Any fliers?

Vaughn wrote:
Yes, but my usual mount has 8 fewer engines than your BUF. I have one
of the most wonderful, yet most humble, gigs in commercial aviation. I am a
commercial sailplane rides pilot & CFI. http://www.barryaviation.com/


The closest I've ever come to tossing my cookies in the air (as an adult) came
during a glider ride. Round and round.... the sun beating down on me. Bleh....

If you were a real man, you'd be going deaf like the rest of us.




--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN


http://www.mortimerschnerd.com

John S. Shinal wrote:

Yer not thinking big enough ! Three B-52 waterbombers in a
cell formation, you could inundate a huge swath of area with a
watercarpet.

3 BUFFs filled with water is probably only half the amount a single 747 can
carry...although I'm just guessing here, I have no idea how many tonnes of
water we could fit in our bomb bay.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

Vaughn wrote:

Sure, rub it in. Last sortie: 17 JUN 03, but hoping to return to flying by
17
JUN 05....

Yes, but my usual mount has 8 fewer engines than your BUF. I have one
of
the most wonderful, yet most humble, gigs in commercial aviation. I am a
commercial sailplane rides pilot & CFI. http://www.barryaviation.com/


Flying is flying. I'd strap my self to a kite right now if I could find a kit
big enough to get me airborne.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

"Garamondextended" wrote in message
Any fliers on this NG? Any at all?

Started in a Thomas-Morse-Boeing MB-3 Scout, then
Curtiss JN-4
Curtiss Tanager
Piper Cub
Aeronca
Waco
Howard
N3N
SNJ
Lysander
AT-7, 9,10,11
B-24
B-25
A-26
B-17
B-47
C-45
Beech 18
C-46
C-47
C-54
C-97
T-29
Sabreliner
KingAir
Staggerwing Beech

(BUFDRVR) wrote:

Flying is flying. I'd strap my self to a kite right now if I could find a kit
big enough to get me airborne.

A kite is more akin to "flying" than is flogging a BUFF at FL 250.

"Krztalizer" wrote in message
...

Was flying a C-54E up until the forest service tanker massacre last week.

Hopefully it will be fixed and I will have a airtanker pilot career of
more
than 3 weeks duration.


Ron, I was thinking about you when I heard the decision to ax all the old
firebombers in the fleet. Any word yet on how soon they will replace
them, or
how they will provide qualified pilots for the "new" firebombers? That
747
firebomber is freakin' amazing.

Good luck in the future.
v/r
Gordon

Up here in BC, we are still using a couple of Mars flying boats !!!! for
fire fighting, they still look pretty impressive. They often send them South
of the 49th to help out .

BMC

Subject: Any fliers?
From: "Tom Swift"
Date: 5/18/04 8:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:


"Garamondextended" wrote in message
Any fliers on this NG? Any at all?

Started in a Thomas-Morse-Boeing MB-3 Scout, then
Curtiss JN-4
Curtiss Tanager
Piper Cub
Aeronca
Waco
Howard
N3N
SNJ
Lysander
AT-7, 9,10,11
B-24
B-25
A-26
B-17
B-47
C-45
Beech 18
C-46
C-47
C-54
C-97
T-29
Sabreliner
KingAir
Staggerwing Beech




YOU WIN. !!!!!!

On Tue, 18 May 2004 16:37:21 GMT, Mike Marron
wrote:

(BUFDRVR) wrote:

Flying is flying. I'd strap my self to a kite right now if I could find a kit
big enough to get me airborne.

A kite is more akin to "flying" than is flogging a BUFF at FL 250.


Interesting that a WW I slang term for the string-bags of the period
was "kite".

But, lest we drift to far from the name of the group, let me note that
flying military airplanes is simply a means to another end. Sure,
there are a lot of military airplanes that move stuff around the world
ala airlines, but the real purpose of the airplanes is as tools to
perform more violent functions.

Flying the airplane is a challenge, but once mastered, it becomes
secondary to employing the tool well. The whole dance of combat air
ops, the challenge of pitting your team against the opposition,
whether in a 1-v-1 basic fighter maneuver sortie, or for quarters on
the air-to-ground range, or in a technological tour-de-force battle
against the arrayed forces of Red Flag, or in a no-****,
this-is-for-real shooting war, that's the real deal.

Flying with the boids is great, but doing the job in the BUFF at FL
250, 12,000 miles from home plate, against a bunch of folks who really
don't like you all that much....there's the rub.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

Ed Rasimus wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:
(BUFDRVR) wrote:

Flying is flying. I'd strap my self to a kite right now if I could find a kit
big enough to get me airborne.

A kite is more akin to "flying" than is flogging a BUFF at FL 250.

Interesting that a WW I slang term for the string-bags of the period
was "kite".

IIRC, the Luftwaffe also referred to their Me-262's as "kites."

But, lest we drift to far from the name of the group, let me note that
flying military airplanes is simply a means to another end. Sure,
there are a lot of military airplanes that move stuff around the world
ala airlines, but the real purpose of the airplanes is as tools to
perform more violent functions.

No argument here.

Flying the airplane is a challenge, but once mastered, it becomes
secondary to employing the tool well.

Understood, but the challenge of "kites" is that no matter how good
one is, one never quite masters them per se. They're so lightweight
and some (like mine) have such a high power-to-weight ratio and
are so susceptible to the unpredictable whims of mother nature that
they simply defy being "mastered" in the sense one "masters" any
other A/C type. . As you may recall, Bob Wall (former F-100 jock) and
Dave Witchey (former F-15 jock) both perished in "kites" not too long
ago and neither came anywhere near mastering their respective
lightweight machines.

The whole dance of combat air ops, the challenge of pitting your team
against the opposition, whether in a 1-v-1 basic fighter maneuver sortie,
or for quarters on the air-to-ground range, or in a technological tour-de-force
battle against the arrayed forces of Red Flag, or in a no-****, this-is-for-real
shooting war, that's the real deal.

Let's not forget that due to modern technology, some "kites" are being
considered more and more these days for use in combat (in unique,
specialized ops ala Bond-style as in "The World is Not Enough").

Flying with the boids is great, but doing the job in the BUFF at FL
250, 12,000 miles from home plate, against a bunch of folks who really
don't like you all that much....there's the rub.

See above. Don't get me wrong, I respect BUFDRVR and all military
personnel (well, almost "all") for serving our country but when it
comes to aviation, I'd rather hang out with the "boids" (though I
haven't seen any boids while flying my "kite" at night) than hang out
for hours and hours on end (and that's if you're lucky...as BUFDRVR
admits that he hasn't flown in a coon's age) in the rarefied air up at
FL 250 in a BUFF.

Flying is flying. I'd strap my self to a kite right now if I could find a kit
big enough to get me airborne.


I live under the approach to both Balboa Naval Hospital and some other huge
hospital complex here in San Diego - I get tortured by dozens of "Ghetto
Birds", Medivacs, and every other sort of military and civilian helicopter that
pass over, often at or below 500'. The kids hear a heavy wop-wop in the
distance and ask, "Isn't that a Huey?" - as they scramble outside to look. I
just sit here and pout...

Of course, it was only a few years ago that I'd occasionally hear the siren
call of a distant passing H-2 -- I'd beat EVERYONE outside and the kids would
yell; "MOM! I think dad just heard an H-2!!!"

The B-25 ride and periodic offers to ride in a "Tora"-style T-6
notwithstanding, I miss flying so bad it hurts.

v/r
Gordon
S-3, P-3, H-3, H-2, C-2, + an F-4 ride and a few other odds and ends. Learned
to fly on a kite (Champ) and the superb Grumman Lynx.