A coupla pics for the aviation buffs

[TRDejaVu]

That I remember, it had a Rad Alt but I don't think that ground prox systems were fitted then. I could be wrong as I was airframe/engine not avionics. Aircraft sometimes get "reconfigured" for airshows by having certain circuit breakers pulled. That's what happened with the Air France A320 that then drifted into the trees when the Captain "forgot" that it takes a turbine engine longer to spin up than a piston engine.

 

[William]

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I wouldn't have to think twice about forking over $375 to ride a 17. It's one of the things I want to do before I die, that and ride shotgun with the Blue Angels or the ThunderBirds(hey, I'm not picky), drive something that cost more than my house VERY fast, etc, etc. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Neither one of us had the cash on hand, and Mum would've kilt us dead if we'd put it on our respective Visas. Or gone to our respective banks and drawn the cash. But I'm reasonably sure that if we'd prepared a bit for this, we'd have gone. Dad, who's not all that keen on airplanes, but likes 'em well enough (more of a steam train guy, aside from sports cars), seemed awful interested. I think the novelty of flying around in a vintage aircraft intrigued him.

For many years, probably until about six or seven years ago, there used to be a big airshow at DuPage airport. Quite a few vintage aircraft would fly in (I've seen Aluminum Overcast and Sentimental Journey, as well as a coupla Mustangs), and there'd be all sorts of flyovers of more recent hardware. You military types will most likely be nonplussed by this, but a constant stream of flyovers of B-52s, Tomcats, Eagles, Falcons, and various airliners is an awful damned impressive sight! They have a similar show out at the Aurora airport, but I've never managed to go out there.

-Wm.

 

[kennypinkerton]

Hasn't been an airshow in Tuscaloosa in at least 18 or so years. I went to the last one at age 14 or 15. I almost drove by myself to one about 6-7 years ago in Jackson MS... I mostly wanted to see the stealth fighter F-117's they were going to have.. but the single Harrier hover-jet intrigued me as well. Best we had at Tuscaloosa years ago, was a c-130 you could walk into, a stearman biplane that (very staged) supposedly dropped it's pilot whilst flying inverted, and a flyby of a couple old f-4's at pretty close to sonic speed. Since then, I've seen better while out and about. Above sonic (yes they are not supposed to officially do that over US land) jets flying by at just above tree level - along the river while I was fishing (my ears rang for quite a while).. Lot's more just above tree level flyovers at normal speeds (and what's really cool is you don't hear them coming until just the second that they appear and scare the crud out of you. A couple objects that were military (surrounded my military jets), but not anything I could identify (through binnocculars the big central one was at minimum, as big as a XB-170, probably bigger, and with less of a neck - this is in size reference to the 6 or so fighter jets flanking it, and my having watched (repeatedly) tv footage of the XB-170, and even built a scale model of it (one of my favorite jets).

I guess there's probably more than a couple airbases less than 200 miles from me, so I see a lot of interesting aircraft every once in a while.

 

[AngliaGT]

I saw thse two WWII Airplanes as we landed on our return
from the East Coast.

- Doug

 

[Baz]

I flew from Brize Norton in the UK to the Falkland Islands in a VC10. I never want to see one of those again!

 

[mailbox]

Hey Kenny,
You are in prime location of Columbus AFB. They have had several shows over the years. Had the T birds this year. Look into it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif