Air Show

[TC Chris]

I am on the shoreline of Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay now. Yesterday I heard a loud droning sound and looked up to see a large, 4-engined piston-engine propeller plane fly over. A few minutes later there was another, this one with twin tail fins. What's going on? Now it's Sunday and the larger one just flew over, east to west, and half an hour later, back again, W-E. So online we go,and yeah, there's an air show at the local airport, MBS. The larger plane was a B-29 and the twin-tails, a B-24. Pretty cool to see. We have lost memory of that piston-engine sound,and the sight of propellers spinning on big planes.

Think of the work it takes to keep those antiques airworthy.

Chris Campbell

[hermitcrab]

They use to have a show at the old Harry Browne airport ... not sure if they still do or not .. the MBS may have taken over the show?

[William]

At one time Muskegon had an airshow too. It was quite the production having everything from very old, to new including the Blue Angles and the Stealth Bomber. I loved going to that show.

Bill

[TC Chris]

They seem to have been busy this weekend, taking paying passengers for a spin. This afternoon while I was out sailing the B-24 flew over.

Lots of those were built at Willow Run in Ypsilanti, where Henry Ford was pushing one an hour out the door once things got rolling. The plant later built Hydramatics after the fire.

Chris Campbell

[19&41]

I used to volunteer at the Kalamazoo air show. There is nothing like watching the planes, both prop and jet go through their paces. When I hear a radial engine, I can't help but stop and look for the plane. Patronize your airshows if you can, that's what helps keep 'em flying.

[Firedome]

The local air show here in Bingo had a B-17 a couple years ago, one of only about a dozen left that are flyable. I could have taken a ride for a reasonable ticket price but I don't like flying much, even in a new Boeing or Airbus, so I passed, though I sort of wish I'd experienced it.

When we lived in VT we saw C-130s based in Plattsburg AFB fly over all the time, one of the main bases for them, now closed. Some 130s still fly into the Burlington VT Air Guard, home of the famous "Green Mountain Boys pilots". Their F16s, now F35s, was the fighter group that protected NYC right after 9-11.

The last prop plane we flew on was a SAAB 340 operated by American Eagle (a regional American Airlines carrier) from Bingo to Detroit, about 10 years ago. It'd been since the late '50s since I'd been on one, a Lockhhed Electra from Baltimore to Boston. I got a model of one after that. The 340 was fun but noisy and vibrate-y (is that even a word?) and a bit disconcerting as it lumbered into the sky without that shoving you back into the seat feeling that you experience with some jetliners. It just slowly gathered speed while you were rooting for lift-off the whole time! I can see why they were replaced by smaller Bombardier and Embraer regional jets, we flew on both of those to FL on Allegiant the past couple or years, much smoother and quieter, but a bit cramped compared to A-320s and 737-800s.

[TC Chris]

TThe 340 was fun but noisy and vibrate-y (is that even a word?) and a bit disconcerting as it lumbered into the sky without that shoving you back into the seat feeling that you experience with some jetliners. It just slowly gathered speed while you were rooting for lift-off the whole time!

I used to fly on DC-3 planes in the very old days. To get proper balance for takeoff, they would move all passengers to forward seats. The stewardesses would pass out small containers of gum to chew so your ears would equalize. And yes, takeoff was a kind of group effort, the passengers sending good thoughts to the plane. When gravity was overcome, the change in elevation was very gradual--none of the almost-vertical stuff of modern airliners.

Chris Campbell

[19&41]

When I was in the Army, i got to fly on a C-130, a C-141 and a C-5. The bad part about it was I am prone to motion sickness and there are precious few windows in those aircraft.

[TC Chris]

I always liked the little DC-3s. Turns out there's a reason: they were good planes. The oldest one in service today is Flagship Detroit, which went into commercial service in 1937. Not bad....

https://flagshipdetroit.org/

Yay, Detroit!! It's where Jack White has his LP pressing plant running 24/7, among other things. Wikipedia says this:

"A number of aircraft companies attempted to design a "DC-3 replacement" over the next three decades (including the very successful Fokker F27 Friendship), but no single type could match the versatility, rugged reliability, and economy of the DC-3. It remained a significant part of air transport systems well into the 1970s..... Perhaps unique among prewar aircraft, the DC-3 continues to fly in active commercial and military service as of 2021, eighty-six years after the type's first flight in 1935.[citation needed] There are still small operators with DC-3s in revenue service and as cargo aircraft. Current uses of the DC-3 include passenger service, aerial spraying, freight transport, military transport, missionary flying, skydiver shuttling and sightseeing. "

So I was tickled to discover in my Dad's WW II letters home that he and a buddy had hitched a ride from France into Bavaria and back on a C-47, the military version after VE-Day. They just wandered out to the airfield and asked. The pilot took them over the major cities and Berchtesgaden and Hitler's hideout there. Dad's letter noted that it was his first real flight, except for one back home when he was a kid, apparently one of those short fights offered at small towns in the '20s or '30s by itinerant pilots.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

I'd nominate the DC-3 as probably the best commercial aircraft of all time, and the Cessna 172 as the best private plane.
I'd loved to have flown on either.