Warbird Information Exchange

It's a bit unusual, but my affinity with aircraft seems to have started with models. I distinctly remember when I was about 5, my dad bought me the Revell 3-in-1 Bf 109E kit which we built in a night, and I was hooked. I was forever drawing pictures of airplanes, I'd run outside whenever a plane flew over (I still do!), and I checked out most of the books at the Newport News Public Library on aviation. My mom took my brother and I to see the prototype YF-16 one day as it visited Langley, and I remember that visit like yesterday. (Now that exact same aircraft hangs in the Virginia Air And Space Center here in Hampton- so I get to see it every month.)

Things really kicked in hardcore between 1976 and 78, though, when the Air and Space Museum opened in 1976 and "Baa Baa Black Sheep" came on around the same time. My folks split up in 77 and we wound up living in an apartment that overlooked Langley AFB's main runway, so there I was at 10 watching F-106s from the 48th FIS scream aloft on alert scrambles and watching the brand new F-15s of the 1st TFW accelerate vertically as they lifted off. It was amazing.

Lynn

Earliest memory is flying from Texas to West Virginia when I was 6-8 years old on some sort of piston driven airliner - this would have been in the mid 50s. First jet would have been an Air Force C-141 from Kansas to Germany during our unit's "Reforger" exercise in 1968.
Have pictures (dated Dec 61) from my first airshow at the then Ellington AFB in SE Houston. Pictures (3" square black and whites) include a Blue Angels F-11 Tiger, a CAF Bearcat, CAF P-51 and P-40 (the CAF planes are white), a Marine H-34 Choctaw (with a C-130, C-47, and some sort of Boxcar in the background) and two pics of rockets standing up for display. One even has steps going up about 25 feet for folks to look in.

I've always been around airports, planes/warbirds, and historic/classic/WWII aircraft "stuff" for as long as I can remember, but my earliest aviation memory comes from when I was 3, and being lifted up into the aft section of the B-25 "Miss Mitchell" to have a look around, while it was still under restoration (1991). I also came away that day with a toy Corsair and P-40 (which looked very much like the CAF P-40 (which I can only remember through photos, was also there at the airport that day)) - I think that whole combination very much helped to solidify my interest from a very early age.

What is interesting is I think my earliest memory is an aviation memory. We didn't have a VCR but my dad had a video that was made of hist trip with Carl Scholl and Tony Ritzman to bring the B-25J N3442G back to CA after he had purchased it near Omaha, NE. There was a local Omaha TV station that did quite a bit of filming. I remember whenever we would have a guest we would go over to the neighbors to use their VCR to show it to our guests. The neighbors must have seen it 20 times. We finally got a VCR and I would watch it just about every other day. Kind of like my kids did with the "Lion King."

Two things for me come to mind. In the mid-60's, we were living in Muskegon, Michigan. I heard loud bangs outside and thought it was thunder. I was maybe 5-6 years old and didn't really understand it well, but my dad explained that those bangs were sonic booms created by B-58's that were flying over Lake Michigan out of Bunker Hill AFB in Peru, IN. I visited the base this summer on the way home from my first Oshkosh and eyed the still-visible runways, thinking about the Hustlers that sat out there on alert day and night.

The second was my first airshow, at Pax River in 1970. I thought planes flew straight and level until I saw a Marine Corps OV-10 Bronco being put though it's paces. Banking, climbing, diving, turning....I was amazed and totally hooked! The Blue Angels were impressive too, with those big honkin' Phantoms blasting though the sky.

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In a similar manner to Lynn, my aviation interest started around 7yrs old with plastic models. Always 1:72 scale and mostly WWII types. In fact my first model kit was the Airfix Spitfire. Graduated to balsa and rubber band power a couple of years later. Apart from rushing outside to look upwards whenever anything flew over our house I never managed to get 'up close and personal' with any aeroplane until the age of eleven. We were on an educational field trip from our school in North London to study a silkworm farm at a place called Lullingstone in Hertfordshire.

After a reasonable period of time being shown the private lives of silk worms and what they produced (around 45 seconds before boredom set in I guess), I gave the class group the slip and took off on my own to explore the buildings and a big barn next door. It had huge doors and there was a slight gap wide enough for an 11yr old to sneak through. First thing I saw as my eyes got accustomed to the gloom was a huge wheel. This was attached to an enormous twin-engined aircraft which left me totally speechless. I'm not sure I took a breath for a few minutes as I couldn't believe my eyes - a REAL aircraft! There was a ladder attached to the nose door which cried out for me to climb up and have a look inside.

Once inside I naturally settled into the pilot seat (I seem to recollect it was the only seat up front), and spent probably half an hour amusing myself with pulling and pushing every control and switch I could reach.

A loud voice startled the cr*p out of me as a man's voice said "Oi - What're you doin' up there youngster"? Whereupon he climbed to the top of the ladder and started showing me what all the controls did. Another 20 minutes or so and another voice interrupted our 'briefing'. This time it was my schoolteacher wanting to know if anyone had seen a little boy who they had lost. The immediate outcome of this little adventure was a sound telling off from my teachers, a 'knowing wink and a grin' from my new-found aeronautical mentor, and a smile that stayed on my face for many days afterwards. A few years later I was told that the silk farm at Lullingstone was part of the property known as Salisbury Hall, which was where the DH Mosquito was designed, and I had in fact been sitting in the prototype. (Even bigger smile).

