Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Today was one of the scariest and bumpiest Plane rides from Kauai to Maui

I have flown planes before and have soloed in a Cessna 152 in 1989 and also have flown and taken off and landed in Cessna 172s and several other planes both high wing and low wing. But, today was one of the scariest rides of them all.

It is also true that the scariest landing I ever experienced was 3 years ago in Lihue where we landed sideways but luckily the pilot was a good pedal man with incredible reflexes so we all survived this. but, then even the stewards and stewardesses talked about quitting after that incident and they fly all the time.

This time about halfway to Maui we began to descend below 10,000 feet. And if you are a pilot the air is usually the roughest below 10,000 feet. One reason it isn't as bad above 10,000 feet is there is so little air the lack of air cushions your ride. But, below 10,000 feet it is thicker and can be bumpier partly because of this because it has more substance and the atoms are closer together and the molecules too.

So, the bumpiness as we descended wasn't unusual anywhere below 10,000 feet but then it got worse and worse and worse as we descended and the whole plane load of people realized this wasn't likely going to work very well if we landed. So, as we landed it was scary especially for us who have flown planes before and know what winds and wind shear can actually do to any plane. So, the length of time while bouncing around trying to land was very disturbing to all the passengers including me and my wife who insisted I hold her hand through all of this because she was scared and if we were going to die she wanted to die holding my hand today. I was glad to give her whatever comfort I could.

So, as we tried to land the pilot realized it wasn't going to work and upped the power and took off before landing fully. As he tried to fly around again I became disoriented and believed we were trying to land at West Maui Airport in my own confusion (Kapalua Airport) and I did not realize I was wrong until we tried to rent a car and thought we were in West Maui At Kapalua Airport. I realized I must have sort of been in shock of some kind not to have recognized Kahului when we landed from a different direction this time.

HAHAHA

Any time you are on a plane and it lands and you can walk away from that landing it's a good one!

(even though you might pee your pants on a flight like today).

I didn't do that but likely many on board did on a day like today.

 

 


 

 

 

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