Indy Transponder 29-JAN-2012 2345z

Wings Over Miami hosts historic planes - Local10 | The Wings Over Miami Air Museum will be hosting the Collings Foundation's Wings of Freedom Tour this week. Many historic aircraft will be on display, including a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator, and a P-51 Mustang. Two of those planes are the only remaining aircraft of their type flying in the world!...

Light sport aircraft fly to Bahamas - AOPA Pilot | When you think of small, two-seat, 1,320-pound light sport aircraft, you think of something best suited for short trips. The owner of Kitfox Aircraft, John McBean, and the owner of an Idaho flight school that...

Rob Holland / Jack Knutson Loop in Volcano - YouTube | Rob Holland and Jack Knutson looping solo and in...

Formation flight Sunday. Lysanders - Planeshots | Many more in the archives

FINAL Viper West Swag BLOW-OUT Sale!!! - Airshowbuzz | ...Not sure if Viper West, along with all the other amazing & historic single-ship teams, will ever be spun up again, so this just might be your very LAST chance at some cool Viper West goodies!...

WW II planes land in Leesburg airport - The Daily commercial | Aviation buffs will get a unique opportunity to experience history and, for a price, find out what it's like to fly in a World War II aircraft next month at Leesburg International Airport.  Three iconic planes from the World War II era will fly into the airport Feb. 15-17 as part of the Collings Foundation's 23rd annual Wings of Freedom Tour. The fully restored aircraft will be on display along the Bravo taxiway on the airport's east side near Echo Drive....

Missouri Commemorative Air Force Wing Readies for Airshow Season - The Aero Experience | The Missouri Wing of the Commemorative Air Force is gearing up for the 2012 air show season at St. Charles County Smartt Airport, just west of St. Louis.  Since 1982, the Missouri Wing has carried out the Commemorative Air Force mission of "education through living history" by preserving and demonstrating World War II era aircraft and vehicles locally and throughout the country.  There is...

Day #2: AirPigz Air Force Museum MeetUp (1-28-12) - AirPigz | Not a lot of info in this post, I just wanted to share a bit from Saturday January 28, 2012 at the Air Force Museum MeetUp. Most of the day was spent over at the R & D hangar across the field from the main museum buildings. The R & D area, (which is connected to the Presidential aircraft display area) is my favorite part of the entire AFM experience. There's...

Red Tails of today see “Red Tails” movie - AOPA Pilot | One of the very first military units in Afghanistan to see the “Red Tails” movie was the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, the unit that today carries the heritage of the 332nd Fighter Group known as the Tuskegee Airmen....

Red Tails: World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen Fly Again in Film and on Stage but Much History is Ignored  - HNN | ...Audiences learn who the Tuskegee Airmen are and why they fight (in the 99th and also in the 477th Bombardment Group), and about the racism they endure, but that’s only half the story. What Lucas did not tell was the first part of the history of the Tuskegee Airmen, back home in the U.S., and it’s a far more riveting story than all the dogfights in the skies of Europe put together....

The Stunning S-38 Sikorsky Flying Amphibian - Moose Peterson Aviation Photography | In the movie The Aviator, Howard Hughes steps off an oddly romantic flying boat after he lands it in a bay and drifts up on the sand to ask an actress out on a date. Just what is this aircraft? Sometimes called “The Explorer’s Air Yacht,” The Sikorsky flying amphibian plane first flew May, 1928 with 110 being...

Historic airbase tour - Sleaford Standard | ...Lincolnshire is commonly referred to as Bomber County, due to its vast aviation heritage. North Kesteven, in the heart of the county, has many Royal Air Force stations across the district – including three active bases in Waddington, Cranwell and Digby....

Cancelled: The Navy's SeaMaster - Air & Space Smithsonian | The Navy wanted a nuclear bomber of its own; the Glenn Martin Company thought, Why not a flying boat? | In the early days of the cold war, the U.S. Navy was feeling left out. The future was nuclear, and the Air Force’s Strategic Air Command seemed to have a lock on the delivery systems. The Navy’s first bid for a piece of the strategic pie, the supercarrier USS United States, was killed by the Pentagon in favor of the Air Force’s B-36 bomber, so the admirals came up with a plan for a force of nuclear-armed seaplanes....

