Coolest Aircraft Thing You Have Ever Witnessed!!

OK gang, here's your chance to tell some of your stories so that we can all live vicariously through your moment!

I am wondering what some of the coolest aircraft things that you have witnessed may be?? In other words, things that you have either been a part of or seen firsthand at an airshow, military base, etc...

I will extend the courtesy and not post any of mine until you, the guests, post some of yours!! I am excited to read these as I know many of you will be responding soon!
Canada, Skunk, CH1466, Waynos, Westpoint, and so on.

Anyway, let's hear those stories my friends.......As always, Peace...Mondo

[edit on 13-3-2007 by Mondogiwa]

i98.photobucket.com...
My once in a lifetime ride aboard the Goodyear Blimp. It was a 45 minute ride that was the most amazing feeling. Dec 2 1994


[edit on 13-3-2007 by skunkworks82]

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[edit on 13/3/2007 by Mirthful Me]

That's cool man! I am sure it was an event that will leave its mark on your life in a positive way!
I have been lucky enough to be involved with the Navy and the F18 development team and have seen some amazingt things at various military airbases and airshows! Most notably at the Point Mugu Missile Test and Evaluation Base. I will include some stories soon for you!

Peace, Mondo

Airshow at Greenham Common, back in the late '70s. A pair of German F-104s are giving a display. One of them makes a low pass, gear down, airbrakes deployed and flaps lowered. We're all watching, amazed at how anything with wings that small could possibly fly that slowly. Of course, we weren't watching his buddy, who chose that moment to come screaming past, underneath, at what we were later told was 97% Mach. Scared the bejaysus out of us! Once you've experienced the weird ghostly howl that the old Starfighter made, you'll never forget it...

Originally posted by Snoogans
Airshow at Greenham Common, back in the late '70s. A pair of German F-104s are giving a display. One of them makes a low pass, gear down, airbrakes deployed and flaps lowered. We're all watching, amazed at how anything with wings that small could possibly fly that slowly. Of course, we weren't watching his buddy, who chose that moment to come screaming past, underneath, at what we were later told was 97% Mach. Scared the bejaysus out of us! Once you've experienced the weird ghostly howl that the old Starfighter made, you'll never forget it...

The Starfighter was an amazing plane. There's never been anything built like it!

Ive been to an airshow and saw a tornado, mig29 and a griphen but nothing compares to the time i saw a F16 fly at tree top level 50 m from me in turkey. It was awesome.

Every year as a kid my old man took me to Finingley Air Show. Finingley was a front-line bomber base in the North of England, near Doncaster. Stationed there was part of our nuclear bomber force..




so at the end of the show, they'd line up 3 or 4 or 5 of them at the end of the runway and 'scramble' them.. which entailed all four screaming the nuts of the engines then the first one would start to roll... as it gets half way down the runway, the second would start to roll, eventually you'd have one crawling up into the sky, one just lifting from the runway, one at full blast half way down the runway and one just starting to roll...

the noise was justthe loudest thing i have ever heard, i was only a kid and i can remember it perfectly.. HUGE noise, a noise that cam ethrough your chest, through your feet, with the site of these huge majestic birds lifting into the early evening sky...

awesome

i don't know how impressed the soviet military were with our independent nuclear deterent, but i loved it :-)

and while i'm on it, English Electric Lightning:






same place, Finingley... Chilling out after the show with my dad [mid 70's this] cos he hated queueing to get out... sat in the now-empty posh stands... early evening, say 7 o'clock on a september evening..

the lightening rolls up to the runway to set off for home

it takes off, levels in teh distance and does a lazy full turn, looping away into the distance and circles the entire airfield..

to return along the runway line, at about 60 foot, just under Mach 1, full afterburners on....

it barrels in, you could feel the heat from the after-burners, deafening noise.. it reaches the end of the runway, lifts to 30 degree climb and goes straight into some fairly low level cloud.. all you could see was the glow of the afterburners.. leaving us with ringing ears and feeling privileged...

that pilot deserved a slap on the back :-)

Great stories shackleton thanks for sharing! I feel a little left out as I feel I missed the hayday of the airshow circuit . One thing I will look forward to though this year is that the starfighter team that flies in north america now will be doing a 3 plane show instead of just one.

On mention of the amazing slow speed of the 104 mentioned earlier. I remeber being told about one red flag where the canadians came down and they where attacking a SAM I guess and they desided to attack low and slow and very dirty. The SAM wasn't able to lock on but tried to claim a kill for a harrier cause the controller assumed it was the only thing that could fly that slow.

[edit on 22/08/06 by Canada_EH]

Last saturday - flying one for the first time I got airsick after 20 minutes and the instructor landed.

