Warbird Information Exchange

The most memorable one for me - In the summer of 1986 I went on a road trip to Pine Ridge, South Dakota with a couple of my Native American buddies who were pledged to a Lakota Sun Dance ceremony. During the ritual a couple dozen men all were dancing around the sacred pole, tied to it with ropes attached to piercings on their chests, blowing eagle-bone whistles while others were pounding drums, and as I'm watching this a B-1 roared overhead, wings back, at about 2000 feet AGL. Sort of a Twilight Zone moment for me...

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

I was about 11-12 when i first went to Mildenhall airshow , the German Navy Vikings were fantastic ...
Lightning display at Raf Brize norton ....oh and the time 6 drakens did circuits n bumps , the town of Carterton stopped to watch

This one :
Dennis Buehn in his first Albatross N9722B.
I was standing on top of a houseboat when I shot these.
No photoshop or other image trickery.
Shot with a Minolta MAXXUM 7000 with an 80-210 zoom lens on good, old fashoned 35mm film.
(And I was all the way down in the 80 mm range for the middle shot)

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Avoid that sinking feeling -- Check the hull plugs on your pre-flight.

The most exciting I have seen would probably be...

The Lancaster in Reading PA a couple years back, and Princess Elisabeth P-51C in Atlantic city this past year.

I just about crashed the car when I saw the Lanc fly over.

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Share your story: Rutgers Oral History Archive http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu/

Great Photographs , I would have given my eye teeth to have had a camera on a cold day in November 1977 , I was up in Loraine, Ohio…at a cabin near a lake…I was in the crawl space under the cabin checking out the furnace. The open door to the space created a reverberating chamber under the house. The sound was subtle at first; I recognized the approaching drone to be that of twin radials. I paused , and looked toward the door. The sound of the droning engines grew louder. “That’s a B-25!” I said to myself, and I ran from the furnace to the lakes edge, and this beautiful North American B-25J painted in a white scheme with blue trim, rounded the tree line, left wing down just a bit making a slow turn to the west…..It appeared to be in slow motion. I can close my eyes and still see this magnificent aircraft appear before me. I’ve always wondered what B-25J this was. The only Mitchell I have seen in this scheme is N345BG then known as N9167Z. I know 67Z was painted as “The Devil Made Me Do It” in 1978…..I wonder.

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

This thread really makes me feel old. Many of the aircraft mentioned I can still remember seeing regularly when they were still in service. Among those (and some not mentioned) Connies, C-119s, F-106s, F-100s, F-105s, and F-4s. The fact that I have spent most of my life within a short distance of Wright-Patterson means I've seen pretty much anything that can be named. In fact, I remember more than once seeing a pair of B-52s flying together. More recently (about 7 or 8 years ago) a flight of three A-3s was pretty interesting.
As far as truly memorable sights, one that will always stand out occurred in 1972. I was at school when I noticed two groups of aircraft approaching from the south. As they turned toward WPAFB, I could make out three "twins" in formation in front, with a B-17 close behind, surrounded by several smaller types. It turned out to be the CAF headed into the base for an overnight stay. Awesome!
As far as airshow go, I guess the closest I can think to being memorable was at Dayton in 2003. First time I'd ever seen two P-38s in
formation.
Side note: I got a smile reading Tom's memory of seeing the XB-70 flying out of Edwards and heading to WPAFB. My dad was at the base when she landed that day. He always said that was one of the coolest things he'd ever seen.

sorry, double post

It happened to you too huh

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

Mine would have to be the Arco Vulcan.

Saw it a "in the wild" about 1980 or so, tearing up the countryside down low over East Texas. I was running a Farmall H tractor at the time and got buzzed twice! First pass I had to stop and stare, what on earth did I just see? That was NOT one of ours! Freaked out a bit but then I picked out the RAF colors - Jr. High kid, a little parinoid in the midst of the cold-war...

Second pass was way cool, got a wag of the wings as I was standing up on the tractor waving wildly!

Saw the Vulcan fly again a couple years later at the Barksdale AFB Open House, fantastic flight display.

B-1 always puts on a good show, as does the Su-27.

B-2 also caused some concern the first time I saw one of those... Just a little black line in the sky getting larger and larger! What the heck am I looking at! Then it banked and saw the flying wing profie, right before I started digging a hole to hide in...

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Yesterday is experience, tomorrow is hope, today is getting from one to the other.

All--

Wow, some great stuff there. Including several paintings waiting to happen. Taigh--what were the colour schemes on your Beech 18 and the F-100? That image in particular is already in my head, with a frame around it!

