What types of planes have you seen in action? I've seen spitfires and Harvards at an air show. I've

[applegrove]

heard the Osprey and seen it over Halifax harbour being tested. But the coolest one was the antonov cargo plane I saw flying out of Trenton, Ontario on its way to Afghanistan in 2001. It was like a flying whale. Just amazing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_aircraft

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. I remember flying in propeller powered planes when I was a kid.

Everybody dressed up and the ladies all wore elbow length white gloves and little vail things on their hats. Does that count?

[applegrove]

2. That's cool. Yes there was a time when flying was such a "posh" thing to do you'd

have to wear gloves.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

3. God I miss it! Now you are treated like cattle! I hate flying!

I love actually flying but I hate being treated like just another cow.

[AngryAmish]

37. When my Dad was a kid he used to ride his bike to the Shannon to see the Yankee Clippers land

[Ikonoklast]

50. Did Orville ask you to spin the propeller real hard first before you got on board?

[bluedigger]

4. The coolest ride was a 1929 Waco biplane.

My flight instructor found one in a barn in Iowa and rebuilt it in the late 70's-early 80's. His was emerald green and gold, but it looked much like this one. Very expensive to run, as it burned more oil than gas/hour with the big open cylinders, or "jugs".

What's a Havard?

[applegrove]

5. They were training planes built in the USA before the US was involved in WW2. There

was an airport that crossed the ontario border into the US. They'd build the Harvards in the USA and fly them to the american side of the airport. Then roll them onto the Canadian side. Then off to all the RCAF/RAF training air bases in Canada. They got around some US isolationist anti military trade law that way.

http://www.spitcrazy.com/harvardhist.htm

[bluedigger]

11. Oh, AT-6's!

You threw me when you misspelled "Harvard". You see those quite often at airshows still. They're very popular, probably for the same reasons that they made good trainers - cheap, rugged, and forgiving. But I've always just heard them referred to as AT-6's down south of the border...

[applegrove]

12. Sorry. I'm no speller.

[bluedigger]

14. Meh, I should have figured it out.

I was attempting to explain/deflect my confusion, which in truth was at least as much due to my own laziness as it was to your spelling.

[trof]

51. I've flown one.

Belongs to a friend.
And it's the last time I did a roll and a loop.
Too old for that now.

[OriginalGeek]

6. My Grandpa took me to see the Snowbirds once

http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/snowbirds/index-eng.asp

That was really cool.


And when I was a senior in High School one of my classmates had his single engine license so we rented a 2 seater plane and went up for a half hour. He let me hold the controls for about 5 seconds and was scared shitless. But that was a helluvva good time.

[catnhatnh]

7. Well, our local favorite

is Dan McCue and his F4U-5 Corsair.

He keeps the plane at our local airport (Skyhaven KDAW) and has been known to beat up the field when leaving for, or returning home from an airshow.

[bluedigger]

25. Awesome!

A lot of people will pick the Mustang or the Thunderbolt as their favorite, but I love those F4U's!

[oneshooter]

8. I have ridden in "Fifi" twice, been damn near killed by a flight of F-4's that dropped short

Rode a lot of C-47's in Africa.

Rode twice in B-17's and twice in B-25's, very damn noisey!!

Had a flight of 3 Spads supply close support.

Rode in to many helicopters! They tried to kill me three times!

&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Oneshooter

[UnrepentantLiberal]

21. I saw three B-52s take off and make bank turns.

It amazes me that something that big can fly.

[HeiressofBickworth]

9. I was IN the Antonov 225

In 1991 the Goodwill Games were held in Seattle. I was one of the host families for visiting Soviets. The 225 brought over a plane load of visitors who had been selected to attend the games (not the athletes). It flew in to Paine Field, north of Seattle. At the time, it was a small airfield with a small one-story building. We all went outside, right next to the taxiway. I watched it come in and as it got closer and closer, I was astonished at the size of it. The pilot did a fly-over and tipped the wings at the people waiting. It really took my breath away. The crowd applauded.

