As Aaron Slight once said...

[98tls]

"When road riding always expect the unexpected" Have to be honest and say over the years i havent exactly followed that advice at times but a couple of events for myself and another KBer Oldrider (John) reminded me of that advice in the weekend going over to the Woodstock rally,mine involved coming over a hump in the twistys to be confronted with a camper in my laneonce again i will be honest and say i was going a bit quicker than if riding to the slight theory and had to go right into the wrong side of the road to avoid decorating the front of a camper and was lucky enough to have the lane devoid of oncoming as if there was then a totally innocent would have been involved.Oldriders moment was one out of the box,riding across one of the many narrow one lane bridges he encountered a lunatic in a car who just decided bugger the biker and hit the bridge at speed and kept on going missing johns panniers by bugger all.What would possess someone to do that ive no idea,reason for my post is just a reminder to expect the unexpected i guess.

[Pex Adams]

I wasn't expecting that

[gijoe1313]

No one expects the inquisition! Glad to hear you both kept it sunny side up and posting about your experiences, I guess its always to do with "whats around that next corner" "over that rise" "behind that blind intersection" etc etc ...

thanks for reminding me of keeping that foremost!

[NC]

Yep,
I lived in Hokitika for 11 months. One of the most dodgy places to ride a bike. Black ice in winter, tourists in summer and horny locals all year round.

[Hitcher]