Two years later had my first flight as an ATC cadet at RAF Marham on an annual training camp. Went up in a Chipmunk and the pilot gave me numerous aerobatics. After we landed I had a full sick-bag containing my breakfast - but still had that same smile on my face.

Not long after this episode (a matter of weeks) my buddy and I travelled across London on the Underground to Heathrow, where we didn't bother with going to the viewing platform in the terminal, but walked to where the road tunnel went under runway 28 Right, where we climbed the embankment and sat on the grass to eat our sandwiches by the runway. We were there for nearly an hour before the airport police drove up and gave us a free ride in their Land-rover. They were pretty good about our little misdemeanour and gave us a free tour of everything 'air-side' at the terminals. The big smiles we had this time were due to numerous types taking off very close to us - Super Constellations, Boeing Strato-cruisers, Viscounts and best of all - the brand new Sud-Aviation Caravelle. Once again it was worth being told off.

Nothing like memories eh?

Barry

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Little Johnny : "When I grow up I want to be a pilot!"

Johnny's Mother : "Don't be silly Dear - you can't do both!"

Mine was the sight of formations of C-45s, C-47s, T-6s, F-51s y P-26s. Then, someone -don't remember who- gave me a B-29 model in 1/72, but being no older than 4, could not assemble it, so played with the seats and the cockpit platform as if it was a Jeep.

Grew up watching Mustangs,DC-3s, A-26s, a few Corsairs and other prop-driven aircraft, several times when there was a revolution, and they were firing their weapons.

Saludos!


Tulio

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Why take the best part of life out of your life, when you can have life with the best part of your life in your life?

I am one of them 'futbol' people.

Will the previous owner has pics of this double cabin sample

GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Press "1" for English.
Press "2" to disconnect until you have learned to speak English.

Sooooo, how am I going to know to press 1 or 2, if I do not speak English????

C-124'S Going over my house in landing pattern. Couldn't hear anything except engines

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Well if I can't rollerskate around my playpen while smoking and drinking a beer, I'm staying home..

Love C-124's. They used to be based at Dobbins, near my house. They looked slow, slow, slow. In later years (once I was a grownup and had an airplane), I learned that my IA used to be an on-board mechanic for trans-pacific flights to Vietnam.

Nothing as unique as watching Mustangs delivering live ordnance - mine is seeing my dad board a Convair 580/Martin 4-0-4 to go on a business trip ca. 1965. My "hook" was reading "The Big Show" by Clostermann in the early 70's.

First airshow was a one off event called "TransAir 74" at Mitchell Field in Milwaukee - was billed as a transportation show and had Joey Chitwood and his stunt cars as the final act. Main flying event was my first look at a Harrier, which lost power in hover and crashed in a spectacular fireball right in front of the crowd. The pilot ( a Captain Torrent iirc) punched out successfully but landed hard.

Second airshow was OSH '74 - we passed the burned out hulk of the Harrier on a flatbed on our way up.

More than anyone wanted to know, I'm sure.

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Chris

The first plane ride that I remember happened on May 25, 1955 when my dad took me out of school for a day & let me ride with him to L.A. and back from SFO in a Pan Am DC-4. It was on company business and I still remember the tail number: n88884. When the Captain went back for some coffee, the old man had me sit in the left hand seat. I couldn't even reach the rudder pedals, but I was able to make some shallow aileron turns. Pretty neat for a nine year old. His log book entry states APD mail down and ferry crew up. Last I heard, the DC-4 was a gate guard in Spain.

The first airplanes that I remember were Corsairs as they flew downwind over our home in Mountain View, CA before landing at Moffat NAS.

Looks like N88884 - C-54E 44-9087 c/n 27313 - is located at Getafe Air Base in Madrid:

Also looks like it had a close call with the scrappers:

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

My first aviation memory was flying in a Braniff DC-3 from Houston to Dallas Love Field In 1944

My dad was in VQ-1 during the Vietnam war. Not sure when he was over there but I know he was in country when the shoot down happened and when PR-26 crashed March of 1970 in DaNang.

My earliest memories of aviation came from my dad working on the local EMS helicopter here in Kansas City. He helped start the program here and I remember going into work with him when I was not in school. Afterward he started crewing on the Fairfax Ghost and got to hang around the crew and the plane. So much fun.

Kevin

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Kevin Orr
https://b-25history.org/index.htm

My dad was in VQ-1 during the Vietnam war. Not sure when he was over there but I know he was in country when the shoot down happened and when PR-26 crashed March of 1970 in DaNang.

My earliest memories of aviation came from my dad working on the local EMS helicopter here in Kansas City. He helped start the program here and I remember going into work with him when I was not in school. Afterward he started crewing on the Fairfax Ghost and got to hang around the crew and the plane. So much fun.

Kevin

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Kevin Orr
https://b-25history.org/index.htm