When they left at the end of the Games, the host families were able to go out to the 225 to say farewell to their guests. It was a scene right out of Casablanca -- just after dark with a light misty rain falling, people congregated in groups under the wings of the enormous aircraft. Ramps were set up to walk up into the interior. A very oddly romantic scene. Can't say much about the decor, but it was basically a cargo plane. A local charity had amassed pallets of medicines and other medical supplies to fly back with the plane. People hugging, thank you's in profusion, gifts for the families back in the Soviet Union. It was obvious who the "officials" were (KGB?) because they were the ones who arrived in limos with no host families. They got directly on the plane and never spoke with anyone.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. At airshows: the Harrier and the Concorde.

Both of these were very, very loud.

[RebelOne]

13. The Blue Angels. No better show. n/t

[applegrove]

16. The snowbirds, Canada's answer to the blue angels, used to make a pass right above the lake

at our cottage every year. They had to do the Canada day show every year in Ottawa, and would have to go north of the city (Quebec) to turn around, and somebody knew somebody who would get them to go as far north as our lake on that part of the trip.

[GliderGuider]

43. I was up one Canada Day flying a glider from Kars (south of Ottawa) about 10 years ago.

The Snowbirds were in the air, and at one point the whole formation was coming head-on toward my glider, co-altitude maybe 5 km away. They all switched on their landing lights at the same moment and made a line of diamonds in the sky. I was quite happy when I saw them begin their formation turn...

[applegrove]

44. You'll never find me in a glider. I'm not worthy.

[RebelOne]

53. Love to go up in a glider.

I have flown small planes, skydived and parasailed but have always wanted to fly in a glider. I doubt that I ever will, though, because I was a lot younger when I did all that.

[Major Nikon]

63. You can get an instructor to take you up

Flying in a glider is relatively inexpensive. You generally pay a set fee for the tow and then a small per hour fee for the glider. The instructor fee is the most expensive part. If you go on a day with good thermals, it's possible to stay up for hours without needing another tow. The longer you stay up, the cheaper it costs per hour.

[ellisonz]

15. One time I had...

...a B-2 Stealth Bomber pass only a couple hundred feet over me while banking after flying over the Rose Parade. I've also seen various military aircraft over Honolulu.

[oneshooter]

29. Any of them have red "meatball" markings on them?

[sgsmith]

60. Little known fact

There used to be a real Mitsubishi Zero sitting behind the Rose House in Atlanta GA. It was unrestored, and in pretty bad shape, but the meatballs were still visible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_M._Rose_House

[backscatter712]

17. Seen a few airshows.

I've seen the Blue Angels several times. They use the F-18 Hornet, and they've also got a C-130 Hercules which carries a lot of their gear and ground crew. They make a show of doing super-short takeoffs and landings - the takeoffs use the RATO rocket packs, which are a great show!

As far as other modern fighters, I saw an F-14 Tomcat when I was a kid - the afterburners were incredibly loud, and the pilot was able to do some schweet aerobatics.

More recently, I saw, on top of the Blue Angels F-18 Hornets, I saw an F-18E Super Hornet (which essentially replaced the F-14 Tomcat on carriers - it's a beefed up version of the hornet with bigger wings, bigger fuel tanks, stealthified engine intakes & wing roots.)

Other than that, I've been in the B-17 and B-24 bombers that tour the U.S. and come to Colorado around the 4th of July. Saw multiple WWII fighters including Mustangs and Thunderbolts. Also saw an old-school DC-3 airliner - that was neat.

On static display, I've been to the Wings over the Rockies museum on what was once Lowry Air Force Base in Denver. They've got everything from a Lucasfilm-built scale model of an X-Wing fighter to one of the few B-1A Lancer bombers ever built. Not the B-1B that went into production and serves as one of the Air Force's heavy bombers, I'm talking about the prototype, that was built before the program was cancelled by Carter before Reagan uncancelled it and made it into the B1-B. The B1-A can go much faster than the B1-B, and has an escape capsule.

