Warbird Information Exchange

I hope this doesn't sound too much like a "noob" thread but I only have a little over 50 posts so I am still a "noob" here. I didn't want to "hijack" the current Thunder Over Michigan thread by posting this there so I started a new thread - it may get bumped down to the bottom.

If you could have your dream warbird line up (anything from pre WWII to Modern) show up, even if it seems somewhat unrealistic (such as a foreign plane that doesn't come to U.S., or heritage flights that could happen despite the U.S. Air Force demo team F-15s, F-16s being grounded due to budget cuts.)

List the planes with an F if they fly or S if just on static

I will add my choices later.

I think it would be cool to have a show with a bunch of the "bad guys"...Migs, Yaks, Me, Fw, Zeros, etc...

An all Grumman show. Wildcats, Hellcats, Bearcats etc, etc.

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Ain't no sunshine when she's gone!

I second the idea for the All-Grumman show. Off the top of my head, they could have J2F, F3F, Wildcats, Hellcats, Tigercats, Bearcats, Albatross, Widgeon, Goose, Mallard, Avengers, Guardian, Trader, Tracker, Hawkeyes and Mohawks. If we're extending this to "wishful thinking" territory, a Panther, Tomcat and Intruder would round out the lineup nicely.

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Matt

As it's been said before, this kind of show would be tough to do in Michigan because Tigercats are hard to get from the west coast, Hellcats are very scarce and very hard to get, and Bearcats don't often make Thunder.

Would be nice, but just hard for a non west coast location.

Matt, I hate to say it but at the end there you went beyond wishful thinking to complete fantasy......but I would love a show like that.

Nonsense! All it would take is an act of Congress...

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Matt

Do Cavanaugh really require an Act of Congress to roll out their Panther, fire it up, and go fly it?

I'm fantasizing about a gathering of Sabre jets! Bring every flyable Sabre in the entire world, and fly 'em all in the show! Can you imagine a mass formation flyby of Sabres? Wowzers!!!!

*snap* Back to reality...

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

The Intruder and Tomcat are fantasy, but the Cavanaugh F9F-2B Panther is not - you are RIGHT about that - they should have flown it for the Centennial of Naval Aviation, and with next year being the 60th Anniversary of the end of the Korean War, they need to FLY it! No Congressional Act needed for that!

Wowzers indeed! AFAIK, there's three Sabres flying outside the US, but you can't miss any of them for a full line up - there's the Canadair Hawk One in Canada, in the most bling Sabre scheme ever (and that's saying something); the only flying 'A' model in the UK as G-SABR; and not forgetting the only flying CAC (Avon) Sabre A94-983 in Australia... I'd certainly like to see all three together (but then I have seen all three, so I can't complain...)

Regards,

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

And only about USD 50K would probably get the SA Airforce Museum one back in the air

ok this is dreaming big. This is in fantasy as if there were no military budget cuts, gas was cheap, plenty of ramp space and airspace etc.

I would love to see a combination show of Heavy Piston aircraft WWII/post WWII and a cold war jet theme. It wouldn't be the first time Thunder has had combination theme shows. Plus what I would like to see for Modern static displays, heritage flight etc. Of course someone will mention we are gonna need a bigger ramp and longer show as what I am dreaming up is probably an 8 hour show vs a 4 hour show.

That being said for the heavy piston aircraft: All would fly in the show in a mass grand finale multiple pass race track pattern counter clockwise - ie pass from right to left and do their turns behind the show so us photographers can get great pictures of them making their turn from the north side of show grounds for an above shot slow banana pass

B-29 Fifi
Lancaster
B-24 Diamond Lil (yes I know its an LB30)
B-24 Witchcraft

The remaining flyable US B-17s
Movie Memphis Belle
Yankee Lady
Nine Oh Nine
Texas Raiders
Thunderbird
Chuckie (is it still flying?)
Fuddy Duddy (is it still flying?)
Sentimental Journey
Aluminum Overcast

C-54 Berlin tribute plane

CAF CASA/Junkers JU-52

Are there any C-121s left? MATS Connie went to Korea didn't it?

Maybe the TWA flight museum is St. Louis could get their TWA Super Constellation flight worthy again and bring their Martin 404 too (again this is a fantasy line up of something that could be doable)

C-46 Tinkerbelle

As many C-47s/C-117s that can make it

Any flyable C-60s left?

P2V Neptune (from one of the firebombers)

PV2 Harpoon

C-1 Trader

C-123

HU-16 Albatrosses


For Coldwar era jets: (all would go up also just like bombers making banana passes - this is fantasy I know)

Any flyable Mig-15, 17, 21, 23, 25, 29.

