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Have you flown in a vintage aeroplane?

Story

I'll Lock Up
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The Biggles in brogues who flew around Britain: UK's oldest seaplane takes off to commemorate 100 years since Harry Hawker's Circuit of Britain Race

Australian Harry Hawker wanted to circumnavigate Britain by seaplane in under 72 hours in 1913
He and mechanic Harry Kauper only plane of four contestants to begin the Circuit of Britain Race
This week 70-year-old seaplane aims to complete 1,540-mile round trip pilot Harry Hawker failed in 1913


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...wkers-Circuit-Britain-Race.html#ixzz2cfCwXi7Q
 

BigFitz

Practically Family
Messages
630
Location
Warren (pronounced 'worn') Ohio
I've flown in a Waco YMF like this one. My kind of flying.
galleryblackpadded770by474-waco-4145.jpg

I've often dreamed of owning my own airplane (still do). I'm thinking a kitplane would be the way to go. This Bleriot XI looks like fun.
private-se-xmc-bleriot-xi-la-manche-14293.jpg

Sorry for the small images, but I upload them from my computer and I don't know how to post them at full size.
 

vitanola

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,254
Location
Gopher Prairie, MI
I used to take the Ford Trimotor which was running in revenue service to Put-In-Bay on South Bass island in Lake Erie until well into the 1980's. Used to fly on Cape Cod Airlines' DC-3 on the Boston-Provincetown run, too. Took my flying lessons in an old Aeronca Super Chief, have gone up in the front seat of a Curtiss JN-4H, Travel Air BH, Stearman PT-13 and in a North American AT-6. Haven't been up in about ten years, now. Flying is entirely too expensive these days.
 

p51

One Too Many
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1,119
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Well behind the front lines!
Okay, there's a few, and I might miss a couple, but here goes...
My very first flight was in a Ford Tri-Motor which was barnstorming through my area, I think I was 16 at the time and went up with my parent's blessing.
I've also flown on the following (and a few of them more than once):
Stearman bi-plane
T-6
C-47
P-51
B-17
B-24
B-25
 

DesertDan

One Too Many
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1,582
Location
Arizona
My father was a pilot so I spent my early childhood in many different small aircraft.
Cessnas, Pipers, Beechcrafts most common and there were others including a helicopter once (Bell 47 type), I remember that flight because I got to fly with the doors off! :D

I loved the V tailed Bonanzas because they looked so sleek and the had retactable landing gear. That made them "super-cool" to my young impressionable mind.

I've been up in J3 Cubs and a Fairchild F-24. I was in a DC-3 once when dad was a pilot for Baxley steel, their corporate plane was a DC-3 and he landed it at the little airfield by our house once. I went back to the airport with him and climbed around in it before watching him take off.
 

earl

A-List Customer
Messages
316
Location
Kansas, USA
My father was a pilot so I spent my early childhood in many different small aircraft.
Cessnas, Pipers, Beechcrafts most common and there were others including a helicopter once (Bell 47 type), I remember that flight because I got to fly with the doors off! :D

I loved the V tailed Bonanzas because they looked so sleek and the had retactable landing gear. That made them "super-cool" to my young impressionable mind.

I've been up in J3 Cubs and a Fairchild F-24. I was in a DC-3 once when dad was a pilot for Baxley steel, their corporate plane was a DC-3 and he landed it at the little airfield by our house once. I went back to the airport with him and climbed around in it before watching him take off.
Old enough to recall the first commercial flights I was on were DC-3's. Earl
 

Two Types

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,456
Location
London, UK
The air musuem in Hamilton, Canada has a fantastic collection that offers flights, including: Consolidated Canso
Seaplane, Westland Lysander, B-25 Mitchell, Douglas Dakota and (the jewel in the collection) the Avro Lancaster.

My dream would be to save up my pennies and pay the $2500 for a one hour flight in my all time favourite aircraft, the Lancaster.
 

Metatron

One Too Many
Messages
1,536
Location
United Kingdom
The air musuem in Hamilton, Canada has a fantastic collection that offers flights, including: Consolidated Canso
Seaplane, Westland Lysander, B-25 Mitchell, Douglas Dakota and (the jewel in the collection) the Avro Lancaster.

