Look! Up there! In the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane!

[whollygoats]

Nice. Love the Lancaster, but it's no B-17.

No, it's not, but the Sally B was sitting just 600 feet down the apron.

I wish I had a better lens, but these were taken with my new camera (Nikon D3300 with the standard lens). The planes have been literally flying right over my house, but I haven't been able to catch them with the camera until now. I just got up on the roof and waited for them to come by.

https://postimg.org/gallery/15abuv4sm/

A viper and two mustangs....sweet.

Usually, all I get around here are the ANG eagle circuits.

 

[whollygoats]

This was sitting outside the shops. It looks as though it had just finished a repaint.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Nice. I love the Catalina. Such an underappreciated aircraft in modern times.

 

[whollygoats]

It wasn't only old stuff they had...

I was a bit surprised, actually. I'd have figured this might have been around, but much closer to the runway.

 

[Worldtraveller]

That Typhoon, tho! Probably my favorite modern (military) aircraft.

FYI, it's these guys if you want to see their schedule:

http://www.airforceheritageflight.org/schedule.html

 

[whollygoats]

That Typhoon, tho! Probably my favorite modern (military) aircraft.

Yeah...One of the 'sexy trio': Eurofighter Typhoon, SAAB Gripen, and Dassault Rafale. Hot stuff.

FYI, it's these guys if you want to see their schedule:

http://www.airforceheritageflight.org/schedule.html

Oooo...They're coming through here with the close ground support crowd. The A-10 demo team and the A-1 warbird. Maybe I should consider actually taking in the local airshow for once.

 

[whollygoats]

A look at the interior of the Air Space hangar building, from an upper level corner looking back toward the entrance. The Sunderland is pretty much the first craft which greets the visitor entering the building.

They also have a Concorde (open that day to walk-throughs) stuffed in amidst all the examples, along with yet another complete Lancaster.

 

[whollygoats]

Heh....I see that the Russian/Indian Sukhoi/HAL PAK-FA...aka T-50...has now obtained official status from Sukhoi and the Russian government that is it sorta in 'active service' and assigned the designation Su-57.

This, of course, means that everybody is waiting to see what the NATO designation will be. These are the 'Foxfire' and 'Fullback' and 'Flanker' and the like. Since it is a fighter, everybody assumes that it will be a term with an initial 'f', which allows plenty of latitude.

The suggested possibilities I saw which I thought interesting, if not likely, were 'Fucker' and 'Flamebait'.

Somebody did note that with the craft's rather flattened aspect, something like 'Flathead' or 'Flapjack' might be in order. I like 'Flatiron' myself, and nobody mentioned it. 'Flounder' might work, too. But then, those will never happen because the inspirational source for the call designation never has any real sense to it....I mean, Fresco? Fagot? I suspect it's pretty close to arbitrary.

Well, now that three, or maybe four, have been reported in Syria, on the ground, at Russian facilities (but now departed) there will be reason for NATO to have a reporting name. They are being reported, and all....

 

[Ford]

So, a long time ago on a ride along at an air show I got to do one of these:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBAhWK4Ehno[/YOUTUBE]


It was cool. The Extra is an awesome aircraft.

 

[ZiprHead]

So, a long time ago on a ride along at an air show I got to do one of these:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBAhWK4Ehno[/YOUTUBE]


It was cool. The Extra is an awesome aircraft.

I'd be puking...

 

[whollygoats]

Heh....Likely I would be, too.

 

[Ford]

So, a long time ago on a ride along at an air show I got to do one of these:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBAhWK4Ehno[/YOUTUBE]


It was cool. The Extra is an awesome aircraft.

I'd be puking...

There was an air sickness bag involved. And it came up (or down) at an interesting moment.

Before you go on one of these trips, you have to sign a release form, strap on a parachute, and as a courtesy you get an air sickness bag. I stuck it under my thigh to get it out of the way.