Flyable F-86, FJ1 Fury

Flyable F-4 (Collings), maybe Air Force can send one of the QF-4 drones that they fly around on the airshow circuit for a heritage flight

Any flyable A-4

Any flyable F-100

T-2 Buckeye

any flyable T-33

Dehavilland Venom/Vampire

UK sends flyable Vulcan bomber



Modern Aircraft
F= flyby
D = demo
S = static

B-52 F
B-1 F
C-5 F
B-2 F
C-17 S
AC-130 S
F-22 D/S and heritage
F-15 D/S and heritage
V-22 D/S
E-2 S
E-3 S
LC-130
(2) A-10s S
(2) F-16s S
C-27 Spartan S (sorry I got no pics of these yet)
C-2 S (in full rawhide scheme again)
P-3 S (in blue scheme)
CH-47 S
CH-46 S
MH-60 S
MH-53 S
Super Cobra D/S
Apache D/S
(2) T-38s S
C-37 S
RC-12 S
(2) S-3 Vikings S
(2) E/A-6
(2) AV-8 S/D

Other misc warbirds for static/demo

At least 5 P-51s (since this is a big P-51 year, we'll keep it down to about 5 even though I love the P-51
At least 4 P-47s
Any flyable P-38
At least 5 P-40s
ME-109





The show would look something like this:

Pre show:

WWII battle re-enactment with P-47s, P-51s strafing as well as ME-109
Apache Demo
C-5 fly by
B-52 fly by
Mig-15 and F-86 dog fight

Opening flag jump - out of Yankee Lady bomb bay doors

multiple fly bys of P-38s, P-40s, P-47s, P-51s and ME-109
F-15 demo
F-22 demo
QF-4 launch and 3 passes (not sure if Collings F-4 can do heritage flights)
Heritage flight of P-38, P-51, F-86, F-4, F-15 and F-22 (yes this is fantasy)
B-1 fly by
B-2 fly by
ME-262 and P-51D dogfight
AV-8 demo
Vulcan departs for some passes
V-22 demo
Super Cobra demo
F-100 and Mig-17 dog fight
Mig-29 demo/fly by
Launch and circles of cold war jets (might have to go clockwise passes on this just do to the large amounts of aircraft and them flying out into DTW's class B airspace - then again this is fantasy

Grand Finale - heavy radial piston aircraft do their multiple fly bys - again DTW would be going nuts because of these planes probably having to enter class B airspace.

Ok, so just about everything in the current inventory, plus a good selection of flyable warbirds in the USA - I think most anyone could go for that.
We touched on this in the 2012 TOM thread - We are at the end of the heyday of airshows with many jet acts.
The combination of drastic reduction of types/inventory + budget constraints is a fatal combo, and this situation is not likely to ever be reversed. I don't mind fantasizing, but over the course of 40 years I have seen so many great jet based shows that fantasy doesn't do much good. Lets just hope the Angels & TBirds survive the cuts, they will be about the only chance an average civvy will have in the years to come to see hot jets in action.

Yeah I remember some of the great airshows of the 1980s (although I was rather young) and 1990s at various airshows. Thunder had not yet been created and it was just a county run airshow at Willow Run. If you were to say that by location - Willow Run was one of the airshows that has improved over the years by location because Thunder Over Michigan blows away what the county used to do - because that was mostly aerobatic stuff, which I had not much interest in. However County would bring in Blue Angels every year (not that I need that at Thunder because I usually end up seeing them 2-3 times a year anyway). One year I want to say 1992 the County did bring the Frecce Tricolori Italian team, which was awesome.

I look back at Dayton Airshow in the 1990s - the mass parachute drops from the C-141s and C-130s for DDay 50th anniversary in the 1994 show, plus the debut fly by of the B-2. In 1995, for the 50th anniversary for the end of WWII just about every flyable WWII type was there with pyros, plus they had the Panavia Tornado demo. In 1997 for the 50th anniversary of the Air Force, just about every active Air Force jet did a demo.

I go last year in 2011 to Dayton - We were lucky to get an A-10 demo (no heritage flight) and an F-18 demo (with F4U legacy). Three passes from a B-1 and that would be considered good this year - but compare that to the 1980s/90s. Thunderbirds also went up but a storm ended their show early.

that is why it is fun to fantasize.

Out of my list the warbird portion could be done but it would cost a lot of money - hell if we could get that line up I would pay $100 a ticket just for general admission. I'm already flying up from Florida every year to see this show. Fortunately my parents live near by so I get a free room. I am sure others would pay that much. It would keep out a lot of the general public that don't know much about planes but the warbird fanatics coming from other parts of the country and world would pay extra too. I have met people from all over Europe and South America at Thunder, as far away as Russia and Brazil. These guys are paying big money just to fly here, rent a car and stay here - they would pay that much more for general admission too for that kind of a line up. Note to anyone from Thunder staff - I am not saying to raise the prices (unless you can get a line up like I had).

As for the active military aircraft - that would have been doable up until the last few years too. Just look at San Diego's Navy Centenial parade of flight last year on youtube. They had about 200 planes ranging from early warbirds to pretty much the whole Navy/Marine modern inventory flying - some of it in large groups - formation of 8 F-18s, 8 MH-53s, 9 CH-46s etc.