What aircraft inspires you?

I like the Blackbird. It just looks too kewl and ahead of its time.

as stated earlier, my dad helped design the B29, one was in town last year

The three are the ones I flew and the Thud was the only fast mover I ever wanted to fly. As to the B 17, my father enlisted at the beginning of WW 2, trained as a bombardier and was held back as an instructor. By the end of the war 90 % of his initial enlistment class was dead.

I worked with these,so my bias shows

Bell UH-1 Iroquois
Bell AH-1 Cobra
Hughs OH-6 Cayuse
Boeing CH-47 Chinook
Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe

Honorable mention to

McDonell Douglas F-4 Phantom
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress

for "talking" to my little WOG buddies

Dating myself here compared to you old codgers but growing up in San Diego how could it be anything but the classic F-14 Tomcat.

For me, its any plane I am flying in that safely lands.

I spent my childhood following the F111 around the world. Where ever it got deployed, my father went.

as stated earlier, my dad helped design the B29, one was in town last year







Originally Posted by cptjohnstone

And it was a fine feat of military engineering! More trivia: at a cost of $3 billion, the B-29 was the most expensive weapons program of WWII: exceeding even the cost of developing the A-bomb.

I came across this website three or four years ago. It features a logbook kept by a B-17 navigator from September '43 to February '44. It conveys some of the horror and terror of flying combat missions against Nazi Germany. IMO, the number of non-combat 'accidents/losses' is particularly frightening. See @: http://www.eagle1ministries.org/b17log.pdf

any one that stayed in the air when I was on it.

Pictures

DC-3
B-52
P-38
F-16
I saw the B-1 fly over Texas Motor Speedway once. They kicked in full afterburners as they passed. That was so bad ass it gave me goose bumps.

Oh, and of course the Wright Flyer I.

The normal ones.

Spitfire
Hurricane
Lancaster
Halifax

Plus I've got some that 2dogs would like, let me find them.

http://www.hyperflight.co.uk/product...DAVA%2DPRO%2DE

That link shows the only thing with legs longer than my SB.

Since I am an old Hot Rodder, I like things with lots of Horsepower. Even things that fly.

As far as Horsepower goes, the most powerful thing we are yet to produce is still the Saturn V Booster.

Just the five fuel pumps that feed each Engine, (turbo pumps), produce over 250,000 horsepower. I guerss that is how you move 960,000 gallons of Liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen in just atad over 2.5 minutes.

While it is difficult to convert thrust to Horsepower, there is a figure that is accepted by NASA as being pretty close. A Saturn V Booster, one minute into flight, is making about 160,000,000 Horsepower.

That is the ultimate Hot Rod.

She isn't a warbird, but I have a special fondness for the Boeing 747.

Think about it: she's a four-story building, that flies. Watching them taxi at LAX was one of the perks of a contract gig some years ago.