Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What's the highest you ever flew?

I'm assuming no astronauts here, so what's your personal record? I'm guessing mine was around 30,000 ft back when I flew cross-country in a 707 back in the 1960's.

I've been a passenger at 390....

At the controls 280......

Don’t know, but it was high AS FUGK

A friend of mine and his friend both flew over Mt Baker in WA. in their ultralights. A plane that has a Rotax 2 stroke 35 hp. It's 10,500 ft. You must be talking on Oxygen over that altitude.

There was that time around the camp fire with the magic mushrooms.

40k, Gulfstream

MM

8 hits of purple microdot

The highest I have ever flown was with Timothy Leery...

We didn't even have an airplane.

Well this thread went to pot....

I never flew high

Drunk.....now that's a different story

Ditto

Flew 40 in an airbus a few months ago. Unusual. Usually commercial runs around 37

My neighbor owned an atlas rocket and a b-1 lancer. Boy the good times we had.

Oh yeah and a window washer skyscraper elevator. Man o man.

Over the cookoo's nest

Figured someone on here would have flown in the Concorde

6 to eight feet.... late sixties sissy barred, ape hangered, banana seated bicycle

a crazier flight than any plane fight been on..lol...

I got wasted at 30,000 ft. and I got laid by my spanish professor on a half empty plane night flight from new york to madrid in 1982

However high a DC-10 gets on the way to Alaska Moose hunting.

45,000 ft. in a rented G4. Memphis to Belize City. Fun times.

Mackey

You win.






Wait....your Spanish professor was a chick....right?

I’m guessing 100 to 200 feet. I’ve only flown one time, and that was in a float plane. We took off flew once around the lake , and landed! That was enough for me!

At the controls, FL 390.

Question I have is how low have you flown? I made a fella jump out of his sampan on day, and my rookie copilot wet his pants. 100 knots and the skids 2-3’ above sea level. 🤠

I have done five feet over Cambodia in an O-2, and 50,100 in a T-38. Supersonic once (It is frowned upon over the US)

Also flew through a tree - climbing - in Cambodia. It is hard to explain how an aircraft that took off gray came home green.

My flight from LAX to Sydney last year cruised at 40,000 feet.

Same engine, 2 stroke Rotax. Single ignition, it was a snowmobile engine. I got my Goldwing 6,000 feet above the hard red Georgia clay one time. Ground was 400 feet above sea level.

Whatever altitude they fly going over the polar ice cap when flying back and forth from the World to Europe.




Frog----OUT!

I’ve flown at 51,000 ft a handful of times in a Learjet 31A. It was an amazing performer, especially in the higher Flight Levels with it’s Longhorn wing. Only held 4100 pounds of fuel, so we had to fly in the mid to high 40’s to get any range out of it. We routinely flew between 45,000 and 49,000.

Quick story,.. I’d have to go back in my logbook and verify, but we left Tucson one morning on a test flight and went straight to 51,000. We were hot dogging so to speak, but from what I recall we leveled at 51 in a skosh under 20 min. Plane was light and temps all the way up were below ISA. Back then, there wasn’t another corporate jet made capable of that type of performance. Even today, only a few are. Definitely a fun airplane to fly. Quite sexy too!!

The highest I have ever flown by my self my feet cleared the ground by over 3 ft as I became the ground for a welding machine. I did a reverse swan dive knocked out by the volt.

Do not know how high we were when we flew in a jet for vacation. I do not think that counts as flying when you still have your feet planted on a floor of some type.
That's not flying that's riding.

An RCH above 43,000'.
Command Post called us, said start to step climb to save fuel. We needed to extend our mission by two hours, the aircraft that was scheduled to replace us on alert was having an issue getting cocked and locked. We couldn't land until then.

Really? I've back-packed at 10,500 without oxygen. Wouldn't think sitting on my ass at that altitude would "require" it.

I think we were at 39,000 over Greenland , on way to Italy - British Airways.

Yeah, I think the question needs a little tuning.

I wanted to know if it is highest with, or without an airplane...

And if its the highest with or without drugs?

I flowed over the handlebars on my bike once, my bud said I was tin feet in the air.



Okay okay, it was more than once.

In. Blackhawk, 12000 feet, 45000 in an Airbus.

I had a Lear 45 right up to it service ceiling of 51000 just awhile ago. ISA -15

Absolute highest, 42K as I remember. Commercial .. 747 I believe, LAX to the east coast.

I just sat there smiling sitting on that sack of seeds........

55,000 in an F-4S hauling a$$, smooth as glass.

On another flight hit Mach 2 in an F-4S.

12 nautical miles a minute flying back to Atsugi after a deployment off of Iran. Subsonic with a good tailwind. 😁

White Lightning 1968

I've flown commercial to Australia and to Asia multiple time, so probably around 40,000. As a pilot, I have had my 206 up to 8,500. I don't have oxygen on board, and that is the highest I ever had a need to fly.

1946 Luscombe,

We flew over a 8600 foot peak, not by much! LOL

I don't really know, however high the plane flies between here and Alaska.

However I do know how deep I've been.....2800' in an underground copper mine.