Then when we were inverted, the bag came loose and landed on the inside of the canopy. It was oddly hilarious.

 

[Worldtraveller]

So, a long time ago on a ride along at an air show I got to do one of these:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBAhWK4Ehno[/YOUTUBE]


It was cool. The Extra is an awesome aircraft.

I'd be puking...

There was an air sickness bag involved. And it came up (or down) at an interesting moment.

Before you go on one of these trips, you have to sign a release form, strap on a parachute, and as a courtesy you get an air sickness bag. I stuck it under my thigh to get it out of the way.

Then when we were inverted, the bag came loose and landed on the inside of the canopy. It was oddly hilarious.

I did a full fighter combat weekend with these guys. It included nerly a full airshow routine, which I got to attempt several of the easier maneuvers. A tail slide is exceedingly difficult! I did manage to pull off the hammerhead quite nicely.

My videos are here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa2rEXCNODl9a7gLygpQbAA?view_as=subscriber

the highlight video, with full cheesy soundtrack: https://vimeo.com/190378148

During the fighter combat, my friend in the other plane spent of half of each flight with his face in the bag. I did fine, never had any issues, and we did some almost 6g pulls.

 

[Ford]

There was an air sickness bag involved. And it came up (or down) at an interesting moment.

Before you go on one of these trips, you have to sign a release form, strap on a parachute, and as a courtesy you get an air sickness bag. I stuck it under my thigh to get it out of the way.

Then when we were inverted, the bag came loose and landed on the inside of the canopy. It was oddly hilarious.

I did a full fighter combat weekend with these guys. It included nerly a full airshow routine, which I got to attempt several of the easier maneuvers. A tail slide is exceedingly difficult! I did manage to pull off the hammerhead quite nicely.

My videos are here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa2rEXCNODl9a7gLygpQbAA?view_as=subscriber

the highlight video, with full cheesy soundtrack: https://vimeo.com/190378148

During the fighter combat, my friend in the other plane spent of half of each flight with his face in the bag. I did fine, never had any issues, and we did some almost 6g pulls.

That's awesome! Just to be clear, I was just a passenger when we did the tail slide, though the pilot let me do some aileron rolls.

 

[Worldtraveller]

The guys at Fighter Combat are a client of mine (I'm an aerospace engineer and did some work for them to get their Marchetti S211 flying).

So....they offered me the 'employee discount' to do the fighter combat weekend, and that was just too good to pass up.

 

[whollygoats]

So....Sitting out on the balcony, enjoying the morning, when a couple of Eagles crossed my field of view, right to left.

The kids over at the state ANG are doing due diligence.

 

[whollygoats]

Working in the garden this morning, I looked up to identify the aerial noise as an unpainted DC-3 at about 1,000 ft.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Working in the garden this morning, I looked up to identify the aerial noise as an unpainted DC-3 at about 1,000 ft.

Nice. Love the Gooney!

I've got about 450 pictures from the big airshow last weekend to go through. I'll put some links in when I've got them done. (I'll be pretty busy the next few weekends, so don't hold your breath).

 

[Shake]

So....Sitting out on the balcony, enjoying the morning, when a couple of Eagles crossed my field of view, right to left.

The kids over at the state ANG are doing due diligence.

When I was stationed at Charleston AFB (now JB Charleston), there was a Vermont Guard unit which occupied a small 4-position hanger of F-16s, which as a "volunteer" Security Forces augmentee, I had several opportunities to sit in one of the shacks there to keep an eye on the aircraft. It was usually pretty quiet (read: boring AF), although I did have en excellent view of one of the runways as we were located just off one end of the main strip, but Charleston is a "heavy" base: we had C-141s and C-17s there. There were a few times when I was out there and had a front row seat to a pair of the F-16s scrambling off. They'd pull out on to the strip, go to full throttle and then release the brakes and go screaming away.

