B-29 Flies Again!

After I posted that I remembered that I took a flight in a CH-47 from here to Fort Hood and back for a story in the mid-90s. I never rode in a Shithook in the service, though.

Forget the Vulcan.

Revive the TSR-2

@Nono There is a De Havilland Comet at the local air show here each year. I am not sure which mark version it is though.

I did get my PPL back in 2001 but I havr since let it lapse. Most of my hours were in a Cessna 153 with a few in a larger 170 series. No instrument rating or multi engine though it would be nice to renew everything and pick back up on that stuff.

Early 1970s, there was a B-25 parked at Caldwell Airport here in (yes, Caldwell) NJ. It was painted pretty crazy, with day-glo panels (now very faded). I later found out it was "Psychedelic Monster," used as a camera plane to film the motion picture The Battle of Britain. It was abandoned and unguarded, so I climbed aboard and explored. There was a bird's nest in the top turret/camera dome. It had been parked there a while.

Wikipedia says "The last Comet to fly, Comet 4C Canopus (XS235), is kept in running condition at Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome, where fast taxi runs are regularly conducted. Since the 2000s, various parties have proposed restoring Canopus, which is maintained by a staff of volunteers, to airworthy, fully flight-capable condition."

So I don't think there's a Comet at your local airshow.

Mind you, the RAF used to use the Nimrod (based on the Comet) as a maritime surveillance and anti-sub aircraft. But Wiki says the last was retired in 2011.
It would be hard to find an uglier airplane, though Beech did its damndest with the 1900 and Airbus with the freaking hideous A380.

Hmm, they definitely had a comet at the last Miramar airshow I went to but it was parked on the tarmac. I did not see it fly but assumed they flew it to get it there. Maybe they truck it in for the show? They have a line of planes which people can walk around and look at and the Comet was one of them. The last show I went to was around 2011 or so. Maybe even slightly before, the crowds and parking situation are a bit much for me these days.

Funny, I was going to mention the filming of The Battle of Britain. In those days (only two decades after WWII) it had to be the real thing, and did they ever do a good job! A magnificent film.

I think they got their German aircraft from the Spanish Air Force, which figures.

I once (like, 30 years ago) visited an old friend who was then teaching school on Grand Bahama. I wanted to see the former RAF base out at the westernmost part of the island, so we drove out. Place was delapidated and deserted -- like a ghost town -- except for a DC-3 parked there. I got in and walked up to look at the flight deck. Whereupon Marjorie said "Nono, get your ass out of there! They say this strip is used by drug-runners." So I did.

Well, you can see London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. It's block for block the same bridge, dismantled and shipped through the Panama Canal.

So nothing would surprise me.

Yep, I have been there.

Unfortunately Radio Shack filed for bankruptcy.

Spanish-built Hispano Ha-1112s, in fact. Surplus Messerchmitt 109G airframes with Rolls Royce Merlin engines. Spain actually used them as its air force until around 1958! :O The film company bought them and flew them across the Channel from France, specifically to commemorate the occasion. There's a story that the film's Spitfire pilots were waiting for them, and bounced them out of the sun on the way over.

Yes, I'm sure Migs (or whatever) wouldn't have stood a chance against those 109s ...

Point is, Franco bought them from the Germans as thanks for the Luftwaffe having helped him to win the civil war.

I'm jealous. Only military aircraft I've gotten to ride in are C-130s and C-141s.

Yep, those and an Apache or two.

I rode in a KC-135.

C-130s are pretty legendary. Pretty vital to U.S. tactical airlift to this day IIRC.

I was never in the military, not being American or anything. But as an "aviation-minded" youngster, I was in the Air Cadets, Canada's equivalent of the US Civil Air Patrol. That got me some rides in the Canadair Yukon, a 'stetched' version of the Bristol Britannia. And lots of rides in the de Havilland Otter.

For anyone inclined to laugh at the latter, let me just say that it could land on or take off from a postage stamp.
You could easily get it to fly backwards on a windy day: just point it into the wind, put out max flap, and throttle back to, oh, 10 knots above stall speed. Then look down -- the ground was moving past you backwards.

Smoking section or non-smoking?

A C-130 can land on an aircraft carrier.

But then again so can a U-2 spyplane.

Just saw this --- a good example of the Vulcan howl. And they role the thing inverted.

Great, but it still cost just too much to keep it airworthy.

Makes sense.
Always figured you for a gas huffer.

That's pretty cool. How did you get to do that?

Speaking of C-130s. YOu ever wonder why they have JATOs but not JALs?

C-130 out of NAS North Island to Vandenburg Air Force base were we got on a C-141 (I think it was California Air National Guard but it might have been Air Force Reserve). The C-141 then flew use up to the PNW for training near Fort Lewis. We did a similar trip to CO a few years later. Apaches were a major transport system used in Iraq. I flew on them several times including when I got emergency leave to go home after my mother died. From BIAP I took a C-130 to Kuwait, they had to do the full combat tale offs and landings where they fire off the flairs Incase of heat seeking missiles (that was SOP). On take off they immediately do a full max climb so the plane is nose up at about 70 degrees then on landing they do a combat landing where the thing noses down at about 70 degrees only to do a nose up flair at the last second. It was like riding a rollercoaster which is impressive for a cargo plane.

Apaches or Blackhawks? Because the former only has two seats.

That's what I was thinking. It seems weird to me that they would use Apaches as people movers, but I figured "what do I know".

Ahh, OK, yeah, Blackhawk. Wrong helicopter. :dumb:

I'd love to ride in an Apache or a Cobra. I've ridden in lots of Blackhawks (the best rides were when the pilots were doing NOE flying) but I'd love to be in the front seat of an attack helicopter.

That's what happens when you use wikipedia to try to make yourself look smart.

Burn.

I've heard for sheer excitement a Soviet/Russian built Hind (the Hind 24 in particular) is about the most "fun" to fly in.