January 29 – Aviation History - CRUFC

Maryborough Aero Club to honour Tiger Moth crash victims - The Courier | MARYBOROUGH Aero Club will carry on the legacy of its president David Oxley and vice-president John Fisher, who died in Friday’s air crash, club secretary Marcus Taylor has said.  But Mr Taylor said the deaths of the two men, aged 71 and 61 respectively, had devastated the committee....

Is Boeing calling time on the stealthy F-15 Silent Eagle? Lockheed Martin hopes so. - The Aviationist | Silent Eagle, not to become reality?  The Korea Times has reported that there is a possibility that aviation giant Boeing may not full fill its promise to provide the stealthly version of it’s F-15 to South Korea....

Indy Transponder On Site At Sun-N-Fun Saturday 4-2-11 (AirPigz)

(16 pix) AirPigz.com 

 My Saturday morning at Sun-n-Fun 2011 started at the commercial exhibits not far from the camping area. This yellow and white biplane stood out right away as something special. Obviously not 'Pitts' special, but very cool nonetheless. It's the Fk12 Comet, a Rotax 912 LSA that promises fun in a way pretty much no other LSA could even dream about. The wings are fabric covered, but the structure underneath is all composite, and the fuselage is mostly welded steel tube with aluminum tube for the aft section. Lots of interesting and innovative thinking in this light, sporty, aircraft! 

 The American Legend display of modern Cubs included one with no fabric on it so all of the structure was visible. The use of modern materials and a variety of interesting design changes takes the timeless original Cub design even closer to perfection. I'm still dreaming about the one from yesterday on amphibious floats!

 After being hit so hard by the tornado on Thursday, the Air Cam display was looking almost back together. I was glad to see they hadn't given up after losing 4 airplanes... hopefully they'll head back home with several new orders on the books to take some of the sting out of a really rough year at SNF11.

 This awesome DC-7 was at Oshkosh in 2010 but for some reason I never got around to doing the $5 tour thru it. Today I decided I really needed to check it out. What a great experience. I wound up spending some time with the operators and really enjoyed talking airplanes with them. They're into all kinds of cool stuff that I'm going to posting about in the future, and I'll have a detailed post up before long on the DC-7 too.

 These two Stearman trainers were parked in the vintage aircraft area, and as you can clearly see they were camping there too. You just can't beat camping with an airplane that has two wings and a round engine. This is really living!

You may have noticed that I'm a bit of a Pitts Model 12 fanatic. I just can't resist posting pictures of them from time to time. Not only are they just gorgeous to look at from a design point of view, but almost every one of them you see has a fantastic paint job. This one belongs to Kendal Simpson, aka Acronut.

There's a good variety of warbirds to check out this year. Lots of T-28's or course, and this B-25 was interesting with the big guns in the nose and the access hatch opened up. It made for another good spot to use my camera-on-a-stick procedure.

For some reason, seeing those huge props and spinners on the P-3 just scream out 'airshow' to me... and a flag jump obviously does too. I don't think I ever remembering seeing a flag jump that includedcanopy relative work like this tho. I liked it.

 The F-22 Raptor was pretty high on most people's list of things they wanted to see today, and I was no different. I was able to get positioned in a really cool spot which allowed me to get the picture looking up the tail pipes after engine start. Wow, what a cool sight! There's a lot of heat being made there. You can also see the heat in the takeoff pic. Love the heat!

 The flight display (which most effectively turns kerosene into noise) had only been underway a few minutes when the pilot got a cockpit warning that something wasn't right. Fortunately the problem allowed him both the chance to get some altitude and then plenty of time to set up an approach. He landed with the P-51 that would have later been part of a Heritage Flight off his right wing.

 It would appear that there was something actually wrong with the airplane since it was towed back from where it had rolled out on the runway. I didn't hear any verified word on what the situation was, but ultimately all that mattered was that it all ended well.

 The special spot I was in that allowed me to get the great view of the F-22 from behind also gave me this view of the P-51. Pictures of great airplanes are really nice, but wow, I wish you could have heard what I heard about 3 seconds after I took this pic. I just don't know if there's a better sound on Earth than a Rolls Royce Merlin!

 I'm planning to get some great pix of the Blue Angels up in the next post... stay tuned : )