Charleston used to have C-5s apparently, so there's plenty of space there and they put on a pretty good airshow every year. That was where I first got to see an F-117 Nighthawk up close ... well, as close as they'd let you get, which was outside of a double-roped off area with a patrolling armed guard. Aircraft and crews would start coming in during the week prior to the show, and I recall seeing a B-1 come in during a work break (our building was right near the flightline. Those things are freakin' loud!

 

[whollygoats]

Working in the garden this morning, I looked up to identify the aerial noise as an unpainted DC-3 at about 1,000 ft.

Nice. Love the Gooney!

I've got about 450 pictures from the big airshow last weekend to go through. I'll put some links in when I've got them done. (I'll be pretty busy the next few weekends, so don't hold your breath).

I'm a big fan.

I did a weekend 'Dakota ground school' in nearby Aurora, where a renovator has his hangar, but I still have not managed to wrangle a ride. I'm looking to doing this one.

I'd also like to wrangle a ride on a Curtiss C-46 Commando, but I think I'm going to have to go to Yellowknife for that, and I don't know as they sell rides to rubes.

 

[Tharmas]

My first (fixed wing) flight was in a DC-3. I was about 12, so 1960 or so. The flight was a birthday present from my mom. I flew from Jamestown NY to Erie PA on Allegheny Airlines. Must have taken twenty minutes to half an hour. My mother drove and picked me up an hour or so later.

 

[Elixir]

Great thread, cool pix. But of all aircraft, here's one of my favs.

 

[fromderinside]

problem solver

 

[Worldtraveller]

You sometimes find cool aircraft in the most unexpected places.

There's a (very nice) racetrack in Wilcox, AZ, called Inde Motorsports Ranch. Unfortunately, it's private property, so there are no google street view images, but check out the collection of random aircraft the owner has put together (mostly Korean/Vietnam era).

Google maps view.

 

[whollygoats]

I found a modern day MiG alley in Krakow.....

Google maps view - Polish Air Museum, Krakow

Plus, a Viggen, a Draken, and a Mirage 2000, and a bona fide Li-2.

 

[Tharmas]

I found a modern day MiG alley in Krakow.....

Google maps view - Polish Air Museum, Krakow

Plus, a Viggen, a Draken, and a Mirage 2000, and a bona fide Li-2.

Oh man! I was in Krakow a few years back and never thought to look up an air museum.

However I did tour one in Romania, the National Military Museum where I saw this interesting replica of the 1910 Coanda biplane, which was the first example of a ducted fan.  Coanda-1910

Coanda later claimed it was a true jet, but that claim has been convincingly refuted. Nevertheless in 2010 Romania issued a medal and stamp to commemorate the centennial of the invention of the jet engine.

 

[whollygoats]

I'm assuming that the display was in Bucharest? If so, I missed it.

I didn't think of national air museums until I hit Budapest. But I managed to make it to Krakow's first. The one I visited in Budapest was a small set of commercial rigs near the airport....

 

[Tharmas]

I'm assuming that the display was in Bucharest? If so, I missed it.

I didn't think of national air museums until I hit Budapest. But I managed to make it to Krakow's first. The one I visited in Budapest was a small set of commercial rigs near the airport....

Yes, Bucharest. We had a guide there who, a veteran himself, took us to the National Military Museum, which had quite an extensive collection of military artifacts. I concentrated on the aircraft. The ones outside were not in great shape, but they had a nice collection under cover. Very eclectic. Here is Mrs. Tharmas with a Soyuz capsule.

 

[whollygoats]

Nice. We flew in to Bucharest after 14 hours flight and were pretty much out of it for days...until we boarded our ship in Constanta and headed up the Danube.

By the time we got to Belgrade, I remembered to look for air museums, but couldn't stop there.

I remembered in Budapest and had trouble tracking it down, as it had moved.