- Truly superior pilots are those who use their superior judgment to avoid those situations where they might have to use their superior skills.
- Rule one: No matter what else happens, fly the airplane.
- Flying is hours of boredom, punctuated by moments of stark terror.
- Fly it until the last piece stops moving.
- It’s better to be down here wishing you were up there, than up there wishing you were down here.
- An airplane will probably fly a little bit overgross but it sure won’t fly without fuel.
- Believe your instruments.
- Think ahead of your airplane.
- I’d rather be lucky than good.
- The propeller is just a big fan in the front of the plane to keep the pilot cool. Want proof? Make it stop; then watch the pilot break out into a sweat.
- If we are what we eat, then some pilots should eat more chicken.
- I’d rather be a chicken than a turkey.
- Without fuel, pilots become pedestrians.
- If you’re ever faced with a forced landing at night, turn on the landing lights to see the landing area. If you don’t like what you see, turn 'em back off.
- Standard checklist philosophy requires that pilots read to each other the actions they perform every flight, and recite from memory those they need every three years.
- Experience is the knowledge that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
- There are some flight instructors where the student is important, and there are some instructors where the instructor is important. Pick carefully.
- Speed is life, altitude is life insurance.
- No one has ever collided with the sky.
- Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
- It’s better to be down here wishing you were up there, than to be up there wishing you were down here.
- One peek is worth a thousand instrument cross-checks.
- Experience is a hard teacher. First comes the test, then the lesson.
- Always remember you fly an airplane with your head, not your hands.
- Never let an airplane take you somewhere you brain didn’t get to five minutes earlier.
- If it’s red or dusty don’t touch it.
- Don’t drop the aircraft in order to fly the microphone.
- An airplane flies because of a principle discovered by Bernoulli, not Marconi.
- Cessna pilots are always found in the wreckage with their hand around the microphone.
- If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger, if you pull the stick back they get smaller.
- To go up, pull the stick back. To go down, pull the stick back harder.
- Flying is the second greatest thrill known to man.... Landing is the first!
- Definition of 'pilot': The first one to arrive at the scene of an aircraft accident.
-The probability of survival is equal to the angle of arrival.
- If you’ve got time to spare, go by air.
(More time yet? Go by jet.)
- IFR: I Follow Roads.
- There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.
- If you don’t gear up your brain before takeoff, you’ll probably gear up your airplane on landing.
- It only takes two things to fly, airspeed and money.
- Forget all that stuff about thrust and drag, lift and gravity, an airplane flies because of money.
- Do you see that propeller? Well, everything behind it revolves around money.
- The difference between a duck and a co-pilot?
The duck can fly.
- It’s better to break ground and head into the wind than to break wind and head into the ground.
- The owner’s guide that comes with a $500 refrigerator makes more sense than the one that comes with a $50 million airliner.
- Flying is not Nintendo. You don’t push a button and start over.
- The six P’s:
Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
- The future in aviation is the next 30 seconds. Long term planning is an hour and a half.
- Life is lead points and habit patterns.
- Gravity: killer of young adults.
- The only thing that scares me about flying is the drive to the airport.
- Young man, was that a landing or were we shot down?
- Sorry folks for the hard landing. It wasn’t the pilot’s fault, and it wasn’t the plane’s fault. It was the asphalt.
- Learn from the mistakes of others. You won’t live long enough to make all of them yourself.
- An accident investigation hearing is conducted by non-flying experts who need six months to itemize all the mistakes made by a crew in the six minutes it has to do anything.
- Things which do you no good in aviation:
Altitude above you.
Runway behind you.
Fuel in the truck.
A navigator.
Half a second ago.
Approach plates in the car.
The airspeed you don’t have.
- It is far better to arrive late in this world than early in the next.
- You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.
- The more traffic at an airport, the better it is handled.
- If man were meant to fly, God would have given him baggy, Nomex skin.
- If God meant man to fly, He’d have given us bigger wallets.
- If God had meant for men to fly he would have made their bones hollow and not their heads.
- What’s the difference between God and pilots? God doesn’t think he’s a pilot.
- Flying is not dangerous; crashing is dangerous.
- You can land anywhere once.
- Flying is the perfect vocation for a man who wants to feel like a boy, but not for one who still is.
- There are four ways to fly: the right way, the wrong way, the company way and the captain’s way. Only one counts.
- Trust your captain .... but keep your seatbelt securely fastened.
- An airplane may disappoint a good pilot, but it won’t surprise him.
- Winds aloft reports are of incomparable value - to historians.
- Any pilot who relies on a terminal forecast can be sold the Brooklyn (or London) Bridge. If he relies on winds-aloft reports he can be sold Niagara Falls (or The Tower of London).
- The difference between flight attendants and jet engines is that the engine usually quits whining when it gets to the gate.
- Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.
- Being an airline pilot would be great if you didn’t have to go on all those trips.
- The nicer an airplane looks, the better it flies.
- CAUTION: Aviation may be hazardous to your wealth.
- If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; if it ain’t fixed, don’t fly it.
- A mechanics favorite: It’s not a leak, its a seep.
- And another: If it won’t budge force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
- The worst day of flying still beats the best day of real work.
- A male pilot is a confused soul who talks about women when he’s flying, and about flying when he’s with a woman.
- There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing: Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
- It’s a good landing if you can still get the doors open.
- First, listen to the question the student asked, then listen to the question he didn’t ask and then figure out the question he really meant to ask.
- Airspeed, altitude, or brains; you always need at least two.
- A groundschool instructor understands piloting the way an astronomer understands the stars.
- Every groundschool class includes one arse who, at 5 minutes before 5, asks a question requiring a 20-minute explanation.
- Gravity, it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.
- The Law of Gravity is not a general rule.
- You can only tie the record for flying low.
- Flying at night is the same as flying in the day, except you can’t see.
- It is easier to cope with a single in-flight problem than a series of minor ones. Real trouble must be swallowed in small doses.
- It is said that two wrongs do not make a right, but two wrights do make an aeroplane.
- Passengers prefer old captains and young flight attendants.
- A captain with little confidence in his crew usually has little in himself.
- The only soul more pitiful than a captain who cannot make up his mind is the copilot who has to fly with him.
- The sharpest captains are the easiest to work with.
- The only thing worse than a captain who never flew as copilot is a copilot who once was a captain.
- Be nice to your first officer, he may be your captain at your next airline.
- A captain is two flight engineers sewn together.
- Everything in the company manual - policy, warnings, instructions, the works - can be summed up to read, 'Captain it’s your baby.'
- Nothing is more optimistic than a dispatcher’s estimated time of departure.
- Clocks lie; an 18-hour layover passes much quicker that an 8-hour day.
- Any pilot who does not privately consider himself the best in the game is in the wrong game.
- A terminal forecast is a horoscope with numbers.
- A thunderstorm is never as bad on the inside as it appears on the outside. It’s worse.
- I give that landing a 9 . . . on the Richter scale.
- If it ain’t Boeing -- I ain’t going.
- It’s easy to make a small fortune in aviation. You start with a large fortune.
- Pilots are just plane people with a special air about them.
- Keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down.
- Don’t forget to keep the blue side up.
- A fool and his money are soon flying more airplane than he can handle.
- What’s the difference between a first officer and a duck?
The duck can fly.
- When a forecaster talks about yesterday’s weather, he’s an historian; when he talks about tomorrow’s, he’s reading tea leaves.
- The main thing is to take care of the main thing.
- The last thing every pilot does before leaving the aircraft after making a gear up landing is to put the gear selection lever in the 'down' position.
- Remember, you’re always a student in an airplane.
- Keep looking around; there’s always something you’ve missed.
- Fuel in the tanks is limited. Gravity is forever.
- Try to keep the number of your landings equal to the number of your takeoffs.
- Takeoff’s are optional. Landings are mandatory.

