Ever ride in a warbird? Or fly?

I have flown in an N3N trainer back in 1997. A lot of folks mistake it for the Stearman, but it was actually built by the Navy back in the early '30s. Had a great time. I even got some stick time in it (about 20 minutes). This was AFTER watching each of my two sons get to fly in it (cost me $60 each, but it was worth it!!), and, seeing the grin on thier faces, I decided I was going up also. Because I'm an adult, MY flight price was $90!! Oh well. Some things you only get to do once.
When I was in the USMC, I got to fly in a CH-46 SAR a few times, a CH-53D, and a UH-1N Huey. I worked I-Level maintenance on DECM equipment at Cherry Point for MAG-32, which has the ONLY AV-8B Harrier training squadron in the US (TWO-SEATERS!!!), but were us guys that worked on the planes allowed to get a free ride? HELL NO!! I had always wanted to go up in a TAV-8B, but was always told no. Oh well.

hey guys; it depends on what is your meaning of a warbird; I've had rode on C-47, P-51(Stump Jumper), and the ole Yard Dart(F-16D), the later I also received my 9G pin and got sick about 5 times during the ride but that's the fastest I've ever been, the Stang was a great ride too it was at a Pueblo CO airport back in '81 and what a blast I also rode the Gooney Bird at that show too( it was okay but not the Stang) my dad had this co-worker who was a Col in the Confederate AF and he flew the Stang I'd really wanted to hich a ride on the White Lightning(P-38) but they wouldn't let anyone ride it, but at least I had one of my fanatsies realized,

I flew a T6 Texan about a month ago. It was a great ride. I did about 10 minutes of aerobatics and then my stomach said enough. While we were going back to land a p51 mustang came ripping by. Gave me a real sense of the difference in aircraft out there and why the Texan was mainly a trainer.

Same flight..notice Nine-o-Nine B-17 at low close 5'oclock

here is an old pic of me in 1992 onboard (inflight over massachusetts) the All American B-24J

QUOTE: Originally posted by murph Spent an hour over Southern Ontario a couple of years back in the Canadian Warplane Heritage's Lancaster. Well worth every cent I spent. I can't describe the feeling. I've had the privilege to sit in and crawl through a number of warbirds and military jets. I just saw Mike Potter's Spitfire do the fly-past at the Juno Beach Ceremony here in Ottawa on 06 June. Boy do I love the sound of a Merlin at 1,000 feet, reverberating off the concrete buildings surrounding the Cenotaph. Unreal... Mr. Swaddling...did you help in the restoration / repair of Mr. Potter's Spitfire after the gear collapsed while he was landing a couple of years back? There were a few pictures of the accident in the Ottawa Citizen. I've also seen all his other planes parked at Avitat at Uplands. Quite the collection. I also briefly met Mr. Potter at the National Aviation Museum last Canada Day. A group of us were sitting at a table and somehow the topic of the C.W.H. Lancaster came up and I made mention of experiencing the deafening noise of the four Merlins in the Lanc and I said I couldn't imagine what it would be like for him in the cockpit of his Spitfire. He simply smiled. I knew what he meant. A friend's father was in the R.C.A.F. in the late 50's and early 60's and he had been selected to fly in the Arrow program but before he got to do that, his orders were changed to instruct at CFB Cold Lake. He wasn't a happy camper. Hi Murph I was not involved with the repair and rebuild after the accident. Mike called me up and wanted my opinion on SL721 which at the time was a powder blue. I suggested repainting it into an accurate wartime Canadian scheme. He put me in charge of the repaint and to make a long story short.......It is done and he is very happy with it. He is having a presentation at the Air Museum in Ottawa on Aug 4th and I will be there with my wife for a week. Maybe we can meet up? Cheers Bob S. Sorry for the previous response as I am not familiar with the forum here yet. Send me an e-mail direct and I'll send you a couple photos.

