First airplane/warbird ride

[b29flteng]

My first airplane ride was also a warbird ride back in the mid 1960s. A friend of my father owned a Meyers OTW biplane. It was an early evening flight with the sun just above the horizon. I was wearing a cloth helmet with goggles, the flying wires were vibrating, and I thought "this is very noisy", not like I expected. Then we took off, once we were airborne the flying wires quit vibrating and the noise level dropped. We did several circles of the field and landed. I can still remember it like it happened yesterday.... What great thing for a young boy.... It's still a thrill after 3,000 plus hours in everything from a J-3 to a C-130, whatever....

[Mudge]

This was my first warbird ride. In the back seat of a Mustang.


Mudge the squinty

[mustangdriver]

My first warbird ride was in an L-21 at KBVI with Air Heritage. I was about 13. That was all I needed to be hooked for life. Mudge, that is a heck of a first warbird ride!

[MX304]

My first airplane ride was in one of my Dad's friend's Steerman. I was about 7 or 8 at the time. My first warbird ride was a T-6.

[Steve S]

I was lucky enough to get a ride in teh back seat of the LSFM Dauntless.

[Ztex]

My first airplane ride was in a 727 from Lubbock to San Antiono...Braniff of course..

My first warbird ride was the B-17 Chuckie...
They gave me this certificate after the flight...WAY COOL!

[Jerry O'Neill]

My first Warbird ride was in 1977 in a PT-17 Stearman, complete with aerobatics.
It was a big wow and really set me going on the path to the poor house!
Jerry

[Matt Gunsch]

my fisrt flight was in a Piper Cherokee, the 2nd was a B-17. I currently have more time in Warbirds than spam cans.

[steve dickey]

Hey Mudge, which stang did ya go in,year? Oh yeah mine was a Sea Fury, what a kick in the pants!

[maxum96]

My first warbird ride was in a T-6. I'm still looking for a ride in a fighter.

[JimH]

My first ride was in a cub in 1976...I was 5, my first warbird ride was in Glen Lamonts B-25 in 1989, I was 18. I flew right seat with him which was really cool. Some things come full circle.

jimh

[Forgotten Field]

My very first AIRPLANE ride was in a De Havilland L-20 Beaver. I had no experience with airplanes before that. I never got to go to an airshow when I was a kid. I read everything I could by Martin Caidin, read about the CAF in Boy's Life, built every Monogram and Tamiya kit I could afford and just wished and wished. I left high school a year early to start college. Spring of my freshman year I was 18 years old. I was helping a friend of an acquaintance. He owned a Beaver, and a bunch of other stuff. I was helping him do some welding on a jeep, and he got bored and said let's go fly. I got to sit in a right seat, and was absolutely scared and thrilled at the same time. We did some touch and go's and I was just incredibly impressed how smoothly he flew that airplane. Not a bump at all on any of the landings. I remember his last of the three landings- he said let's put on the brakes and dropped all the flaps on the airplane. I recall that we just stopped in the air and started dropping. That was bit of a tickle, and scary, but wow what a feeling. After that, we became friends and I got to help him with the airplanes and jeeps quite a bit, until I went away in the Army for a while. He always asked me how I was doing and if I got my license or not. He knew I wanted to. I was home on a break from deployments the day he sold his Beaver. Watching it fly away that day made me very sad.

At the age of 36, when I passed my private checkride, I called him right after I called my wife and thanked him for getting me started. I know I wouldn't have gotten involved as deep as I did without his influence.

[DB2]

My first was in a T-6 as well. I had traded some photography work to the owner in exchange for a ride. When the time came for a "ride", he stuck me in the front seat! I was 20 yrs old and had a whopping 100TT and maybe 20 tailwheel at the time.

We went through the start-up sequence several times, and it wouldn't fire. It was then that I noticed that I was so nervous I had not turned the mags on. So, in my coolest voice possible, I said "I think if we give her one more chance she'll catch" and, with the mags on this time, she did. So off we went.

The two things that stick out in my mind are 1) how massive the plane felt when I would go to put down the gear/flaps and see all the fuselage tubes below me, and 2) how easy it seemed to nail the speeds on downwind/base/final, but how much hell broke loose after the tailwheel touched on landing. After zigzagging down the runway 6 or 7 times I finally got the hang of it and managed to pull off a passable touch-n-go. What a great memory that is now.

[Mudge]

Steve...This one. Belongs to Bill Dause in Lodi, CA.



$500 for an hour. I heard that he recently pranged one of the main gear. Went off the runway. That doesn't surprise me 'cause the runway at Lodi appears to be only about a foot wider than the track of the landing gear. (OK...slightly exaggerated but not by much.)

I've got a couple more that I'm gonna' try for but they must remain a secret at this point. (No worries, Bill. I'm not even thinking about it. )

Mudge the schemer

[Jack Cook]

First airplane ride was in my dad's aircoupe 8322H in 1967.
First warbird ride was in a T-34 in 1975 with my step-dad.
First Stearman ride in 1976 with Fred Smith in 4765V.
First T-6 ride was in 3642F in 1977 with Ed Moore.
First P-51 was 51DH with Mike Smith.
First T-28 was 83AW with Boyce Thelen.