Flying!
My friend and his dad took me up in a light aircraft several years ago. I guess I was about 16. It had started out as a fine day, but large cumulonimbus clouds were building rapidly as we Cessna'd over the rolling Sussex downs.

Stupid thing number 1: my friend's dad allowed me (sat in the co-pilot chair) to take control of the plane. This was not smart, because I am an idiot. Hence there was an idiot flying the plane, it was like Ryanair.

Stupid thing number 2: I pilot the plane straight towards the base of a menacing looking cloud (because I wanted to see what would happen, turbulence-wise). Of course, friend's dad swiftly took us away from this potentially dangerous* situation, and I was never allowed to fly again :-(

*large cumulonimbus clouds can have updraughts that are much faster than the speed at which the plane can descend, but I didn't know this as the time, I thought it would just be a bit bumpy

Note for pedants: I was allowed to fly the plane because making it go up/down/left/right is really easy, just stuff like landing is hard, and there was 2000ft of leeway before the ground arrived. It was not irresponsible to let me fly for a bit, but flying it towards a very big cloud was very dumb.

I wish this story was more interesting.
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Wed 2 Jan 2008, 14:24, 2 replies)

heehee
I'm clicking I like this purely for the Ryan Air comment!
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Wed 2 Jan 2008, 15:38, closed)

Indeed, like the Grammar Badger above
"Hence there was an idiot flying the plane, it was like Ryanair." had me chuckling.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Wed 2 Jan 2008, 18:30, closed)