The Poles in Krakow accommodated me with 'MiG Alley' and a lot of mouldering Cold War remnants. The thing is, even though visitors were told not to climb on the static craft, we were allowed to get up close and touch. The commercial aircraft at the Budapest AeroPark each had stairs and visitors could troupe up and enter the planes. If you were lucky and it wasn't too crowded, you could get a seat in the cockpit. I have a pic of me in the pilot's seat of an Ilyushin IL-18. (I still have not mastered posting my own pix.) I also learned that there is a Linusov Li-2 somewhere in the Budapest region which not only flies, but sells rides to rubes (for reasonable central European rates), but I learned that my last full day in Budapest....*sigh*

 

[whollygoats]

 

[whollygoats]

The two craft I flew in at Duxford. A Dragon Rapide and a Tiger Moth. I was a passenger in the Dragon and a 'student' in the Tiger Moth.

 

[whollygoats]

The Ilyushin IL-18 at the Budapest Aeropark.

(Interesting sidenote: The cars there are part of the gathering of 'American car owners'....Lots of muskrats and snakes and other muscle cars, mostly, and some some really tricked-out police vehicles in full Southern county regalia....but the American there [me] was gawking at the two Ladas in primo shape, probably because they were official airport vehicles.)

Yours truly at the controls of the IL-18.

 

[whollygoats]

the MiG in best shape at the Krakow Polish Aviation Museum:

 

[Worldtraveller]

Open cockpit flying is amazingly fun, isn't it?

It's gotta be hard to maintain aircraft outside in that environment (Krakow). My favorite air museum (Pima) has most of its aircraft outside, but that's in the desert. They repaint them every few years, but other than that, they don't degrade a lot.

If you haven't, you should at least get a ride in a helicopter. It is a really different experience.

I loved the time I got to spend in this:

http://www.helistart.com/pictures/Sikorsky-S64.jpg

 

[whollygoats]

Yes...The Tiger Moth ride was a hoot.

I have done the helicopter routine. I booked a heli tour on Maui. I got stuck in the worst seat in the craft, back center.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Yes...The Tiger Moth ride was a hoot.

I have done the helicopter routine. I booked a heli tour on Maui. I got stuck in the worst seat in the craft, back center.

That's too bad. I was riding in the 'crane' operators seat, facing backwards, with a bubble canopy all around.

 

[whollygoats]

Re: The craft being stored outdoors in Krakow.

Initially, I thought about it and deemed your observation worthy. Then....I thought about it.
They are mostly Russian craft; they are designed and manufactured for that kind of crappy condition.

 

[whollygoats]

One of the three days I spent at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, they dragged this baby out on to the tarmac and started tinkering with the Merlins.

Then they started them up. One at a time. They didn't fly it; they shut down in the same order they powered up and all shut down, leaving a pall of exhaust smoke over the parade grounds and deafened the closer spectators.

The tarmac vendors were not happy.

 

[whollygoats]

Duxford static pix:

 

[Worldtraveller]

One of the three days I spent at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford, they dragged this baby out on to the tarmac and started tinkering with the Merlins.

Then they started them up. One at a time. They didn't fly it; they shut down in the same order they powered up and all shut down, leaving a pall of exhaust smoke over the parade grounds and deafened the closer spectators.

The tarmac vendors were not happy.

Nice. If the simulator is any indication, I have a lot of respect for the pilots and crews of those planes. Fully loaded, even with a long runway, they are not easy to get off the ground!

Nice pics. There are some pretty rare birds there.

 

[whollygoats]

And, from the 2017 Cosford Air Show....

 

[Worldtraveller]

Love those old de Havillands. And that Comet....those are rather famous aircraft in structural engineering circles (infamous may be more accurate). Cool to see one in that good of shape.

 

[Tharmas]

A true Ghost Squadron: these birds are not "up there in the sky"

The Setup:

Over thirty years ago in the mid eighties I was driving around west Fort Worth to see what I could see at Carswell Air Force Base. I had borrowed my dad's SLR. While circling around the base I found a field where I could get a view of the main runway. The picture is not very interesting except it shows the condition of the field I was standing in.

