When and what was your "finest half hour" ?

[OFSO]

After a certain female MP said her finest half hour "was spent with a naked man in a Cotswold field" it got me wondering about my own best 30 minutes.

Sad to say, none of my finest half hours were sexual in nature.

Passing my yacht skipper's exam was one of them. Another was a mountain walk in winter (and reaching the summit in deep snow).

Sounds a bit boring I suppose - anyone else got some better ones (not strictly limited to 30 minutes of course, 25 will do !)

[Sisemen]

So many to choose from. I guess that's what comes from living life to the full and grabbing every opportunity that presents itself.

[probes]

I'm afraid for wimmen it tends to be about kids... for me it was seeing my baby girl and eating the tomato the midwife brought me afterwards. The best tomato I've had in my life.
Then there would be of the kind OFSO has had none.

[Ex-Ascot]

Banned from Pprune

Actually, getting married to Mrs Ex-Ascot also getting my wings. Do not get my dinner if I say which was most important

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Winning my first solo Air Combat Training flight 5-0.

Navigating a racing yacht tacking just off a rocky beach at night in a gale. We won the race as a consequence. The pleasure was mostly in the other (extremely experienced) crew trusting me to do it.

n.b. All the best sex has lasted longer than half an hour

[ian16th]

It didn't take 30 minutes, it was taking a hat trick, all 3 bowled.

The downside, they were all South Africans If they'd been Oztralians, it would have been something to boast about.

[Pipal Pani]

I once went without any food for about 3 days during a 4-day train journey in India back in the '70s. I think it was drinking the (un-boiled) water on the train which resulted in my getting jaundice and having to be cared for by a Christian missionary institution for 3 weeks afterwards. I played a football match against the UK High Commisioner's team in New Delhi a few weeks later. They confused the weakness in my leg muscles (not being able to stop quickly enough) with bravado when tackling the attackers. No penalties conceded though, so far as I can recall. And we lost like 9 to 2 goals or something like that. Well what did you expect from a team composed of mostly Italian, French and other assorted druggies on the hippy-trail undergoing treatment, with a few others like myself thrown-in to make up the numbers...?!

[OFSO]

I just thought of another one. In the 1990's I was persuaded to help deliver an 80' gentleman's motor yacht to the South of Spain, and for two nights conned the boat on the 2200 - 0200 shift, well out of sight of land. An easy enough job with radar, depth gauge, LORAN (I think) and steering via autopilot (but no GPS in those days), but it gave me such a thrill, alone on the bridge for four hours.

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

Finally getting my PPL was a good moment, also completing my OU BA (Hons ) in History and classics!

[angels]

Hmm, the kids' births have to be there. Both special in their own way.

Reaching the top of Mount Kinabalu. Landing the job as a messenger that grew into so much more.

But attempts to create (or rather not) life do feature with me, the best (many years ago of course) starting in a West End club with a lady colleague (J) who said of a girl (V) who was at the bar that she was sooo boring and stuck-up and would never in a million years participate in a threesome. Sensing an opportunity I said, "Well you'll never know unless you ask. Tell her we're heading back to yours for some fun and ask her if she wants to join us."

Off J went, confident she would be kipping alone that night. To my astonishment and delight, the girl at the bar happily agreed (J later said she thought "Wow! Have I misjudged this!'') and so the three of us toddled back to Swiss Cottage where I was, er, pampered for quite some time, as in most of the night.

Hung around with them both for a few months after that, V for much longer and nearly ended up marrying her (she is now rather famous), but don't tell the trouble!

[Sisemen]

Yes, I suppose that group sex occasions would figure in some of my remembered moments!

[Blacksheep]

Too many choices, but I do know what was the worst half-hour - and it wasn't the heart attack.

[603DX]

Nothing salacious in this little tale I'm afraid (so "the usual suspects" can stop reading here, if they like ). Back in 1957 two young schoolboys from Kent were on their CCF annual camp at RAF Waddington, where 230 OCU was taking delivery of brand new, shiny white-painted Vulcans. On the Sunday morning of the week's stay, this pair of bright sparks, wearing their cadet uniforms closely resembling those of proper servicemen, decided to chance their arm by entering a hangar containing a couple of Vulcans. All was quiet in there, so spotting an open entry hatch with ladder temptingly hanging down, the lads were up it like rats up a drainpipe. We reached the cockpit (yes, I was one of the duo), and sat in the pilots' seats, taking great care not to touch anything vital. In that hallowed sanctum we kept very quiet and spent about 20+ minutes examining the instruments and controls, together with the bound volume of "Pilots Notes" stowed between the two seats.