That’s pretty funny.
I was raised on a cattle ranch between Fairplay and Hartsel Colorado. The elevation at the post office in Fairplay is 9,950 feet. Most places in South Park are at 10,000 and above.
Never needed to wear an oxygen mask. My lungs might be a little more developed than most though. 😁

US-34, aka Trail Ridge Road, is the highest-elevation continuous paved route in the United States. It peaks at 12,183 feet. It’s also called Beaver Meadow National Scenic Byway, and connects Grand Lake and Estes Park by way of Rocky Mountain National Park.



Here I am with my 10-speed on Trail Ridge Rd on my cross country bicycle trip. I must admit I was gasping for air, I was from Georgia elevation 420 feet. Not as much oxygen on Trail Ridge Rd.

About 11500 at controls of a Cessna 172
Probably 33000 to 35000.commercial.

10,000 in a Huey and 37,000 in a commercial jet. I was at 13,200 in a Cessna 172 last spring flying with my cousin's husband checking out the scenery of western Colorado.

kwg

I could dunk a basketball at one time

Never road a bicycle over Trail Ridge Rd, quite an accomplishment, but here I am in 1984 on my ‘74 BMW R90S.



My son, now 53, and I sitting on that same wall maybe. 😎

[u][/u]In the U.S oxygen requirements
Sea Level to 12,500' - No oxygen required.
12,501' to 14,000' - Required by the required crew if over 30 minutes at this altitude.
14,001' to 15,000' - Required to be provided and used by the required flight crew.
15,001' to 25,000' - Must be provided for every occupant. Canada might be different. The guidelines don’t guarantee you won’t get a headache or fatigue flying below the minimum legally at higher altitudes.

41,000 feet- Lear 35

Airliner? No idea but I bet I was asleep over an ocean.

41,000 feet in an EA-6B on a post-maintnance “profile A” test flight many times. It would only get up that high slick with no drop tanks or jamming pods on it. Helped to have the stores racks removed and you could get to 43,000.

The only time it got exciting is when the air line that inflated the rear canopy seal blew. The cabin went from about 25k to 41k in 3 seconds. Rolled on its back and nose straight down to below 10k. They had the helo on the line spooled up in case any of us had symptoms of decompression sickness and had to get us to the chamber at Bremerton but none of us did.

35,000 or so. I was on one flight where they had TV type monitors overhead about every third row. They showed the plane's location on a line that represented the path from beginning to end. They also listed speed, altitude, and temperature.

The only surprise was temperature. It's cold at 35,000 feet. If I remember correctly, it said -40F.

That is pretty much any trans ocean flight.....though for the last 10 or so years, most every seat has its own small monitor to watch.

I knew it would be cold that high. I didn't think it would be 40 below. It made me think about what kind of engineering went into making the engines function at that temperature.

Colder air is more dense providing more mass to the exhaust stream providing more thrust. Racers know how cold air affects horsepower.

When it turns colder, flight students tend to get behind the jet right after takeoff because the jet accelerates so much faster than they’re accustomed to.

And we could dump water on the steam jets so we didn't have to stay awake half the night to heat it... 😁

P-47s had a service ceiling of 42,000 feet. I realize that they had a big honkin' turbocharger that allowed them to function at that altitude. But I never thought about how the super cold temperatures would affect their big radial engines.

There's a U.S. Army Air Corp instruction video on YouTube which instructs the proper manner to fly the P-47. It's a complicated plane to fly full tilt. It's amazing to me that those pilots could keep track of how to get maximum performance out of it when under the stress of fighting. Both the turbo and the water injection had to be operated and if you cranked it up too much you could blow the engine.

60K-ish in an F-16. Ceiling is supposed to be 50K, but I was doing about 1.9M and pulled the nose up a little. She can flat get away from you when she's a-scootin' up there. Had to push over a bit to get going back down. Can't pull it out of burner based on how the motor works and got to keep a little positive "G" to keep the oil system happy. Was kind of on a parabola and just rode it back down. In the early '80s a buddy went to 73K and the pressurization system (ECS) shut down. That can get dangerous without a pressure suit. He lived. In the early 90s another buddy was at 50K going Mach 2 and decided it would be cool to do a loop. He lived too, but lost the engine and the ECS, both of which he got started again and brought it home. I never saw the video, but he probably beat the 73K number.
Got several U-2 and SR-71 buddies that consider those altitudes "down in the weeds" LOL.

Cheers,
Rex

After my high school graduation (NorCal 1980). It was an annual "trip" to Disneyland that the school sponsored. My first time in a plane...

Yup that was the talk in those days when they left to fly over Baker. One gye had a heart condition which didn't help matters but he didn't mention having any problems except that it was the highest he ever flew.

Our commuter and bush planes operate on the ground at those temperatures. Gotta be careful with the piston engines. Once you get them going, you need to make sure you are where you want to be for the night because you can't shut them down. Turbos no big deal.

I fly at FL410 weekly…

Over the cuckoo's nest.

My new airplane is still undergoing preflight testing so I'll have to get back to you later.

Sign up for the maiden flight…pucker factor!

42,000' several times...all over water....B 767-200

I flew pretty high when I hit a plowed out driveway approach on a snowmobile at WOT at night outrunning my headlight.

How high does a 747 go?

For the Byrds, it was eight miles.

Never been in an aircraft, never used drugs.


Probably topped out around 11000 feet, still touching the ground.

Super Cub not so super above 10K.

Weeeeee! That will get your attention