Aircraft personality?

[Pick]

I was sitting here (at work) and for some reason this question crossed my mind: Do aircraft retain their "personality" or quirks after a rebuild/restoration?

I guess what got me thinking about it was thinking about White Lightnin' and pondering the thought of Lefty sitting in the seat again.....and whether it would still "feel" like White Lightnin'.......

Yes, I know it is a rather obscure "out there" kindof question, but we always used to joke about certain airplanes being hangar queens and others being solid, reliable flyers for every sortie......so naturally the airplanes sortof took on a "personality", in our minds, if nothing else.

So........do the warbirds out there retain their quirks through restorations? Do they retain their unique personality that allows one pilot to "fit" better than others? (mechanics may be more able to answer the question(s) than pilots, I guess.......but I figure there are opinions from both groups.)

I dunno.

[Eric Friedebach]

Depends what the root cause of the quirk was, and how extensive the restoration is.

Of course, there may be a few new ones to replace the old ones.

It always seems that the real Hagar Queens of any group end up being called Christine, whether an FBO fleet of Cessnas or an airline.

[N3Njeff]

I would say yes they do for each person. I would also say that some may carry on. I have had my favorites myself over the yrs. For a while I flew a Citabria for a banner tow outfit that I worked for. For a short time, I was working towards my private, I was the only one flying the airplane. For a summer, she was mine to use. They gave me crap cause I called her "pookey".
I eventually migrated to another company as a mech. Working on 30 BE-1900D's. I usually got to see the same airplanes on a reg basis with the 7 day schedule that we had. There was one that became my fav. "sugar Bear" was always a performer. Her 67D's were always trim'd perfect. I would usually take the extra time to do things to that one. To where we had one that was a piece of S%&t.

Now with the company I am with now.............I dont have one........there all equally worthless.

As for our N, I wont ramble on. I will just say "she is a classy lady".

[Aircraft Mech Paul]

Hi,

well, what I can say is that after a pretty serious maintenance vist, for the most part, most aircraft maintain their personality. Each one, no matter where their "build number" lies in the production run, all have their own little quirks or personality. For example, the airline I used to work had at one time, over 50 747's, each one had points where we knew from experiance when and where the defects or cracks would occur. Several of them we had nicknames for. 3 of of the -100 747's we used to refer to a "Bud, Coors, and Miller", because of their respective age. And they had gotten to a point, that while airworthy, they just had developed so many "issues" that it was a matter of time before they were turned into their nicknames.

But from a pilot's point of view, each time those very same 747-100's had a major maintenance visit, the pilots complemented us on the fact that while the planes were the same, the personality of each "perked-up" and they flew much better.

I believe, personally at least, that each aircraft, while it is a machine, has it's own personality. The folks that built them gave them that....and it was just a matter of time and experiance that people learned that particular aircraft personality.

But, I guess you gotta be around them long enough to know the aircraft and ask it "where it hurts" to get to know the patient. Kinda like being a doctor of sorts.

I hope that this helps abit.....but for the most part I believe it true.

Paul

[tom d. friedman]

there are many types that are notorious ground loopers, p-38 & compressibility, b-24 lousy ditching characteristics, on & on. types like the b-26 marauder had to have a personality change thanks to doolittle.