Turning to the "Performance Limitations" pages, we were astonished to read "Limiting Mach Number 1.01 in a shallow dive"! We could hardly believe our eyes, the mighty Vulcan was supersonic!!! And lo and behold, both machmeters had bugs fitted at 1.01 on their dials to confirm it! Well, staggered at this discovery we carefully clambered down and out of the hangar, and returned to our billet. Only too aware that we had absolutely no right to have entered the aircraft, which was certain to have been "on the secret list" at that time, and concerned that if we blabbed about it we might end up in deep trouble, we kept the details of our unauthorised entry to ourselves. In the years following, we both enjoyed satisfying careers (he as a consultant physician, me as a consulting engineer), but stayed in touch and still kept quiet about our cheeky venture, and the Vulcan's apparently high mach number.

And then in 2008 I purchased Tony Blackman's book "Vulcan Test Pilot". This explains that in fact there was a static error pressure correction to be made to the Vulcan's indicated mach readings, and as a result the true mach values were below unity. Thus the "tin triangle" was never supersonic, and my friend and I had fooled ourselves into thinking that we were keeping a momentous secret!

[Blacksheep]

The Mk1 & Mk 1A had combined pressure heads at the wingtips. The B Mk2's had separate pitot heads and flush static vents either side of the nose.
Both types displayed significant "Mach Tuck" and the Auto Mach Trim was a critical system. From my Vulcan days I can say that we maintenance technicians joked that the aircraft was Top Secret because we didn't want the Russians to know that some of its equipment had seen service over the Third Reich in 1943!

[Magnus]

I'll mention no nookie, and clearly the births of the girls are WAY up there. However, in '86, getting the UK Schmidt Telescope running again so it could provide the astrometry data to steer Giotto to its Halley approach is a task achieved in which I have some pride. Major panic, broken telescope, 26hr flights to Coonabarabran, and an inelegant solution that PROVIDED THE DATA, instead of being clever. Everyone had been trying to get things running perfectly instead of getting things running sufficiently for the one crucial job. Once in a lifetime, folks, get the job done!

[Ancient Mariner]

1991, Beijing, me and two colleagues in a taxi on our way back from our first Contract Signing Ceremony & Banquet, 30 minutes of emptying a bottle of Hennessy XO. Try drinking from one of those bottles while being transport in a vintage NIssan/Datsun Cedric sans suspension, not easy, but who cared, we had the Contract and we were making shitloads of money for both the company and us.
Our then CFO still clearly remembers drinking from the decanter when we hit the speed bump outside the Beijing Radisson SAS hotel, also still have the chipped teeth.
Per

[OFSO]

the astrometry data to steer Giotto to its Halley approach

Yes, Magnus, and I was in the OCC at ESOC Darmstadt as Giotto did its stuff. A great moment.......

[admin]

The Mk1 & Mk 1A had combined pressure heads at the wingtips. The B Mk2's had separate pitot heads and flush static vents either side of the nose.
Both types displayed significant "Mach Tuck" and the Auto Mach Trim was a critical system. From my Vulcan days I can say that we maintenance technicians joked that the aircraft was Top Secret because we didn't want the Russians to know that some of its equipment had seen service over the Third Reich in 1943!

You referring to the Gee Mk3 or the IFF X, Blacksheep. Both of which had there roots firmly buried in WWII kit.

[421dog]

Standing on top of the great pyramid at dawn with a fishing rod in my hand.

A banana pass in a Super PBY with me in the left seat was pretty good too.

Hanging out with my 8 year old son cuddled up in my lap while watching Top Gun (with a really good sapphire martini) earlier this afternoon didn't suck so much either (though he wanted to skip the "kissing parts")

[Hydromet]

Standing on top of the great pyramid at dawn with a fishing rod in my hand.
What were you angling for?