QUOTE: Originally posted by murph Spent an hour over Southern Ontario a couple of years back in the Canadian Warplane Heritage's Lancaster. Well worth every cent I spent. I can't describe the feeling. I've had the privilege to sit in and crawl through a number of warbirds and military jets. I just saw Mike Potter's Spitfire do the fly-past at the Juno Beach Ceremony here in Ottawa on 06 June. Boy do I love the sound of a Merlin at 1,000 feet, reverberating off the concrete buildings surrounding the Cenotaph. Unreal... Mr. Swaddling...did you help in the restoration / repair of Mr. Potter's Spitfire after the gear collapsed while he was landing a couple of years back? There were a few pictures of the accident in the Ottawa Citizen. I've also seen all his other planes parked at Avitat at Uplands. Quite the collection. I also briefly met Mr. Potter at the National Aviation Museum last Canada Day. A group of us were sitting at a table and somehow the topic of the C.W.H. Lancaster came up and I made mention of experiencing the deafening noise of the four Merlins in the Lanc and I said I couldn't imagine what it would be like for him in the cockpit of his Spitfire. He simply smiled. I knew what he meant. A friend's father was in the R.C.A.F. in the late 50's and early 60's and he had been selected to fly in the Arrow program but before he got to do that, his orders were changed to instruct at CFB Cold Lake. He wasn't a happy camper.

Whaz up,
My first ever flight was in a B-25 w/ my dad back around 92 or so. What was really cool was that I sat in the bombardiers spot the whole entire fight which lasted about an hour and a half.
In my senior year of HS, I joined the local Air Museum which not only gave me hands on experience w/ restoring but also flying.
As of now I have about 60hrs flight time in the SNJ w/ about 25ish(unoffical) hrs of stick time in the front office(thank you Col Shultz).
I also have flight time in a PT-26,PT-17 and a Fleet biplane(forgot its variant).
If ya ever go up make sure its in an open cockpit a/c. The wind in your face, now thats flying.
Whats so cool about being associated w/ a vintage a/c grp is that I'm the youngster of the bunch LOL...
So w/ me being the youngest member, everybody focuses on me and shows me the ins and outs of restoring and maintaining warbirds.
To express my feelings, the sounds and the smells I think this sums it up the best.
I'd rather be flying...!!!!!!!
Flaps up,Mike

Spent an hour over Southern Ontario a couple of years back in the Canadian Warplane Heritage's Lancaster. Well worth every cent I spent. I can't describe the feeling.

I've had the privilege to sit in and crawl through a number of warbirds and military jets.

I just saw Mike Potter's Spitfire do the fly-past at the Juno Beach Ceremony here in Ottawa on 06 June. Boy do I love the sound of a Merlin at 1,000 feet, reverberating off the concrete buildings surrounding the Cenotaph. Unreal...

Mr. Swaddling...did you help in the restoration / repair of Mr. Potter's Spitfire after the gear collapsed while he was landing a couple of years back? There were a few pictures of the accident in the Ottawa Citizen. I've also seen all his other planes parked at Avitat at Uplands. Quite the collection.

I also briefly met Mr. Potter at the National Aviation Museum last Canada Day. A group of us were sitting at a table and somehow the topic of the C.W.H. Lancaster came up and I made mention of experiencing the deafening noise of the four Merlins in the Lanc and I said I couldn't imagine what it would be like for him in the cockpit of his Spitfire. He simply smiled. I knew what he meant.

A friend's father was in the R.C.A.F. in the late 50's and early 60's and he had been selected to fly in the Arrow program but before he got to do that, his orders were changed to instruct at CFB Cold Lake. He wasn't a happy camper.

I got to climb through a CAF B-17out in Chino, California once. Planes of Fame air show.... Best $2.00 I ever spent.... Oil stains and all!!! The plane was called "Sentimental Journey"... Anybody rember that one?

Two flights in the backseat of a F-16B model..... 9 G's and mach 1.3.....WHAT A RUSH!!!!

Don't know if these count as warbirds but i have had one flight in a Royal Navy marked De Haviland Dragon Rapide and four flights in Dakotas....Gregers

Well, the plane wasn't moving, but I got the chance to scrunch up inside the ball turret of a B-17 last fall. I was able to talk the crew into letting me get inside and close the hatch. They spun the turret around by hand for me, and it was the coolest. I am a pretty thin guy at 150 pounds and 5' 8.5" tall, and it was tough to crawl inside from outside the plane. Once inside with the hatch closed, it was pretty comfortable, but that would get old fast. You pretty much just curl up in a fetal position and look out between your knees. The gun sights are right infront of your face. There is absolutely no room to stretch and the main controls are above your head. I am sure the blood would run out of your hands after a short while. It started to get hot in there pretty quickly, but I can't imagine how cold that would be at altitude. It would be terrible to have your electric blue bunny suit quit working.

