Aircraft memories

[sandiego89]

My best airshow memories were near my home town in southern california at Point Mugu, Naval Air Station, 1970's. Pt. Mugu is a major test base and the end of the runway is a restricted airspace over the Pacific Ocean so they could do some special things like live fire demos during the airshow.  Sadly the days had long passed when they would actually shoot down drones during the airshow (helcats and even Privateers right at the end of the runway) 

Highlights:

Early F-14 and F-18 demo's with the orange test markings.

A "drag race" between an F-4 and an early F-18 showcasing the better acceleration of the F-18.  They stated out slow and even, then the F-4 went to burner, and the F-18 stayed in mil power for some time before it had to go to burner.

F-4 Phantom flare toss and sidewinder shoot.  A Phantom would drop a parachute flare and a second one would come in inverted, aquire the flare, flip over upright and fire off a sidewinder at show center.  Seeing the speed of the missile and the characteristic corkscrew flight path was incredible.

F-4 Phantom black bunny with the Playboy logo.  An gloss black F-4 in full burner is hard to beat.

SR-71, full burner passes.

Blue Angels F-4 and A-4.  We usually watched from show center, but once left a little early to catch the show form the fence at ther end of the runway, and the F-4's gave the small crowd at the perimeter fence some extra special low passes.  Awesome! 

Show center ejection seat shots from the rear of the all white F-4 Phantom ejection seat testing aircraft. Slow speed, dirty.  Dummy in the chute.

Nimrod tactical demo, sonoboy drops. 

etc. etc.  A great place for a show.

[Dizzyfugu]

I have vivid childhood memories from holidays ate Germany's North Sea coast, when low level flying was still allowed in the 70ies. I remember F-104G's passing over the beach at slow speed (Wittmundhafen was just 30km away), some F-4Fs thundering along the coastline maybe 1km out over the sea, and here and there a German SAR Seaking passing by.

Last year, when I re-visited the site after maybe 15 years or more, I witnessed one of the last F-4F training flights, two of them doing mock air combat at height. It was fun to watch, as the big bird gained and lost speed, circling around each other. Nostalgia!

[Mossie]

My Dad occasionaly used to take us up to the cliffs at RAF Cowden, near Hornsea.  Cowden was an offshore bombing range, and you could often see aircraft taking bombing runs.  The main time that I remember, there were some USAFE A-10's doing some gunnery practice, opening up with that awesome Avenger.  Me and my brother were of the age that we thought it was hillarious to hear an aircraft fart!

On my paper round, must have been about 14, a yellow RAF SAR Westland Wessex landed in a paddock at the back of hour village.  He touched down for several minutes without anyone embarking or disembarking, before leaping into the air again.  As a young aircraft geek I was fascinated, but non of my freinds believed me!

About the same age, a RN Westland Lynx landed on the school field, piloted by none other than Prince Andrew.  It was part of Navy recruitment drive, and was a fairly low key affair, he was gone again after about an hour, off to another school.  I assume he met some other older kids who were due to leave, but I only got a glimpse of him, I was more interested in the Lynx!

Humberside Airport used to have a yearly Concorde Day.  Concorde would land, embark some passengers to go on one of those day trips they used to do, then take off again.  The public were invited and small airshow was put on to celebrate it all, I went at least twice.  Took my breath away every time it came in to land.

About fifteen(?) years ago, when I was still living with my parents, there was a deafening roar above the village during twilight.  Everyone came out their houses to see what was going on.  I'm almost certain it was a Tornado, it was hard to see in the available light, but I could just make it's back end due to the fact the afterburner was lit up fully.  Despite this, it was circling the village at a crawling pace, I can only assume it was in trouble.  The local paper reported it the next day, but the RAF made a fairly evasive statement.

[Mossie]

One more, with pics:

Six years ago I attended a small open day at RNLI Flamborough, near Bridlington.  As we walked up the road to South Landing where the Lifeboat station is, we arrived just in time to see a Sea King roar up the landing and directly over our heads.  It made several passes, then joined in a rescue demo with the Lifeboat.  Nice little day out, made all the better for nearly being being knocked over by a Sea King!  You can see the pics on this old thread:
http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php?action=post;msg=237681;topic=16875.0;sesc=01e63c58a894dcc88d8f1748ca8b8d06

Here's the Squeaking as it banked overhead:

[The Rat]

You guys are probably tired of hearing this one by now, but hey, the thread demands it! In the late 70s and early 80s the CNE airshow in Toronto often featured the U-2 and the SR-71, and they both flew out of Pearson International for the duration. I was working there at the time with the Airfield Maintenance department, and they needed one of our pick-up trucks and a volunteer to help out. Well, can you say YES!!!? Sure, I thought you could. I helped out for a few years, enjoying every one of them.