[applegrove]

18. I also so the stealth bomber back in the 1990s. I was out riding a horse near the airport

when I looked up and there it was.

[GliderGuider]

41. Never saw it comin', eh?

[applegrove]

42. I think I had read somewhere that it was going to be touring Ottawa. Didn't have it in my

mind. It was like a hawk flying over. Cannot remember if it was attached to a larger plane or on its own right now.

[Broken_Hero]

19. A handful...

I caught the tail end of an air show in Juneau Alaska back in 95, I saw a Harrier, and a F-18 Hornet in action.

I've flown in a handful of float planes, Beavers, Otters, and the Grumman Goose.

[Major Nikon]

20. The best airshow to see a variety of aircraft is Airventure at Oshkosh, WI

Here's my pics from 2011:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/62788945@N08/sets/72157627202657677/

I'll be there again this year.

I've riden in and flown a variety of aircraft. Some of my favorite are the open cockpit planes like the Travelair, the Stearman, and the Pietenpol. One of the more unusual planes I've flown in is the Antonov An-2.

[Chan790]

22. My parents refused to take me to the air-show...

on the premise that they thought they were unsafe.

To make up for it, I got to slingshot a frozen turkey into a jet-engine in the propulsion-lab chamber. The upside of having P&W engineers for parents. Makes the most expensive ground turkey you can imagine, it also comes out the other end mostly-cooked. How this provides useful data on bird-strike I have no idea.

[OriginalGeek]

23. Yep - that is a suitable replacement.

I was also gonna add that when I was a kid we lived in Irving, TX and I always thought it was cool to see the Concorde flying over my house to land at DFW.

[SeattleVet]

24. I've seen everything from pre-WWI vintage

(at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, when Cole Palen was still around and flying) through an F22 Raptor that landed at Boeing Field last year. Worked on FB-111A fighter/bombers for 6 years (avionics), and got to see a lot of flight profiles on those birds.

I was right at the fence when the British Airways Condorde made it's final landing at the end of a record-setting flight from NY to Seattle's Museum of Flight. I've flown in a C141 and also in a C-117 ('Flying Boxcar') when it was raining outside, and almost as hard inside. Watched a British Vulcan bomber take off, as well as an SR-71. Saw a B52 and a C5 from directly underneath when I got sent to Carswell AFB (Fort Worth, TX) for a week. I was standing on the motel balcony staring straight up at the aluminum overcast as if took off. Walked around inside the Antonov at an air show.

I've seen the Blue Angels several times, the Canadian Snowbirds, the British Red Arrows, and the Italian Frecce Tricolori. I've seen the Thunderbirds fly in F4's, T38's, and F16's. (My sister watched in horror from her kitchen window as the 4 planes followed each other into the ground in January, 1982, when she was at Nellis AFB, NV.)

Saw lots of F15's, and got a direct nose-on view of an A10 as it came in on a low (simulated) strafing pass during a field exercise in Germany.

We got a 'private' airshow from an F16 at the General Dynamics plant in Fort Worth, TX. The GD test pilot did a run-through for his show the next weekend at the Paris Air Show.

My all-time favorite has to have been the FB-111A flight demo at a base open house airshow. He did one pass with gear down, flaps extended, wings extended, and whatever else he could do to make the plane 'dirty'. He just chugged along the flight line, barely above stall speed. His next pass was cleaned up, with wings extended. Went around again, and he was sweeping the wings as he passed by. He flew out of sight, and approached the area again low, with full wing sweep, running *just* below Mach-1. You could see the Prandtl–Glauert effect (a vapor cloud that forms and disappears instantaneously within the shock wave) as he went past the crowd. The only sound was the wind whistling over his control surfaces. Just as the guy standing in front of me started to say, "Look, honey - he's got his engines off" the sound came by. He got about 1/2 of the word 'off' out of his mouth.

I've been interested in aircraft of all types since I was in Jr. High School. Went through the cadet program of Civil Air Patrol, spent 12 years in the Air Force. (Never did get my pilot's license, though. Was taking lessons and got sent out of the country, one lesson from what was to have been my solo.)

