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

[wally]

Welcome, wally.

They retired that number before I graduated from high school, so I'm guessing you've got years on me.

What kind of work did you do?

Thanks, I have been hanging around here enjoying reading the topics for years but never post much.

In the USAF I was an electronics/radio tech. Later, after college I managed to work as an aircraft engineer. I didn't do much actual working on the big planes but I did get to climb around on and in them helping the mechanics from time to time.

So now I work on and sometimes fly my Cessna and Pitts Biplane whenever my wife and kids don't need me to help with more important stuff.
Wally

 

[Shake]

I'm an Air Force brat and grew up on Air Force bases. I used to be able to tell the specific kind of aircraft just from the sound (e.g. C-5 vs C-141). Not anymore.

I'd bet that you can still distinguish a C-130 from a C-141.

Well, the incessant drone of the props on a C-130 is kind of hard to forget. When you see a Galaxy hanging in the sky, you wonder how those little engines manage to keep it up. Then, if you get to see it up close, you realize those engines really aren't tiny, but they do look that way from a distance. It's just a ginormous plane!

Nice pic there, Wally! I'm younger than goats, but like you am a USAF veteran, having worked on radios, radars, and general avionics. I got to work on the C-17 shortly after its rollout in Charleston, SC.

 

[Elixir]

Ahhh, technology... sterilizing atrocity for public consumption.

 

[Worldtraveller]

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

How about with a smaller, twin-engine Alenia C-27J Spartan?

Great ghost of Bob Hoover!

Make sure your cargo load is secured before takeoff.

Legend has it Bob Hoover was called in to one of the Boeing executive's office and given an official ass chewing....along with a raise.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm an Air Force brat and grew up on Air Force bases. I used to be able to tell the specific kind of aircraft just from the sound (e.g. C-5 vs C-141). Not anymore.

I can still pick out a lot of military aircraft by sound, but many use the same engines that are so similar as to not really be able to tell by the sound alone. The A-10s flying around Tucson are pretty easy to pick out, though.

 

[whollygoats]

During my recent pilgrimage to Skara Brae, I included a stop at Duxford and some fun in sun activities.

This is my photo of the de Havilland DH 89 Dragon Rapide that took me and seven others on a flight from Duxford over London.

View of Whittlesford Parkway, where I was staying in a stifling garret in a 13th century roadhouse inn, from the Dragon.

Then, when I got back from the Dragon flight, I booked in to a twenty minute flight in this Tiger Moth (a de Havilland DH 82),

where I got to do the whole 'rube on a barnstorm' routine, including take the stick for a few minutes. What a kick!

 

[James Brown]

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzkoTulqA1U[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Worldtraveller]

So right now, the Pima Air Museum and the local air force base have some kind of deal going where they brought in an F-22, and a whole bunch of classic warbirds (so far, I've seen 2 P-51s, a P-47, a B-17, and a P-38). They are doing slow photo circles around the city, but I haven't been able to catch any pictures since I never have my camera on me when I need it (or I was driving and couldn't get a pic in time). Pretty cool. Unfortunately, the planes are all at the base, and no civilians can go see them.

 

[whollygoats]

Heh...The 'New Kid on the Block' gets a photo op with the 'Old Masters'.

Warbirds will be warbirds.

 

[whollygoats]

My second day at Duxford, the staff dragged one of their Lancasters out on to the tarmac and started the engines. It was a thrill for the visitors (it was Father's Day, so lots of dads were being treated that day), but I got the impression the vendors' ground staff wasn't thrilled, because the engines left a pall of exhaust smoke and fumes all along the apron, where the vendors had their open-air facilities.

It was a huge heatwave the week I was in Cambridgeshire (temps > 30°C) and me running around in the full sun on an entirely unshaded tarmac was contraindicated. Luckily, the main hall for the static exhibits, the American hall at the opposite end of the museum collection of buildings, and the entry/gift shop are all air conditioned, so I was able to hustle between buildings. But there are six or eight separate buildings, not all open to the public at one time, but renovations which are in process, and regular maintenance, can be observed from a respectful distance, but often close enough to touch. The big passenger airline craft have a spot on the apron immediately next to the tarmac between the major exhibit buildings, along with the Classic Wings' office and barnstorming HQ.

 

[Worldtraveller]

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

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/

 

[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...