I work in NYC and my office used to be on the 38th floor of a building on 34th street and we had unobstructed views facing North, East and West (for the 9/11 view we went to the office next door) and as a result, we could see both rivers for miles. Several years ago, during Fleet Week (this is in May when the navy shows up in full force here) I was sitting in my office, talking to my dad when I see a pair of black planes zooming north and south along the river. There were the usual color spray displays coming from the boats along the river and the scene was spectacular but it was the planes that really attracted our attention. It was a pair of stealth jets showing off what was, at the time, a new addition to the air aresenal.

Originally posted by shackleton
Every year as a kid my old man took me to Finingley Air Show. Finingley was a front-line bomber base in the North of England, near Doncaster. Stationed there was part of our nuclear bomber force..
so at the end of the show, they'd line up 3 or 4 or 5 of them at the end of the runway and 'scramble' them.. which entailed all four screaming the nuts of the engines then the first one would start to roll... as it gets half way down the runway, the second would start to roll, eventually you'd have one crawling up into the sky, one just lifting from the runway, one at full blast half way down the runway and one just starting to roll...

God, I can remember a single Vulcan being bloody loud, but FIVE??

The Lightning truly was a magnificent beast, I too saw one do a near-mach low-level pass. That was another life-altering experience!

Hmm... Well, the first thing that I saw at an air show as a Mig-15, what a plane, loud and extremely maneuverable not to mention pretty good looking for a Russian bird... However my number one moment has to go to watching a B-1B take off on full burner out west at Edwards. I was pretty young back then and I could feel the vibration and power of the engines (via internal organs) no kidding! The sound was incredible too, especially when it broke Mach, I was sacred as...

First of all I would like to thank skunkworks82 for posting the Goodyear blimp. I have always loved airships, so I agree theya re among the coolest aircraft. I got to fly Goodyear's GZ-20A "Columbia" (N4A) in 1986. By coincidence, it was my birthday so it made for a memorable occasion.

As to the "coolest aircraft thing I have ever winessed," that might be hard to narrow down.

I've seen a British Nimrod performing maneuvers I didn't think possible for a plane that size. Very impressive. Just the thing when you need to get away after dropping "little buckets of sunshine."

The F-14 launching a Phoenix missile at NAS Point Mugu, California, was very cool. They used to do that at the annual air show. Those were the days.

I got to watch a B-2 make some impressive manuevers at low altitude and then climb up and drop a full load of bombs on the range at Indian Springs, Nevada. It was part of the CAPSTONE exercise that also included B-1 Lancers expending flares while dropping bombs, AC-130U gunships making targets disappear under a barrage of cannon fire, A-10/HH-60 SAR demo, B-52H, F-16, etc. Front row seats for a festival of firepower.

I saw a white F-117A making touch-and-go landings at AF Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. It was almost as cool as the one painted like an American flag on the underside, that flew at an Edwards air show a couple of years ago.

Watching the SR-71 start engines (from about 30 feet away!), following it to the runway, and watching it depart under full afterburner was always good for a thrill, especially in the early evening. That might qualify as the coolest thing I have seen.

Does Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne count? Watching it drop away from its mothership and climb toward space was cool, but I was most impressed with its maneuverability and glide range on landing approach.

How about the Space Shuttle? I've seen 11 launches (10 were successful) and 18 landings. It's surprisingly noisy on landing due to aerodynamic noise and operation of the APUs, making it sound like a jet aircraft.

The X-37, and even the diminutive X-40, are also loud as they glide to landing. That was more surprising than with the Shuttle. The X-37 made a beautiful approach and touchdown during its first flight, but it didn't stop at the end of the runway. That is why there is a commemorative patch that reads: X-37 ALTV OFF-ROAD TEST TEAM.

There was nothing like standing by the edge of the runway when the NB-52B took off, carrying the X-38 or X-43A beneath its wing. The cloud of black smoke it belched out as it accelerated down the runway was something to see. The low-altitude end-of-mission flyover was also impressive.

Watching the X-38 deploy its parafoil and on the lakebed at Edwards was also very cool. It had an extremely short landing "roll."

For shear grandeur, I always enjoyed watching the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) depart with the orbiter mounted on top. Two particular instances stand out above the rest, however. The first took place on 4 July 1982 when the orbiter "Challenger" was being ferried to Florida. This took place shortly after "Columbia" landed at the end of STS-4. The SCA/orbiter combo, accompanied by a T-38 chase plane, made a dramatic low fly-by of the hilltop on which I was seated. The second event started out as a routine SCA/orbiter departure with a long takeoff roll and gentle climb out to the east. I was about to leave the runway area when I saw the aircraft returning for a straight-in approach, jettisoning fuel all the way. It landed heavy, with screaming brakes. I thought the tires would blow, but they didn't. I found out later that they made the emergency landing because of a small engine fire.

I'm sure I could come up with some other cool aircraft sightings, but this is enough for now. Perhaps too much.

Watching the SR-71 takeoff from Naha Okinawa back in the sixties. Awesome. They were stationed at Kadena and did not usually come down our way, but once this one did and I got to see it. Feel damned lucky too. I saw a minuteman missile take off once, but I guess that doesn't count. I have also been on the ground while RB57's made photo recon runs at night on a bombing range in Kansas. That was pretty cool too.