[98tls]

Nice,bit like the skydiving,if at first you dont succeed then its probably not for you.

[McJim]

It's only a matter of time before they offer tourists in camper vans the chance to drive the wrong way round Pukekohe, Taupo, Manfeild, Teretonga and all the other tracks while motorcycles are travelling the other way. Sort of a chance for them to get the real kiwi experience and to invade our last place of refuge

[R6_kid:Me]

Wait til katman or dipshit get ahold of this - it's all your fault that the camper was on your lane.

Good thing you hit the track from time to time and have the balls and skills to do something about the situation.

[98tls]

Wait til katman or dipshit get ahold of this - it's all your fault that the camper was on your lane.

Good thing you hit the track from time to time and have the balls and skills to do something about the situation.

Actually mate there wasnt a decision made in my brain that i remember,all happened so fast,very glad i reacted and didnt freeze and do nothing,glad it worked out although very aware of what would have happened if there had have been someone in the other lane (and quite rightly so) once again "but by the grace of god" thing springs to mind.If nothing else made me feel very alive for a bit.

[Mr Skid]

Excellent work Mr Hitcher, not an ass in sight.

[Motu]

But he mixed his aeroplanes with his airplanes....tsk,tsk.

How's it going,Titanium kid?

[MVnut]

It's only a matter of time before they offer tourists in camper vans the chance to drive the wrong way round Pukekohe, Taupo, Manfeild, Teretonga and all the other tracks while motorcycles are travelling the other way. Sort of a chance for them to get the real kiwi experience and to invade our last place of refuge

Don't say that mate, it's already happened (a vet coming out of the esses the wrong way - looking for a horse was his excuse for being there- when we're hurtling round the right hander off the end of the straight.

[Badjelly]

Don't say that mate, it's already happened (a vet coming out of the esses the wrong way - looking for a horse was his excuse for being there- when we're hurtling round the right hander off the end of the straight.

Bugger!

Did he find the horse?

Did you find the horse?!

[Usarka]

It's only a matter of time before they offer tourists in camper vans the chance to drive the wrong way round Pukekohe, Taupo, Manfeild, Teretonga and all the other tracks while motorcycles are travelling the other way. Sort of a chance for them to get the real kiwi experience and to invade our last place of refuge

Not just going the wrong way, almost got takin out by one on saturday by a rusty trombone player in a camp-van who decided to cut a corner that I was passing on. (it was a small corner with perfect visibility).

after some loud words in the driver window and some pointing and fist waving he decided to slow down somewhat.

[toycollector10]

That I hadn't seen before..

Reminded me of the young buck on the RNZAF Base that I was an air traffic controller on. He was a member of the local aero club. Wanted to come over and "beat up his mates in the barracks" and wanted some pointers on the best arrival heading etc...I couldn't believe it, and referred him back to his supervising instructor......He was the same poor b*stard that went up to Hamilton from the South Island then tried to return to same in a Cherokee without topping up the gas tanks.....Let's just say he arrived on the South Island, but "just"........