What is your favorite aircraft of all time?

[Hagwood]

Thought ya'll might enjoy seeing some shots I took of the Heritage Flight at the Fort Worth Air Show this weekend

P51 Mustang
A-1 Skyraider
F16
F22

Always love these flights at the Air Shows.

 

[Hagwood]

View attachment 175171 View attachment 175172 The P51 Mustang with invasion stripes. Or a F4U Corsair

Man, you read my mind. My Dad was a B24 Liberator bombardier in WWII, so of course I have an affinity to the B24, but I always loved the P51, and of course my father did too for their role as Escort Fighter.

I also fell in love with the F4U after watching Baa Baa Black Sheep with my Dad when I was a kid.

But I think my all time favorite has to be the F14 Tomcat. Got to see them practicing at Dallas Naval Air Station when going with my Dad to the PX as a kid. What an incredible plane, from the speed, maneuverability, and unmatched weapons system at the time.

Here's a pic of a little tribute area I did for my Dad upstairs with a photo of his plane:

And some pics of the model F14 I built when I was a kid, LOL:

 

[westportrich]

B-17 (for it's vital role in stopping Nazi tyranny)
The Spitfire and Hurricane (for you guessed it...their role in stopping Nazi tyranny)

 

[Boomerang]

...But I think my all time favorite has to be the F14 Tomcat. Got to see them practicing at Dallas Naval Air Station when going with my Dad to the PX as a kid. What an incredible plane, from the speed, maneuverability, and unmatched weapons system at the time...

In 1989 I had the luck of departing the USS Kitty Hawk (while on deployment in the Indian Ocean) via the navigator's seat of an F14 Tomcat. That steam-catapult for launch puts roller-coasters to shame, and the view from that front cockpit seat is simply amazing.

 

[Hagwood]

In 1989 I had the luck of departing the USS Kitty Hawk (while on deployment in the Indian Ocean) via the navigator's seat of an F14 Tomcat. That steam-catapult for launch puts roller-coasters to shame, and the view from that front cockpit seat is simply amazing.

Wow, I bet that was an incredible experience !

 

[Boomerang]

Wow, I bet that was an incredible experience !

A surreal experience, but yes, incredible. I was a sonar technician getting out of the Navy at the end of my hitch. Our ship's helo ferried me over to the Kitty Hawk for transport to dry land. The next craft headed for the air-base from the Kitty Hawk was the Tomcat. I got about 5 minutes of training (in case the after-burners failed to kick-in post catapult-launch, and we ended up in the drink), and was summarily stuffed into that cockpit with my seabag between my legs. I was like "Really? I get to ride in a Tomcat?" The flight was probably 20 minutes or so, but the memory is so bizarre it is sometimes hard to believe that it happened to me.

 

[Boomerang]

My apologies to The Lounge for taking this WWII thread into the 1980s in my posts above.

For redemption, my favorite aircraft per the stipulations of the original post would be the De Havilland Mosquito. This is mostly due to my sentimental attachment to the film "633 Squadron" which my father and I watched together for decades until his passing.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

 

[Keller1977]

My top three would have to be the P-40, B-24, and B-17. But, any piston fired, propeller driven aircraft from the era makes my heart race.

 

[belfastboy]

My most truthful answer is the one that I am flying in....in that moment.....taking me to some far flung locale.

 

[Harp]

Huey chopper. And F-4 Phantom. Bet my ass on both and lived.

 

[Peacoat]

Huey chopper. And F-4 Phantom. Bet my ass on both and lived.

Funny but that is same answer I gave way back in the first part of the thread.

Once I was enroute to some un remembered destination in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam in my Huey when I heard a Phantom pilot give a Mayday call on the guard channel. Usually those Mayday calls are indistinct and weak because the plane is so far away, but this one was loud and clear. So much so that I thought he was within a few miles of me. I told the crew to keep an eye out for parachutes, as I thought we might spot them when they punched out. I asked for a location so I could start that way.

Unfortunately for them, the location he gave was someplace in the northern part of Laos, if I remember correctly. I didn't have enough fuel to get there, and it would probably be too late once I did. So, I regretfully told him I was too far away.

There went my hopes of helping out an F-4 crew for all of the times they had helped us out. When he rogered and thanked me, his signal was weak as he was rapidly descending. Those F-4s fly like a brick with no engines. I heard some weak chatter on guard, so others had heard the mayday. Couldn't tell what was happening and the chatter was distracting, so I descended to lose the signal completely. Never knew what happened to those guys, but I hope they made it out.

 

[Harp]

My cruelest F-4 Phantom memory was in Greece as an adviser during the Colonels junta-the paras decided
to overthrow the civilian transition with a coup d'état, and the junta sent a Hellenic Phantom air strike to end it.
A classic whiskey tango foxtrot dawn raid-and I found myself on the losing side. The earth shuddered, bounced
actually, and the sound was surreal. A squad of paras disappeared.
Several years later, I was in the 101st Airborne when an Air Force air strike was staged at Ft Campbell, Kentucky,
and I was ordered to attend the exercise; so, I stopped in the orderly room for a pair of binoculars then hopped in a
jeep after the company exec complained that I had been chosen over him...
Anyway, all the newly promoted brigadier generals were there in class A greens. When the shit started I stood
in the bleachers and focused the glasses. A colonel soon appeared beneath me and ordered me to jump down.
"What the hell do you think you are doing soldier?"
"Observing the exercise as ordered by my commanding officer, sir."
"Well stop observing the ****** exercise sergeant."
Then the adjutant-a captain meekly explained..."Nobody brought any binoculars for the generals."
I was told to get my ass back in the saddle and put "those fucking bees away."
I complied. I later scrapped a sliver in my left palm and used my jack knife to remove it when another
colonel barked at me. "Get your ass down here."
The second colonel lectured that the exercise was being conducted for my benefit.
I explained that I had been ordered not to observe the exercise, etc.
The colonel was embarrassed and told me to saddle up and not be so conspicuously compliant.
Later, inside the company orderly room I returned the glasses to the company first sergeant.
"Hope you learned something Tom," he said.
"Airborne, Top."

 

[St.Ignatz]

A a kid I remember seeing flying boxcars with their twin tails overhead.

While working an event at the Simeone car museum I struck up a conversation with a gent who belonged to an aviation club that came into possession of a Mosquito and had replaced the rotted plywood with fiberglass. He had a cell phone full of pictures. Just fantastic!

In the 80's we would take our jeeps into the Jersey pine barrens and watch the F4's and F14's with the ANG fly maneuvers over the cranberry bogs. The cats would come in low wings fully extended and when they reached a certain hedgerow kick in the burners and head straight up. The bogs would just undulate from the force.

Good times for sure.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Flying sequences from The Bridges at Toko-Ri

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Latécoére 26

 

[Tiki Tom]

The US Air Force has taken delivery of its new light attack aircraft, the Wolverine. To my eye, it looks a bit like a WWII fighter aircraft (a little). Throw in the new retro army uniforms, WWII inspired, and it's "back to the future"!

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...rst-new-at-6e-wolverine-light-attack-aircraft

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

1. Harrier
2. Phantom
3. Habu

 

[Turnip]

FW-190
ME-109
Spitfire

 

[Trenchfriend]

Two hands full of F22 vs. a hungry swarm of F16.

What do you think?