[Orrex]

26. On two occasions in recent years I saw one that was identified for me as a "canard type"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x8951055#8951098

[Aristus]

27. An F-86 and a MiG-15 in a dogfight.

A simulated dogfight at the Seattle Air Show in '87 or '88. It was pretty cool...

[HopeHoops]

28. Piper Cub - Charlie Kulp, The Flying Farmer (videos available)

http://www.theflyingfarmer.com/

[Major Nikon]

47. Real planes shouldn't be towed behind cars

They should be flying over the highways making evil laughs at traffic jams.

[HopeHoops]

55. Yeah, but one of the videos is about breaking it down and reassembling it.

You sort of have to do that if you're going to be showing it at a venue that doesn't have an attached airport.

[Major Nikon]

56. A cub? Nah, you can land them on a postage stamp

I know a guy that lands his cub in his back yard and he only has about an acre or so.

[HopeHoops]

57. Charlie Kulp can out fly anyone. Unfortunately, the FCC revoked his license when he hit 80.

He took all three of my daughters up and I wasn't at all concerned. He's a great guy.

[Major Nikon]

58. More than likely he just couldn't get a medical

The FAA only revokes your pilot's certificate if you do something really bad. For most certificate levels you have to pass a flight physical administered by an FAA approved doctor. At my age, I have to go in every two years for a physical. If you don't pass the physical, you still have your certificate, but you just can't exercise it. If he kept his medical until 80, he was doing pretty damn good. I hope I'm so lucky.

[HopeHoops]

61. He was in pretty damn good shape last I saw him. He took my kids up.

That was only a few years ago. My dad created the DVDs so he's pretty close with Charlie. He was crushed when they told him he couldn't fly anymore. His show was a riot. And despite the conventional wisdom that a piper cub can't do a loop-de-loop, he could do it.

[oneshooter]

30. Just remember "Jets make noise, Props make music!"

I don't believe there is any finer sound than a round engine starting up and reving!
Although this is pretty funny!

Oneshooter

[GiveMeFreedom]

31. Spent some time in the Navy.

This was my ride for 3 out of 4 years.

[denbot]

32. I joined the Navy on a delayed entry program to be a ASW operator.

I got the call saying there was a slot open. After 12 weeks of bootcamp they assigned me to OS "A" school. I manned up and told my Company Commander that I had a contract, and that my rate is guaranteed to be an ASW. He laughed and opened a file cabinet, pulled my enlistment contract and showed me a tiny line under my signature. My CC had me read out loud while he pointed to the words, "as to the needs of the Navy", and so I was on to a flight out of San Diego to Damn Neck, Virginia to start my OS "A" school. Ah, the memories.

And this was my ride for 4 years.

[IMG][/IMG]

[oneshooter]

39. Is this her?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Julius_A._Furer_(FFG-6)

[denbot]

46. The Furer is an FF-G, I rode the Barney.

USS Barney DDG-6 Destroyer Squadron 2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Barney_%28DDG-6%29

We affectionately called her Dog-Six

[oneshooter]

49. I was going by hull# and what cofig I could see in your photo. Nothing to compare size with.

[GiveMeFreedom]

52. One Vet to another.

I wish to shake your hand and pat you on the back, one vet to another. When I took the test for entry back then I scored a 98. They wanted me to enter the nuclear program and volunteer for submarines. I told them I wanted to be around airplanes and did not want to do 6 years. That was back in 1975. I was never on a ship and I have a hard time telling people that I did 4 years in the Navy as an Airdale. I finished up an AW2 and was home sick after 4 years. Two deployments to the P.I. was plenty for a kid 18-21 years of age. Oh, I joined when I was 17.

[ipfilter]

59. NAS Whidbey?

I was an AT on Prowlers in a former life. Always enjoyed watching the P-3's.

[GiveMeFreedom]

62. Hello

I know this will make you upset My home port was Barbers Pt. Hawaii. It was tough going to the beach after work, it was 2 miles from the barracks.

