the FAA of course files a report on all incidences of this nature and it was ultimately ruled mechanical failure..

after it all happened and we were reflecting on it we realized that we could been in some serious crap had it not been for the airport being close by...

(not a pilot, although i have roughly 32 hours of flight instruction, so i dont recall all the technical details, sorry)

... now see, this is why I drink before getting on any plane !

scary stuff