I have also seen the Thunderbirds flying F100's and F105's in the sixties.

[edit on 3-14-2007 by groingrinder]

Back in the 80's, when F16's and F18's were still new, showing off their fly-by-wire manoeuvering prowess at airshows, what could you do that was different?

A French Navy pilot in an F8 Crusader showed that the pilot can make the difference one year at the RIAT at RAF Fairford. Apparently (to the casual observer) rather hacked off at trying to compete with the latest in American hardware in his 1950's vintage jet, said French pilot proceeded to run in at very high speed over the runway, until about halfway, pull hard back on the stick, light the afterburner and proceed vertically up into the clear blue sky, making as much noise as possible. Stuff the slow tight turns, rolls and loops, just keep it fast and loud. He won the individual prize that year.

Also at Fairford, it paid to listen to the air band radio during the displays. This particular year was the first time I saw a B52, with its weird flat take-off and being too wide to use the taxiway it had to taxi back down the main runway.

Well, the B52 had taken off and was preparing to do its low pass and the tower was keeping the crew advised, while the PA announcer was letting the crowd know that it was lining up out to the right of the crowd line. Also on the radio, the tower was talking to two F16s, which were to take off and clear before the B52 arrived. As soon as they were given clearance, we heard one of the F16s light the afterburner and begin his take off roll. But not the other one. Tower repeats clearance to F16 No.2. Still nothing. Looking out to the right, the B52 is now visible, running in low.

Tower asks F16 if there is a problem. No reply. B52 is now approaching rather quickly. Tower tells F16 to either roll now or abort. It is only as the B52 crosses the threshold of the runway that the F16 pilot goes into afterburner. The B52 was about level with us, when, probably no more than 100 yards in front of it, the F16 goes vertical and roars off into the clouds. The crowd thought it was part of the show, but anyone listening to their air band radios just then heard the air turn blue as the Tower lit into the pilot of the F16.

And lastly was the first time the Mig 29s came to Farnborough. All the hype was about the Cobra slide (funny how some things never change) and how it was the centre point of the display. We went on the Sunday, last day of the show. Evidently, by this point, the Russian pilot was hacked off with keeping it slow and fancy, so he kind of departed from the display programme he filed. Instead of the Cobra and the slow speed control, he spent the best part of 10 minutes in afterburner, throwing his Mig around the sky in very tight, very noisy turns, making the F18 display routine look a little bit tame in comparison. After the show was over, the BBC News reported that there had been a big stink about it at the show, as the pilot breached so many airshow flight rules it wasn't funny. But he put on a great show.

Thanks for reading and keep up the stories.

KW

The coolest aircraft thing I have ever witnessed?

Hands down, an SU-27 performing a low level Cobra and sumersault at the Paris airshow many years ago. Most fantastic thing I have ever seem. The video clips do not do it justice. You simply must see one in person.

I will share one for you all...the first of a great many that I have been priviledged to see.

Nellis AFB, circa 1999, squadron of A10's NE of general airbase. I was on the base and with another team member when we realized that we were on site for a mock ground suppression exercise. I am telling you that with four of these birds in constant attack mode, it is virtually impossible to go anywhere even though you really want to. You would think that it may be easy to get an IR shot or something off at one of them but I am here to tell you that there is one of them that has his/her gun on you all of the time. The timing and tactics they were using keeps at least one, if not two of them, on you and under pressure all the time. In order to get a shot off, you would have to expose yourself to them and I don't think many opposing forces have lived to tell about that! I was always trying to locate the others whilst these two were straffing or mock bombing near our position.
For such a non-high performance aircraft, it is one of the more impressive displays of extremely tight turning radius maneuvers and evasion maneuvers I have been lucky to see.

Til later, Peace, Mondo

Once when flying a Cessna near Kailua-Kona Hawaii, I witnessed 3 humpback whales playing below me, had to circle for a while!

Between Greenland and Iceland while flying a twin turboprop, saw polar stratospheric clouds. Those are very high in the atmosphere, are composed partly of nitric acid, and are visible for hundreds of miles.

Seen many airtanker retardant drops from when flying an orbiting recon plane, and then later been in the DC-4 as a copilot on some retardant drops on forest fires.

Originally posted by FredT
The coolest aircraft thing I have ever witnessed?

Hands down, an SU-27 performing a low level Cobra and sumersault at the Paris airshow many years ago. Most fantastic thing I have ever seem. The video clips do not do it justice. You simply must see one in person.

True true..
Coolest thing I've ever seen?

1)Su-30 MKI mock 1 one 1 close-in combat..
2)Su-30 MKI TVC stunts
3)MiG-25 PD on the ground.. this thing looks like a rocket!! and the intakes are large enough for someone to live inside!!

Infact its like to massive engines flying with a miniscule fuselage!