I've had the pleasure, in the past 35 years, of seeing plenty of memorable flybys...too many to mention...but if you're talking a single airplane, I do have one that takes the cake. Nearly 23 years ago (February 1985), the ex-Doug Arnold deHavilland Mosquito made a surprise nightstop at CWH while George Aird was ferrying her to Dayton. Mr Aird flew three passes on his departure on a bright frigid morning. The last pass was diagonal, across the flightline and Hangar #3 at perhaps 150 feet; the Mossie vanished behind the hangar, the Merlin music reverberating, then the slipstream blew a great cloud of snow up off the hangar roof. Wow, wow, wow. (And I've always intended to do a painting of that one, too. Someday.)

Thanx for a cool thread...

S.

Most exciting? Definitely the 2-ship B-1B flyover at a Goodfellow AFB sponsored show back in the late 90s (I think) -- we actually weren't AT the show, we were just driving down the road..........I had never seen them before and damned near fell out of the truck trying to get a better view!!!! VERY impressive!

My most exciting was mid 80's, in a Hatz Biplane, about 900 agl, I was just starting a left turn over my Dad's house when simultaneously I heard a high pitched whistle and saw a vertical fin go just under me from about
8 o'clock. I rolled right to see an A-7 pulling up into a chandelle and head for North Carolina. It didn't bother me until I got on the ground and thought about how close that was. That night I called the tower at nearby Tri-Cities Airport to see if they had had any complaints about low flying jets. They said there had been a flood of calls. I told them how close it had been and the atc said if I wanted to push the issue they could ID the guy. I declined, telling them if I had an A-7 I'd be tempted to do the same thing. I always wondered what went through that guy's mind when he saw that little biplane in his windscreen. You know its close when you hear another ship through all that open cockpit noise.

Steve G

Yes that's a good choice. Friday, October 29, 1999, was just another one of several trips a month to Chino for lunch with a friend at Square One. Price was putting hours on his ME 109. And of course, I had no camera. It was great to hear that engine and see it run up near us then take off. He did several take offs and landings while I was there that day. Awesome! I was going to go out to Fontana to watch the Cart series practice, where I would have seen Greg Moore for the last time, but instead decided to go to Chino. Glad I did.

My first choice besides this would be Tallichet's Marauder, seeing it fly 5 August 1993 when I got air to air of it and seeing it do flybys for Marauder veterans in Feb 1998.


John

I remember when I was a young boy, seemed every summer for a while I would be riding my bike and all of a sudden I would hear the loud noises of several aircraft in the distance. This was back in Sault Ste, Marie, Michigan, all of a sudden 5 or 6 TBM Avengers would fly over the town to land at our local small airport. I would nearly kill myself to ride as fast as I could to see them land. They were old fire bombers either coming back from Canada or going to Canada. I never knew where they were coming from or going to. I would sit at the airport for hours and wait for them to be re-fueled and then watch them take off. What a rush that was way back when. I always wonder where they are now, if any are still around at all. This was late 60's early 70's I believe.

I would also see several B-52's flying over our small town from Kincheloe AFB back in those days too. Many KC-135's and B-52's would fly everyday. Also a few delta dart's would come into that base as well.

I've been going to air shows since the mid 1970s, and I've seen a lot of exciting and impressive fly-bys and passes at air shows and just in general. The one that just pops immediately to mind took place at Breckenridge some time in the 1990s. They invited a B-1B from nearby Dyess AFB to make an appearance, and what a show the "Bone" crew put on for us! They made pass after pass: high-speed, low-speed, "dirty", wings extended, wings tucked in, the whole gamut. But the one pass that just flat blew me away was a touch-and-go! Breckenridge's runway is far too short for a "Bone" to land on, but they had no problems doing a full-burner touch-and-go, followed by a max-performance climbout. If you've ever been to a Breckenridge Air Show, you know how close the crowd is to the runway. Holy Mother of God! The earth literally shook, and I could feel the thunder from those four monster engines pounding in my chest! Even in broad daylight, the shock diamonds in the AB exhaust were as bright as could be. I was so stunned that I didn't even lift my camera up to try to take a photograph, and neither did any of the three buddies who were there with me! Definitely the most impressive air show moment that I can think of.

Another very exciting air show event would have to be watching the Blue Angels' "Fat Albert" C-130 transport take off with JATO. Ever see a Herk take off straight up like a Saturn V rocket? I have!

Dean the not easily impressed