All in all, I had a grin on my face for the rest of the day. I would include a picture, but I don't have a site to host the image.

not yet, but in another week i will be able to say yes!
i have a one hour ride in a Texan next saturday.

i'm planning on a small breakfast & a light lunch. :-)

Hey

Just saw this thread

Was a crew chief on A-10's....no never got to ride one...lol
Rode a F-16.....pretty much a rush......and a crush if ya know what I mean. Also did airshows for the air force......got a coupla rides.....T-34 mentor...is that right???..will have to look at references......three of us crew chiefs were strapped in and they took us on the practice flight for the show......ran through the whole aerobatic routine.....three planes...formation...very cool....


just re-read some posts.....guess while I was an air cadet in England I was winched up in a rescue helicopter...givin them some practice for the real thing........ya know.....run out in a craggy rocky cliff area...pretend to be injured and they come find ya and of course perform the rescue!!!!...lol

Does the back end of a C-141 count???....don't know how many hours in the back of there during deployments........

I rode in a B-17 in 1988. I was a volunteer at the museum at March AFB, CA and a warbird collector kept several planes there, including a B-17. The museum director arranged the flight as a "thank you" for the work I had done around the place. Does a Russian An-2 count? I flew one around Kiev Ukraine in '91. Ugly airplane but a joy to fly.

I rode in and was able to take the controls an old Navy trainer "Texan"....
Very cool... It hits you when the guy tells you how to jump out of the plane on the wing if there is any kind of problem and cute down to earth....... $150 for 20 min.

Closest I ever got to flying in an actual warbird was a trap on the Eisenhower in a COD (E-3). That last turn is a doozy! It actually made 3 of the passengers pass out. It's not the landing that will get you. It's that sudden stop at the end.

Flown in CH-53D's., Once, while strapped into a gunners belt, looked straight down over the ramp edge 7000 feet to the Salton Sea. Very cool! Also CH-46's several times and once disembarked while pilot had main mounts on a mountain top and nose gear in thin air! KC-10's and was able to get into the boom operators area during refueling. Also flown in KC-130.

Hahaha!!! The only airplanes I've been in are 747's, 767's, A310's, and A320's.... That too cos I visit my homeland in India quite often.... As far as combat aircraft are concerned, the closest I've come is sitting in the cockpit of a Mirage 2000 and thats about it. Looking forward to flying a MiG in Russia or get a job with the Airforce now that I've enlisted with the Army!!! So wish me luck!! hahahah!!!!

Cheers,
Nandakumar

When I was an Explorer Scout in the fifties, our troop went down to what is now Grissom AFS in Indiana (was Bunker Hill AFB then). We rode in a C-46 which wasn't too memorable to me. During the 60's, in the Navy, I rode a C-1 (the cargo version of the S2F) from NAS Whidbey Island, WN to Fairchild AFB in Spokane. The ride was noisy and cold, until I asked the copilot to turn on the heat. In the late 60's, I was in the Phillipines and hitched a ride from Clark AFB to Cubi Point NAS on a SA-16B Albatross. The memorable thing of that flight was that the windows would bubble out at altitude so that I could put my head in the bubble and look straight down. I also rode a C-141 and a C-5A Galaxy. You ride backward in AF planes (which makes sense) but they were cold and noisy. But fun!!!

I got to fly a t-6 last year, it was great, maneuvering was super fun, i liked the rolls a bit better than the loops, but it was all great, i wanted to dogfight them, but there was only one here that day, alas. the sound wasn't that bad, it was pretty neat opening the canopy and feeling the cooler air up at altitude, it gets awfully hot here in the summer, and it was a very pleasent switch. we made a guns pass on a cessna that was coming around to land at the strip, i put my finger on the trigger as i pulled a perfect lead, but i didn't pull, just in case. it was fantastic, couldn't have wiped the smile off my face with a ball peen hammer. i've been inside a b-17 and an a-26, but didn't have the bucks to fly either of them at the time. any chance you get to fly or ride in one of the old planes, absolutely take it. like the sign in the a-26 said, jets are for cheaters.


