Your First Warbird Flight

[Jerry O'Neill]

My first warbird ride was with Kermit Weeks in the Grumman Duck. Awesome ride!

Good first ride!!!! (drool!)
Jerry

[LadyO2Pilot]

Technically mine was at about 2-3 months old with my Dad in a L-4 or L-5......my memory is a a little fuzzy Many L-Birds and Helos later with him. As an adult, mine was in a Tora Zero which just started a series of others over the years. It's been a great time; I have been blessed to fly some great planes along the way

[Steve Nelson]

Labor Day, 1987. I was killing an afternoon snooping around among the T-hangars at the airport in Coldwater, Michigan, when I stumbled on a gentleman preflighting his immaculately restored PT-19. Sadly, I've forgotten his name. He said he was waiting for a guy to show up for a ride. We chatted for awhile, but his rider never showed. He told me he was gonna fly anyway, but he hated going up with an empty seat, and said "if you don't have to rush off...." I think I was in the plane before he managed to finish the sentence.

After we landed, his father came by..and he had an equally pristine PT-26 in a nearby hangar in RCAF markings.

SN

[B 25 C]

My first was Aluminum Overcast. Got me hooked for life.

[Saville]

Hey all! Just thought I'd start a topic and throw the question out there, what was your first warbird ride in? For me, it was a Piper L-21 Grasshopper. First (and only) ride in an actual fighter has been in the P-51C "Tuskegee Airmen" with Doug R.

Share and Discuss!

Let's see...first warbird flight was a T-37 Tweet (got to fly, did some rolls)

Next was 1/2 hour in the back seat of an AT-6 (back seat, got to fly, straight and level and some turns)

Next was over an hour in another AT-6 (front seat, flew most of it, excellent instructional day, did some formation, loops, rolls, lazy 8's 1/2 Cubans).

Last was a P-51 ride for about an hour (back seat, flew a lot, executed some lazy 8's and rolls).

That last one was neat in many respects - I was approaching Beverly airport for a landing in a Citabria after doing some acro practice. On the radio I hear the tower talking to a ...B-17 (wow!), I was #2 after the 17. As I taxi in I see a P-51 off to the side and the 17, a B-24 and a Stearman...Collings was visiting. So there was the 51...there I was fresh off an acro ride.....nothing else REALLY important to do.......I looked at the 51 and realized this MIGHT be one of those situations where you never know if you'll ever have the chance to do this again...so go do it....

Boy was that GREAT.

[MichiganRick]

T-6 down in Florida in 2003. Loved every minute of it.

[flyingsailor]

My first is going to be this Sunday in the Cavanaugh Flight Museum's T-6. Can't wait!

-Derek

Derek
Make sure you hang around and watch Ol' 927 fly in the afternoon. Better yet sign up for a ride at the reduced rate of $299.

[bmoran]

First and only to date: C-45H 52-10539 Geneseo, NY

[Saville]

Ah I forgot one...

Ride in an AC-130 gunship ...out over the Gulf of Mexico shooting at wooden targets in the water. Very neat to see the tracers arc out and back from the side of the airplane.

[Flyin Illini]

My very first was a L-39 Albatross. Flew with the Hopper demo team at Indianapolis in 2009 on saturday. Next day went up in a B-25 for a photo shoot with a Sea Fury and Yak-9. Rides along the way after that, L-39, B-17, New Standard DH 20, Paris Jet (with Snort!), Tora Tora Kate and TBM Avenger( \within a week of each other) and Fat Albert twice. Most of the photos availible here from some of the flights:

http://www.airshowstuff.com/version3/cpg1419/index.php?cat=8&PHPSESSID=6ab2d2a5bb7c7cfe1da133dc3c877f75


Still hoping for that P-51 someday

Last edited by Flyin Illini on Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

[viking73]

My first is going to be this Sunday in the Cavanaugh Flight Museum's T-6. Can't wait!

-Derek

Derek
Make sure you hang around and watch Ol' 927 fly in the afternoon. Better yet sign up for a ride at the reduced rate of $299.

What time is she going to take to the air? My T-6 flight is at 11:30. Are you and Dave M. going to be around at that time also?

-Derek

[Dave Hadfield]

I used to tag along with my Dad as a kid. As soon as he got an ATR he got a job as an FO on a B-17 doing high-altitude survey for Kenting Aviation. I can just barely remember (I was 3-4) riding in this aircraft during the odd test flight after maintenance, while deployed to Venezuela. I sat there in this nose cone. (This is the airplane now being restored in Savanah, ex-CF-HBP)


Hadfield photo, 1961

Here's another photo of it off the internet.

http://www.abpic.co.uk/images/images/1054845M.jpg

After that we bought a J-3, and Dad flew a VIP Beech 18 as well as some larger Lockheed twins. And a DH Dove. Again we used to tag along, although we were more interested in the pop and chips than the cockpit.

Dave

[michaelharadon]

B-17 Sentimental Journey, as a photographer for the Desert Sportsman Pilots Association, at some point in the 1980's.

I'm still struck by the contrast between the impression a 17 gives you on the ground-invincible, huge, burly, deadly, a battleship of the air-and the reality of being in it upstairs. It's cramped, incredibly noisy, full of sharp corners and protrusions, and good fields of visibility looking out are rare. It seems like the driver of an old Volkswagen bug has more visibility than the pilot of a B-17.

The 17 is many things, but a protective fortress it is not. A thumb and a very little pressure is enough to oil can the fuselage. Any appearance of safety and protection for the crew the plane gives sitting on the ground is an illusion in the air.

I sat in the nose and added to all that being surrounded by av gas, oxygen, bullets and bombs, flak and fighters at many, many degrees below zero. It hit me rather strong how flying in them must have been physically debilitating and mentally/emotionally wearing to a degree that those of us who have never had to will never come close to understanding. Just the incessant, pounding noise was a lot to deal with.

My respect and gratitude for the men who flew them in infinite.

[NathanT24]

In 2004 in the CAFs' SBD Dauntless and thats the only flight but boy it was so much fun!!

[Misterg97]

C-124 "Old Shakey" in the 50's ... probably before most here were born !