My dream would be to save up my pennies and pay the $2500 for a one hour flight in my all time favourite aircraft, the Lancaster.

I don't know why, but I figured you'd be a Lancaster fan. :D
 

Dan Allen

A-List Customer
Messages
395
Location
Oklahoma
While in the service I befriended a fellow that owned an old Waco which we flew every weekend. I don't know the model or age but I do know that it was usually Tuesdays before my hearing returned. In high school I put a zillion miles with my dad up front in an old military Piper L-21 -- the longest single day being 750 miles. They weren't really made for that, even for an excited teenager it was a looong looong day.
 

Atticus Finch

Call Me a Cab
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2,718
Location
Coastal North Carolina, USA
While in the service I befriended a fellow that owned an old Waco which we flew every weekend. I don't know the model or age but I do know that it was usually Tuesdays before my hearing returned. In high school I put a zillion miles with my dad up front in an old military Piper L-21 -- the longest single day being 750 miles. They weren't really made for that, even for an excited teenager it was a looong looong day.

My father and I once flew an Aeronca Champ from Reedsville, Va to Beaufort, NC. That’s nowhere near seven hundred miles. But the wind that summer day was hard from the southwest and the Champ only cruised at about eighty-five MPH. As we crossed the Chesapeake Bay above the Bridge-Tunnel, I watched the southbound cars below passing us at a good clip and driving away toward the distant Virginia shoreline. I remember wondering if we would finally have to land on the bridge and walk home.

AF
 
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Dan Allen

A-List Customer
Messages
395
Location
Oklahoma
Atticus, the L21 would do a bit faster than that with 135 horses so you flight may have been longer on "corrected"time. Till the day dad died we talked about that trip. 4 days and almost 2000 miles of bumming around. Some where in the West Texas/ New Mexico desert dad declared an emergency telling me to look for a place to sit down. With "thumping heart " I saw a trail in the distance. after sitting down on the two rut trail he jumped out and relieved himself asking me if I needed to go. though it wasn't true I blurted out "to late Now"-- We sat under the shade of the wing for twenty minuets laughing--good memories.
 

p51

One Too Many
Messages
1,119
Location
Well behind the front lines!
Well do Huies count as "vintage" now?????? Flew in several of them..... ;)
I have one fewer normal landing in one than I should, pancaked onto a concrete runway after a main rotor failure.
I also have two fewer landings in Chinooks than I should, one with a parachute and one where we simply stopped flying. Both were surprises, neither were pleasant.
 

Atticus Finch

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,718
Location
Coastal North Carolina, USA
I have one fewer normal landing in one than I should, pancaked onto a concrete runway after a main rotor failure.
I also have two fewer landings in Chinooks than I should, one with a parachute and one where we simply stopped flying. Both were surprises, neither were pleasant.

The reason why my father was flying the Champ from Reedsville was that he was trying to sell it. The reason why it was for sale was because it had swallowed a valve one day while we were flying down the outer banks from Ocracoke. We were flying along at only five or six hundred feet when we lost the cylinder. The engine started shaking and the RPM dropped to nothing and Dad snatched the throttle back, but too late. The the prop froze in front of our faces. There is no silence quite so silent as when your only airplane engine quits running before you want it to.

AF
 

Late to the Party

Familiar Face
My father and I once flew an Aeronca Champ from Reedsville, Va to Beaufort, NC.
My father had a Champ!
I remember going up in it once and thinking how small the houses were (I was very young). My mom hated the smell of airplane dope when Dad was working on the Aeronca.
When I was 7 or so he could not renew his license (seizures) so the plane got dustier and dustier in the hanger (we had a grass strip down the hill from the house from which the livestock would have to be removed if anyone wanted to land. One buzz was usually enough).
Our neighbor kept his Piper Cub in the other hanger down there and we would sit on the porch and count how many times he bounced before landing.
Dad eventually sold it to the mailman, and as he found more parts for the plane squirreled away, he'd stick them in the mailbox with a note.
Out here in California, I live not far from a small airstrip, so I get to hear small planes all the time. Nice!
 

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