So there I was, sitting less than 100ft away from the Blackbird as both engines were run up to full power before take-off. The noise is something that has to be heard to be believed. Each time I did it was like a new experience, it was that awesome. Picking up the parachutes after landing was rather anti-climactic.

But the U-2 was a different story. Recovering the Dragon Lady was the better part of that operation, as take-off consisted of little more than driving up the runway behind it so that the ground crew could pick up the pogo gear after they dropped off. Landing was a blast. You sit on a high speed cut-off near the touchdown point, and in the seat beside you is another U-2 pilot with a portable radio. As the aircraft is almost abreast of you, you hit the accelerator and scream onto the runway, maintaining position about 50ft off the wingtip at about a 45° angle. As the aircraft descends the pilot beside you is calling out his altitude in feet, "15... 10... 5... 3... 1...", until the the gear makes contact. If you've ever heard a shuttle landing it's exactly the same. And all the while you're keeping a bug splatter, or whatever, on the truck window, in line with a point on the aircraft, just as if you're flying formation with it. Yeah, I was in a truck, but how many people can say they've come even that close to flying in formation with a U-2?!

[PR19_Kit]

F-4 Phantom black bunny with the Playboy logo.  An gloss black F-4 in full burner is hard to beat.

Oh yes! 

That Playboy F-4, a VX-4 aircraft IIRC, later joined the RAF as it was one of the F-4J(UK)s that were hauled out of the desert to join 74 Sqdn after the Falklands trouble.

And Mossie's tale of the Cowden bombing range activity reminds me of the time that Mrs_PR19 and I were walking along the top of the cliff nr Rhossili in S Wales. Two USAFE A-10s came trundling along to the south of us, turned north toward the ranges at Pembrey Sands and dropped some lethal stuff, then came back and zapped the place with their monster 30mms. We watched as they climbed back toward us, past the tip of Worms Head and turned east again. This time they were a lot lower and as the cliffs were about 150-200 ft high they weren't that far above us.

Now Mrs_PR19 is an inveterate waver, she waves at trains, boats, buses, ANYthing that passes by in fact, and she's pretty short, as those of you who met her at Telford last year will know. She was waving like CRAZY at the two A-10s and I suspect the flight leader must have seen her and figured out she was a kid, standing next to me at 6'1" (plus Hat of course) and he did a 180 and passed us by directly overhead INVERTED! Of course Mrs_PR19 went totally berserk, leaping up and down like mad and shouting as well, as if he could hear her in his bone dome! I quickly shot off two piccies of him, one directly into the cockpit canopy, and with a 135 mm lens that's about all you could see in the frame, he was THAT low.

Sadly I've not been able to find that darn piccie since the first time I recounted that tale on here some years ago. 

[poru48]

My fondest memories of aircraft in action are the deployments I made on the USS Enterprise to the Western Pacific in the 80's. We often hosted VIP's from the region and performed air power demonstrations so they could get an idea of our capabilities. F-14's breaking the sound barrier, A-7's performing strafing runs with guns and bombs, and the coolest sight of an A-6 dropping a full load of MK 82 bombs in train. We called that last maneuver the wall of water. Nowadays green peace won't let the Navy use live ordnance for airshows because it might scare the fishes. Good times.

[rickshaw]

My first experience of the Caribou was being flown to and from an exercise.  We left the airbase and flew up the gulf to the exercise area, it was nice and cool, despite being in January and the outside temperature in the mid 40s (degree C).  We came into land and it was a pretty steep landing onto a relatively short strip but not a particularly spectacular STOL one.   We stepped off the plane's ramp and the heat hit us and about half a dozen diggers keeled over from the change in temperature.

On the same exercise, two different 'bous arrived to take us home, after a fortnight where temperatures had reached 56 degrees C.  Anyway, one of them was painted white and had big UN lettering on the side.  That plane and it's crew we were told had just returned from a UN deployment to Kashmir.  Well, he decided to show us how they did operational take offs in Kashmir where the strips were invariably short and surrounded by mountains.   We all climbed aboard and strapped in.   He taxied down to the end of the runway and stood there, opening the throttles on his brakes.  You could feel the aircraft straining to stay still and then he suddenly released the brakes and down the runway we shot, gathering speed.  Then he hit a bump and the plane bounced about 10 feet into the air and then dropped like a rock back into the last bit of runway and jumped up into the air.  We left our stomachs back on the ground!  I thought for a moment that the plane was crashing and all I could remember of the brief safety lecture was, "exit the fuselage as fast as possible through the closest exit!"  Luckily it stayed up after the second bounce and off we flew back to civilisation and a good hot, shower! 

