I spent several years trying to find new ways to frighten myself in a 1947 Cessna 140 without killing myself. Lots of hair-raisers and close calls in the left seat.
But I was with a guy who later became an airline pilot one day in his Aerocobra, him piloting, and came nearest to scaring the pants off me.
We were buzzing the house of a pilot friend during the super bowl game, lower and lower, then up, hard around and back down and over.
The guy in the house came running out and sprayed us with the water hose….. spray all over the windshield and we couldn’t see anything except out the side windows.
We had a lot of airspeed coming down so John pulled the nose up hard and up we went until the airspeed was gone gone gone and we were a couple of held-breaths from being scattered all over someones yard.
Last possible fraction of a second John kicked the rudder hard over and we reversed nose down, plane falling, not flying. Full throttle and the plane got enough fly into the wings to allow him to pull the nose up in time to knock down the television antenna, tear up the prop and send guy-wires from the antenna whipping around battering and tearing the wingtips.
We staggered back to the airport and hid the plane in John’s hanger hoping to avoid an FAA in-flight accident report.
Close enough for government work.
So Far From Heaven 