DFW Event

[C170BDan]

Not sure whats going on at DFW airport today, maybe a display at one of the AA hangars, but just saw out my office window a T6 and B17 (Chuckie) land. Last year they had an aviation day where they brought school kids in to walk around the maintenance hangars and view some static displays. Interesting to see the B17 taxiing by with all the jets around it.

[K5DH]

Glad you got to see us! Today's event was the annual DFW Aviation Career Expo, which aims to introduce school-age kids to career possibilities in the world of aviation. American Airlines hosts the event in one of their big maintenance hangars.

Aircraft on display: (from memory)

B-17G "Chuckie"
R4D-6S "Ready 4 Duty"
FG-1D Corsair
BT-15 Valiant "Little Noodle"
SNJ-5 Texan
OY-1 Sentinel
J-3 Cub (Cub Yellow, of course!)
C-130 Hercules
F-16C Fighting Falcon
OH-58 helicopter
Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172
Civil Air Patrol GA-8 (interesting Aussie-built bush aircraft)
Piper Cherokee (female owner and pilot)
Beech Musketeer Aerobatic 180
Beech King Air

The weather was absolutely gorgeous! It was mid 40s in the pre-dawn hours when we were pre-flighting the B-17, but it warmed up nicely during the day, and the high this afternoon reached the upper 70s with endless sunshine! Definitely a great day to be out of the office and flying a warbird!

Of course, the air traffic controllers were not happy about having a whole bunch of slow-moving, prop-driven, non-airline planes cavorting about the airport, but they dealt with us in a very professional manner. It's not every day that one sees a B-17 at DFW (in fact, it's one day a year!). While we were holding short for departure on rwy 18R, the pilot of a landing American Airlines RJ keyed the mic and said, "Wow, a REAL airplane!" Ya gotta love it.

Cheers!

[C170BDan]

It was cool to see out the window. I rounded up a bunch of coworkers to come see!

When you left I was in a Learjet 60 sim and it rattled the building! It was a great noise and funny when I realized what the noise was!

[Ztex]

It's not every day that one sees a B-17 at DFW

Got Pictures? anybody?

Z

[K5DH]

Pictures here:

http://s112.photobucket.com/albums/n188/k5dh/DFW%20Career%20Expo%202006/

Sorry for poor quality. Lousy lighting, not my better camera.

[Bill Greenwood]

There are still some airline guys that like Flying Machines. I don't think the American pilot will get in trouble with his boss because I know the Am. CEO is a pilot and likes the oldies, but goodies. A friend arranged for he and his wife to fly the Spitfire with me. Nice folks, and it turned out that we were both U. of Texas graduates. Wish I had bought some of their stock when it was down as he has done a good job and the stock is up more than double.

[C170BDan]

...because I know the Am. CEO is a pilot and likes the oldies, but goodies.

He is based out at our airport North of Ft. Worth. Flies a really nice Apache 235 and his wife flies a 172. Nice people. Yes... good to see the airline execs enjoying the sport flying too.

[Chris]

I agree with Kd5H. Several years ago, We were one of the first Touring B-17s to do a tour of Western Canada. We had the Heinkel as well. In Calgary and Edmonton, people continued to come out until about 1030 PM with flahlights in hand in order to tour the inside of each aircraft. In Calgary, we did a check ride with one of our pilots which included three full stop landings at Calgary int'l. They put us on about a five mile final with several commercial airliners lined up on the taxiway waiting to take off. They cleared the number 1 aircraft to take off but he requested to wait until we did our stop and go as long as anyone else didn't mind the wait. Apparently, everyone else wanted to wait as well as we were cleared in full a full stop landing. We touched down and got her stopped, waited about ten seconds and pushed the throttles forward and took off again. All the commercial guys thanked us for the show and I'm pretty sure they had their passengers checking us out too. The next day we took the ATC guys up for a ride in the B-17 for all their patience with us. It really worked out well for everyone.