[Captain Canada]

Pulled my kids out of school and drove to Toronto to see the Concorde come in for the last time. Got a hotel room and stayed to watch her depart. When I told the teacher what happened she said I must be a 'great father' 

But it was just nice to give them the opportunity that not many CDN kids have ever had.....

[NARSES2]

But it was just nice to give them the opportunity that not many CDN kids have ever had.....

Yup those of us lucky enough to see her in the air are very, very lucky.

Whilst crossing the pond once we were overtaken by her. The US Capt sounded quite jealous when he pointed it out over the intercom

[PR19_Kit]

Bump, after 10 years.............

I'm just reading Mike Bannister's wonderful book on his time with the Concorde. It triggered my memories of that amazing aeroplane, especially the last ever flight, and Mike was aboard that flight too, although not flying her.

The word had gone around that G-BOAF would be flying into Filton for display there, being the aircraft's birthplace, and they'd arranged a special photo-shoot of her flying over the Clifton Suspension Bridge prior to the final landing. At Filton the enormous runway, the longest in Britain at one time, stops right alongside the main A38 dual carriageway road leading to Bristol, but it has quite wide verges for viewers. I'd decided I HAD to be there to watch that final landing, but so had most of Bristol's population! 

Thinking ahead, I'd taken one of my bikes with me so I could park a distance away, and rode over to the the runway threshold, or tried to anyway. The road was packed with people, so much so that it was a single carriageway in each direction, and later on became so packed that the Police gave up and closed the whole road! To make things worse, it rained, and did it EVER rain! It was of Biblical proportions for a while, and everyone got well soaked, but did we move? Not on your life! The rain eased off and Rolls Royce flew off their Spitfire PRXIX to give us something to watch, a stroke of genius for sure.

Eventually we became aware of a roar in the background and G-BOAF came over on a lowish fly by, to be greeted with cheers that were almost louder than her Olympus engines! She did a 180 over the Bristol Channel and came back way downwind, turned base with her visor and nose down and came over the crowd for the last ever landing. This time you could have heard a pin drop, apart from her engines of course, the sense of occasion was THAT strong, and finally her wheels touched the tarmac for the last time. The vortices from her wing tips in the rain sodden air were remarkable as she slowed to a stand and THEN the crowd roared again.

What an occasion, I was totally drenched, but so glad I took the trouble to be there.

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You see what I mean about the crowd, I'm somewhere under her port main gear in that pic.

[Gondor]

We stopped work and went outside to watch her she flew around the Stirling area when you did a tour of the UK at the end of her service. An amazing peice and triumph of technology that is gone for all the wrong reasons.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Just found I've got this pic filed too. This was taken from the side of the A38 AWAY from the runway, people EVERYwhere!

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[Rheged]

I can remember as a student teacher  summer 1971, teaching in Campbeltown  Dalintober primary school.   Concorde was being test flown down the west coast and above the Irish Sea.  A parent in RAF air traffic control tipped us off when Concorde would be level with RAF Machriehanish  and sure enough, the whole school went silent at the appropriate time as we all listened for the "sonic boom"  I was invited to Machriehanish  one Saturday  (sign the Official Secrets Act  here, and here and in this space, please), and watched initially on radar then  through binoculars as she went by.  Comment from a USAF officer present was "That would make a superb Queen's Flight One!"

[kerick]

My best airshow memory was a few years ago a group of warbirds was making its way to Oshkosh for the big EAA event. They would stop at local airports and give rides and sell t shirts to pay for gas. This was at Valparaiso Indiana and there was a B-25 on the ramp that people were lined up to take a look inside. This couple walked up with an elderly man in a wheelchair. Everyone insisted he go to the front of the line. There was a stepladder set up so you could enter through the wheel well and look into the cockpit etc. Darned if that elderly man get up out of that wheelchair and start climbing up in there. The couple was saying "Be careful Grandpa, we don't think you should do that, etc" but he wouldn't be stopped. Turned out he was a B-25 crew chief during the war and hadn't been in one since. It was like time went backwards and the years just fell off of him. It's an experience that has stuck with me ever since.