maddafinga

Well, the closest that i´ve ever been to a "warbird" was a camouflaged Cessna 150 (N3303J) that i flew from Plymouth Mass. to Brownsville TX. (je je) looked so ugly that every one in every airport laugh at me :-( . I remember one guy who told me: "Hey man i would be ashamed to fly that thing, are you insane...???"..
At least that´s something for me....( LOL ) hope it counts :-(

My Best Regards
Hector Reymundo

I'm an old Huey Crew Chief, crewed 3 months in Nam the rest of time I was in Maint. Later spent 7 years in the Reserves crewing UH-1H's in a Medevac Unit. I got a lot of stick time in the late 70's. I was extremely lucky and got a ride in a P-51D in late 74. And then in 79 I got to ride in the CAF's then newly painted B-17 during an Airshow. I was at the right place at the wrong time. A couple of us were an hour early and they took off 55 min. early. We were the only "passengers" so we had the whole bird to our self. I wrote a poem about it later, it might be on my Unit's Web page at http://www.americal.org/174 with some others I wrote. Look for Poems of a Crew Chief. Also got a short hop in a PT-17 a few years back. Would have loved to ride in a B-25, my Dad did a lot of work on them in WW II in the 5th AAF. He did a lot of the original straffer conversions on A-20's and B-25's.

QUOTE: Originally posted by timodeller What was towing targets like?

I loved it when I was on flight status. I was put on status as a form of punishment. I came in late and hungover one morning. As punishment I was sent to help out in the T-33 section. An old SSgt checked me out and the next week he failed his flight phy. I was the only other one that knew how the system worked so the next morning I had a flight phy and the altitude chamber that afternoon. I was flying the next day. About six months later we modified a TF-102A to carry the Delmar Target System. The only time I got really scared was when we were 180 NM out over the North Sea in December. The engine flamed out and without thinking I cleaned the acft off, switched to guard and started squaking IFE, at the same time calling out air speed and altimeter readings to the pilot. We were able to get an air start and made it home safely. All through debrief with maintenance, safety, and ops, I was fine. After getting back to the ready room and getting a cup of coffee was when it hit me. I was shaking so bad I could not hold the coffee cup. The Squadron CO came in and told me to get my gear as we were going back up again. For the next hour and a half we turned jet fuel into noise. But I calmed down as soon as we got airborn.

The Delmar Target System looked like a half droptank with a Day Glo Orange 2,000 pound bomb stuck in the tail of it. There was 2,000 feet of cable that was let out to the full length. The target "flew" about 200 feet higher than the tow acft. Prior to calling in the shooters we would make a slow left turn. That would throw the target out to our right and high. I had instruments that would tell how close the rockets came to the target.

Not a fighter but from that era - a Boeing/Stearman PT-17. It was major cool!! Open cockpit flying and they took a picture of me with the leather helmet and gogles. It was owned by and Airline pilot and his stewardess wife. They gave rides to help pay for it's maintenance. It was years ago (early 80's) in Danbury, CT durring the final year of the Danbury State Fair.

The engine fumes were strong. I can see why some new pilots lost their cookies in the thing (I heard the PT-17's nickname was the 'washing machine' for many pilots being 'washed out' of the pilot program durring WWII. I've been in a MASH style helicopter, gliders and various small private aircraft but that PT-17 was the best! You don't just hear the wind you feel it. Complete 360 visibility. I felt like I was part of the plane. The plane was a design almost 30 years after WWI but It still must have felt like that back then.

Found this cool link while trying to find the Stearman's designation:

www.warbirdalley.com

What was towing targets like?

I was never able to get a ride in a WW ll type aircraft. I would love to fly a P-38, P-47, P-51, or a F-4U. I got several hundred hours (actually over 400 hours) in T-33A's and TF-102A's as a tow target operater. I also got several flights in the F-4D and F-4E. I have more than my share of hours in AF cargo type aircraft. Ah, the feel of the web jump seats.

I have always wanted to volunteer some time to help work on these planes, ...but I have not spare time.

"I don't have a spare square. I don't have a square to spare!"