How many real pilots here? :)

[Winger]

Originally Posted by wannabetheace

how about rc pilot

hehe!!! I am guilty too. RC Pilot every weekend

Winger

[MOH_Apollo]

ATP with a few different jets under the belt. But would love to get my hands on either a Spitfire, FW190, BF109, P51,47, F4U, but who's picky anyway.

[Viper2000]

JAA PPL(A) SEP land, tail wheel endorsement; my license is alive but not current; perhaps I'll do some flying in the summer if time & money allow. Thusfar my WWII vintage experience is limited to a little time in a Stearman, but I'm hopeful that more exciting machines will eventually follow.

I am also a glider pilot with FAI silver; it's a shame that the poll only allows one option. I'm not current in gliding either due to lack of time, but hope to get back at it soon; I'm almost at 50 hours P1 now so in theory at least I might soon be able to get a BI rating and start flying for free...

PPL and SPL under my belt, some 2500 hours on various birds, among them the most interesting are:

D.H.82 Tiger Moth (ca.350)
Bucker Jungmann (by far the best biplane twin seater) (ca.300)
Boeing PT-13D Stearman (ca.50)
T-6 (different marks) (ca.30)

then I've been on a P-51D as payload, by far the best aviation thrill ever..

I also got maintenance experience on the Tiggie and the Jungmann, plus I hold a share on a T-6 restoration project.

Uh and I'm currently on a waiting list for a ride on an Eurofighter Typhoon, I know this is not a place for jets, but I can't wait to G-Lock teehehe!!

[Oldschool61]

Any of you ATP pilots ever see and saucer or cigar shaped craft sharing your air space??
Have seen lots of interviews with commercial pilots telling about "close encounters" with non man made craft. When my son was a freshman in highschool a couple years ago he went to some aviation club meetings and one time they had this young girl who just started flying small ATP flights and one student asked her if she ever saw any UFO's while flying, she said she hasnt herself but some of the other pilots she nows have mentioned that they have seen some "interesting thing" that werent supposed to be there.

Originally Posted by R_Suppards

600 hours in Tiger Moth, just love those old bi planes. Before that 100 hours in an Auster. The word is "if you can land an Auster, you can land anything." Believe me, it's true. Stall speed 26 knots. I have actually flown one backwards.
Landing is difficult because of that low stall speed. The landing HAS to be three pointer and if you give even the slightest bounce she gains enough speed to try to continue flying. I have seen an Auster bounce all the way along a runway and the pilot had to claw his way back into the air before hitting the fence. Only way with a bounce was to treat it as another landing. Real seat of the pants flying in both of them. Minimum instruments and no stall warning device.

hahaha SO true about the Auster! I logged some hours on it and the darn thing wants to stay airborne! What version did u fly with? I flew on a Mk.V, quite a comfy machine, if not a bit too slow for cross-country flying lol

[Stukadriver]

Private Pilot, Instrument rated, seaplane rated, tail dragger endorsement, warbird endorsement,
3,000+ hrs current in all categories

Originally Posted by Dash 8

ATP here. I've been flying a DeHavilland Dash 8 for a regional airline for the past 10 years. I started flying in April of 1990, so coming up on 21 years soon, and have just broken the 10,000 hour mark last month! Still love playing IL2 on my days off and have been since its release in 2001. It has always been the best. Can't wait to get COD soon.

uuuuh I LOVE the Dash 8, that's aviation porn! Lucky man!!

Originally Posted by svanen

As my FI used to say when practicing landing and was a little bit early on the flare. That was nothing compared to when he had captains flying larger jets and they started the flare 30 feet up.

yep, been there and almost got killed by one of these good fellas..
He was coming for some refreshing lessons on a single engine plane and the school director asked me if I could go with him for a check ride on the school's 172 (I was scraping hours from every possible corner at the time lol). Mr Captain with 10000 hours under his belt (a good third of it probably spent sleeping in the bunk beds) was giving me the typical patronising lecture on how hard and professional the job of the airline pilot is, so I lowered the volume of my headset to the minimum and let the engine noise cover the rest. I gave him controls right after take off and everything went fine. After a good 20 mins we came in for landing, I handed him the checklist and after a quick glance at it he gave me a typical expression of "we don't really need this sonny, I know what I'm doing"..

We came on final and as soon as we pass the runway end at above 30ft he does his trick of the day: at first I thought he was gonna go for a go-around, but when I saw him chopping throttle and raising the nose to flare I istinctively put my hands on the controls and slammed the yoke and throttle to the firewall. He gave me the captain-to-copilot stare like "how dare you?!?" and I said "we're not in a triple 7 here dear, this thing is gonna crash and burn if we stall it at 30ft above the ground" and gave him a grin and wink. He was silent for the rest of the circuit and only after we taxied to a stop e apologised and asked me not to mention it to his friends there.. aaaah pilots

[jcenzano]

military pilot here
Spanish air force (reserve)