[CherokeeDem]

33. LOVE PLANES!!

Have seen the Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, and Snowbirds several times...C130's (both toured the plane and watched it take off), the Harrier, the Concorde, bi-planes, vintage planes, jets from Homestead AF Reserve Base... so many different planes at air shows...one of my favorite things to do!! While not a plane, been to shuttle launches....that was amazing.


Edited for spelling...I miss spell check!!!!

[geardaddy]

34. This post is useless without pictures.

[geardaddy]

35. We used to have a WWII light bomber in an abandoned lot

here in Minneapolis. It had RAF or RCAF markings on it. I think the Confederate Air Force bought it.

[grasswire]

36. stealth aircraft at Desert Storm "victory" parade in D.C.

Also those military planes that go straight up in the air and then take off. Can't remember the name, but they are amazing. Saw those at Andrews AFB air show, with lots of other flybys. I don't like to be near the military jets when they come by -- the sound is so invasive.

oh I used to go to a place in Virginia called "Flying Circus" -- all old time small planes doing acrobatics. Very cool. A musician friend of mine was flying there regularly. He had a trick where he would place a cigarette on the dash, do a loop the loop and end up with the cig in his mouth. Or so he claimed.

Also sometimes an old B-52 comes over the neighborhood from a local air show. Pretty cool!

[GliderGuider]

38. A Vulcan bomber at an airshow while the Falklands war was going on.

Last edited Mon Mar 5, 2012, 03:02 PM - Edit history (1)

It made a pass with its bomb bay open, and the announcer reminded us that "This is the last thing a lot of Argentinians see..."



When it pulled out of the pass the pilot switched on the burners when the exhausts were pointed right at us. I've never heard a sound like that.

My favourite engine note in the world though is a Spitfire's Merlin.

[GliderGuider]

40. One other sight to remember, on a late summer afternoon

I was flying gliders at a grass strip, and there were a couple of guys that lived nearby who both owned Rutan VariEzes. They came over the field in formation, and did 3 beat-ups straight down the runway, no more than 50 feet up. They looked like a flight of futuristic WWII fighters on a "rhubarb".

They looked something like this:

[denbot]

45. I've spent alot of time on Edwards Air Force Base as a kid.

My mom and aunt are fraternal twins. In the late 60's my Aunt, uncle, and cousins transferred from Clark A.F.B to Edwards A.F.B. which is about an 1 hour north of Los Angeles. My sisters and I would spend weeks at a time hanging with our cousins and while getting around on the base shuttle bus we got to see all kinds of interesting stuff flying about, like the amazing Supper Guppy

[IMG][/IMG]

The X-15, which always had an escort of F-104's

[IMG][/IMG]

The pre-shuttle lifting bodies, which we would see strapped under the NASA B-52

[IMG][/IMG]

The way cool SR-71 which are one of the loudest aircraft out there.

[IMG][/IMG]

Later in the mid 80's I worked on base at the NASA building, and the General Electric/Northrop Flight Line building. I could not help the compulsion to touch some of the Aircraft that I thought were historic, like the SR-71, and the NASA drop launch B-52. While at the GE/Northrope building, Delco used the F20, and General Chuck Yeager in their commercials and I got to meet the General.

[IMG][/IMG]

In addition to the aircraft at Edwards, during my tour in the Navy I operated with P-3 Orion's, F-14 Tom Cats, A-6 Intruders (Attack and EW versions) AV-8 Harrier Jump Jets, and F-4's, and as during Naval Gunfire support exercise's I got to work with Marine A-10 Thunderbolts off Puerto Rico. On the other side of the coin, we were over flown by hostiles like Soviet Bear Delta's, Iranian P-3 Orion's.

[Major Nikon]

48. I've been inside a few Beavers

[denbot]

54. .

I'll keep my snarkey remarks to myself.

[mwdem]

64. 30 years ago,

we lived in Virginia Beach, near Oceana Air Base. We saw many planes, but the AWACS were the ones we totally noticed when they did their practice runs over our apt.! There sound was very unique, to say the least!