Favorite airplane you've ever flown.
02-28-2011, 06:05 AM
#1
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Favorite airplane you've ever flown.
For me it's two.
The AT-6 (the real one not the tinker toy turbo prop version) in my case it was an SNJ-4. I got a couple of hundred hours in it and it is a one of the most enjoyable flying machines imaginable. It's not super touchy, it's not over powered in fact it doesn't do anything all that well. It's slow, it has a rather lethargic roll rate, it burns a lot of gas but it is true pilots airplane that has to flown every second that you are in it. The smells, the sounds, flying along with the canopy open the thing just drips aviation. It brings you back to a time when being a pilot meant that you had to posses skill or your machine would without a doubt kill your sorry carcass.
My second favorite is the Cessna 180/185 series of airplanes. Once you get comfortable in a C-180 there are very few places you can't take one. I had a 1956 C-180 with a leading edge kit and STOL fences on it. It's one of the few airplanes that a mortal man can afford to own and operate that will get you cross country at 135 KTAS and allow you to operate from very short, rough unimproved fields. At sea level it's is no great feat to get in and out of 500 to 600 feet with a load. When I lived in AK I took my old 180 just about everywhere and we did lots of things together. I miss that old bird. I've got about 1500 hours in C-180's and 185's and would be happy flying them and nothing else for the rest of my days I think.
I had a buddy who modified his 180 with an IO 550 and was getting 165 KTAS and could operate out of sickeningly short areas. I'm talking like 200 foot take off roll with a decent load. Of all the single engine Cessnas ever built the C-180/185 was the king of the heap IMHO. One of these days I'd like to have another one. Of course with AV gas at it's current and climbing price it's probably never going to happen.
Me and my 180 twenty years ago somewhere in the interior of AK.
The AT-6 (the real one not the tinker toy turbo prop version) in my case it was an SNJ-4. I got a couple of hundred hours in it and it is a one of the most enjoyable flying machines imaginable. It's not super touchy, it's not over powered in fact it doesn't do anything all that well. It's slow, it has a rather lethargic roll rate, it burns a lot of gas but it is true pilots airplane that has to flown every second that you are in it. The smells, the sounds, flying along with the canopy open the thing just drips aviation. It brings you back to a time when being a pilot meant that you had to posses skill or your machine would without a doubt kill your sorry carcass.
My second favorite is the Cessna 180/185 series of airplanes. Once you get comfortable in a C-180 there are very few places you can't take one. I had a 1956 C-180 with a leading edge kit and STOL fences on it. It's one of the few airplanes that a mortal man can afford to own and operate that will get you cross country at 135 KTAS and allow you to operate from very short, rough unimproved fields. At sea level it's is no great feat to get in and out of 500 to 600 feet with a load. When I lived in AK I took my old 180 just about everywhere and we did lots of things together. I miss that old bird. I've got about 1500 hours in C-180's and 185's and would be happy flying them and nothing else for the rest of my days I think.
I had a buddy who modified his 180 with an IO 550 and was getting 165 KTAS and could operate out of sickeningly short areas. I'm talking like 200 foot take off roll with a decent load. Of all the single engine Cessnas ever built the C-180/185 was the king of the heap IMHO. One of these days I'd like to have another one. Of course with AV gas at it's current and climbing price it's probably never going to happen.
Me and my 180 twenty years ago somewhere in the interior of AK.
02-28-2011, 06:12 AM
#2
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Not a lot of choices for me, but............
Mooney - speed, economy, and x-cty performance.
Grumman Cheetah. "Fighter" Style Bubble Canopy. Plus the taxi to the hangar with the elbow perched on the rails, while wearing my really cool aviator sunglasses.
Mooney - speed, economy, and x-cty performance.
Grumman Cheetah. "Fighter" Style Bubble Canopy. Plus the taxi to the hangar with the elbow perched on the rails, while wearing my really cool aviator sunglasses.
02-28-2011, 06:14 AM
#3
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As a P.S.
I sold that airplane several years ago and it suffered one of the most incredible accidents I've ever seen Incredible in that everybody survived. IT was involved in a mid air collision which took the vertical stab off flush with the Fuselage. This occurred at 10,000' the pilot was able to get the thing on the ground with no injury to anybody. It was an incredible event.
Aero-News Network: The Aviation and Aerospace World's Daily/Real-Time News and Information Service
I sold that airplane several years ago and it suffered one of the most incredible accidents I've ever seen Incredible in that everybody survived. IT was involved in a mid air collision which took the vertical stab off flush with the Fuselage. This occurred at 10,000' the pilot was able to get the thing on the ground with no injury to anybody. It was an incredible event.
Aero-News Network: The Aviation and Aerospace World's Daily/Real-Time News and Information Service
02-28-2011, 06:28 AM
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Originally Posted by N9373M
Not a lot of choices for me, but............
Mooney - speed, economy, and x-cty performance.
Grumman Cheetah. "Fighter" Style Bubble Canopy. Plus the taxi to the hangar with the elbow perched on the rails, while wearing my really cool aviator sunglasses.
Mooney - speed, economy, and x-cty performance.
Grumman Cheetah. "Fighter" Style Bubble Canopy. Plus the taxi to the hangar with the elbow perched on the rails, while wearing my really cool aviator sunglasses.
02-28-2011, 11:02 AM
#9
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1. DHC-8 Q200. What a truck, she'll do it all and more!
2. Cessna 182-A, for skydive ops. Awesome plane, way too fun!
3. CRJ. You never forget your first jet.
2. Cessna 182-A, for skydive ops. Awesome plane, way too fun!
3. CRJ. You never forget your first jet.
Last edited by Diver Driver; 02-28-2011 at 12:29 PM.
02-28-2011, 11:57 AM
#10
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The problem with favorite anything is the limited exposure each of us have to all that is available.
Plus, "airplane" covers a very broad spectrum of machines. I have a favorite airplane for each of the following:
1. making money: anything not old, stinky and clunky
2. hunting/fishing: Super Cub
3. traveling; long : Global Express
3a. medium : Citation Jet
3b. short : Cirrus or Beech Baron
4. sport plane : CT something?
5. sailplane : Only done this once, can't pick
6. ultralight : Titan Tornado
7. bush plane : Those super modified Cub type planes
8. amphibian : Grunman Goose with turbines
9. float : Beaver (with turbine) on floats
10. transport : B777
11. space : The safest one, and that isn't here yet
12. hovering : MD500-C
13. acrobatic : Extra
14 all around : King Air 90 with big engines
15. hot air : there is an experimental one that I liked
Plus, "airplane" covers a very broad spectrum of machines. I have a favorite airplane for each of the following:
1. making money: anything not old, stinky and clunky
2. hunting/fishing: Super Cub
3. traveling; long : Global Express
3a. medium : Citation Jet
3b. short : Cirrus or Beech Baron
4. sport plane : CT something?
5. sailplane : Only done this once, can't pick
6. ultralight : Titan Tornado
7. bush plane : Those super modified Cub type planes
8. amphibian : Grunman Goose with turbines
9. float : Beaver (with turbine) on floats
10. transport : B777
11. space : The safest one, and that isn't here yet
12. hovering : MD500-C
13. acrobatic : Extra
14 all around : King Air 90 with big engines
15. hot air : there is an experimental one that I liked
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