It turned out that a part of this field, in the crook of the L formed by the old Consolidated aircraft plant (later General Dynamics) as it intersected with the Carswell main runway, was fenced off. When I investigated, it turned out to contain a collection of post war aircraft. For a suggested donation of a dollar or two you could walk around among them, climb around, and shoot photos. There was a trailer where they sold some videos and books. In my visit, and subsequent visits, I never saw more than two or three other people, including the old guy in the trailer.

Some of these aircraft, like the C97 and the B70, were in fairly good shape. Others were slowly fading into the mud, and still others were already wrecks:

I intend to post more images in the next few days.

 

[Tharmas]

C97

Or more accurately, KC97:

Showing the outboard jet engine. Note the activity from the base under the wing tip.

 

[Tharmas]

AT6, not in great shape

F86D Sabre

F89 Scorpion

F100 Super Sabre

F105 Thunderchief (aka Thud)

 

[Tharmas]

{snip}

Some of these aircraft, like the C97 and the B70, were in fairly good shape. Others were slowly fading into the mud, and still others were already wrecks

I intend to post more images in the next few days.

D'oh! Obviously I didn't mean "B70." I meant B58.

 

[Tharmas]

B52

So here was this grand old lady sitting in the junk yard while across the runway a squadron of her contemporaries was on active duty. I read on wiki that the Air Force now plans to keep these operational in various capacities until 2040. That's an 85 year service life.

I hadn't realized how low to the ground they sat until I stood next to one. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled under the fuselage into the bomb bay, where I was surprised to see that the electrical wiring looked like something from a 1940s house - cloth insulated copper wires, the kind we spent several thousand dollars replacing in our house (c1941) last year.

The tail gunner? position.

Next up, the B-58 Hustler.

 

[Tharmas]

B-58 Hustler

This ship was in a bit better shape than some of the others.

I believe there was a happy ending - it was transported to an actual museum facility and fully restored for static display - indoors.

I can't verify that though.

As you can see, there was a platform that allowed you to look into the cockpit(s).

 

[Tharmas]

B-36 Peacemaker

I’ve been in love with the B-36 ever since as a young child I was taken to see the movie Strategic Air Command (1955 – Jimmy Stewart, June Alyson). It seems like about a quarter of the movie takes place around and inside a B-36.

[youtube]-YKMdGz1ihc[/youtube]

This one was in pretty sad disrepair. At least one engine was missing.

Here's the missing engine, a P&W R4360 Wasp Major, 28 cylinders, 3500 horsepower, partially disassembled, on display. I remember it had a blown cylinder head (big hole in it). There was a separate bucket collecting money for the engine's rebuilding. I threw in a dollar, but it didn't look too promising.

This B-36 actually had a bittersweet story. It was the last one off the line at the Consolidated/Convair plant at the end of the runway, and christened "The City of Fort Worth." After its Air Force service it was retired on display at the ill-fated and short-lived Amon Carter Field in Fort Worth. After the airport folded I guess it found its way to where I saw it.

Later several citizens tried to raise money to restore it, and approached the Ft. Worth city council. The good citizens of that city rejected a bond proposal to move it to a facility where it could be restored and displayed. However eventually the Air Force stepped in and moved the ship to Tucson, where it was fully restored and put on display at the Pima Air and Space Museum. I have not yet been there to see it. I don't know if it's still named "The City of Fort Worth."

So, that's all I've got. If I find any more old pictures I'll be sure to post them.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Nice set of pics. Cool to see those F-4s taking off in the background as well.

The Pima Air Museum has a very nice B-36 in their collection. I believe it is slotted for a full restoration again sometimes next year (2019). Even though a large part of their collection is outdoors, the desert environment isn't too harsh on the airframes, and they do regular restorations on all of their aircraft. They just received the very first 777 that rolled of the production line when Malaysian airlines retired it.