What is your all time favorite airplane?

[Barneydhc82]

The Fleet Canuck..started flying 2 July 1952 and finished my last student in the beast.  With Scudrunned in the left seat.  That almost cured me of flying

Barney

[Chuck Ellsworth]

You are really old Barney and started before me by just short of a year.


I did my first training flight in June of 1953 in a Cessna 140 and soloed on Aug 13 1953 in a Fleet Canuck which I also think was the best basic trainer ever made.


By the way I got my float plane endorsement in the summer of 1954 on a Piper Clipper, when did you get yours?

[Barneydhc82]

Hi Chuck;  Never completed the float endorsement but did get some float time in the Fleet, CF-EBA on Fleet floats (no spreader bars just wires) and an Aeronca Super Chief

Barney

[Colucci]

That's a tough question, but I've always loved the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk. I guess it's my favorite one.

[cgzro]

I got to fly in a P-40 Kittyhawk a couple of times last week ( ours has a rear seat with a stick ),  very heavy on the controls and we were not going full tilt, must have been very tiring to fly in combat. Looks great though with the three coolers in the nose bowl but I prefer the look of the Typhoon.

[Colonel]

L29 with Viper engine conversion (ex-Reno racer) was incredibly
fun to fly.

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Hard to pick just one type.  I like an airplane with:

1) a stick in my right hand, throttle in the left, preferably seated in the center with a clear canopy (no roof structure)
2) good flight control harmony - "square stick" - I hate light elevator and heavy ailerons
3) fast roll rate - when the stick goes over, the world should blur as it goes around
4) good vertical - I hate an airplane that stops as soon as you raise the nose (eg T-6)
5) great power to weight ratio
6) can pull buckets of G [i]without losing airspeed[/i] (eg not P-51)
7) can store energy as kinetic energy
9) good range with aux tanks for straight and level

I am sure I am very different from most pilots, but I prefer a highly
[i]maneuverable[/i] aircraft that turns and climbs and descends easily.

I am under the impression that 21st century pilots want something that
is heavy and unresponsive, flies straight and level, and will land itself
during a crosswind, so they don't have to.  Facepalm.

Fun today.  Eric and I are landing 25R, Citation is taxiing out, stops
at the threshold and calls the tower, saying that he is "holding short
for the airshow"  :))

I like fuselage overlap for the takeoff and landing, but that's not
important right now.

"Favorite" is a very visceral question ... also, sound is very important to me.

Probably the best sounding airplane I have ever heard is the Twin
Bonanza.  Sorry, but it makes a Merlin sound flatulent in comparison.

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Radials are wonderful, but listen to a T-bone fly overhead, put a
little doppler on you.  I know I must be the only pilot in North America
that adores geared engines - C421 has wonderful, subtle rumble:

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Beech 18 was great fun, and I loved landing it, and two radial engines
sounds fantastic - neighbors oughta pay you - but all-time favorite?  No.

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PS  If loud pipes save lives, I am going to live forever.

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[Chuck Ellsworth]

Remember when you asked me what the B18 was like to fly and I told you just get in the fuckin thing and fly it then get back to me and let me know what it was like.  :)

[Colonel]

Yeah.  You try to do the "right thing" and get some dual from
an "expert" but that doesn't work out.  They vanish like cockroaches
when the lights go on.  So, I jumped in it and checked myself out -
you were right!

I understand this makes me a [b]BAD PERSON[/b], and I'm cool
with that.  I lack virtue, and thusly cannot signal it.

With 20/20 hindsight, the D18 is just a taildragger with a couple
of R-985's, and I'm happy with both of those.  There is so much
bullshit around, about the D18 being a "fire-breathing dragon" ...

Checking yourself out solo can become addictive.  I can't list
the number of weird and wonderful antique, homebuilt and
warbird types I've checked myself out in ... and then instantly,
I am the "expert" (WTF?!), write the handling notes and then
give dual in it.

You would think that this process of not crashing would be
popular with the regulator, but they just went fucking nuts.
Clearly safety is not their objective, merely bureaucratic
control.

I remember at an airshow, the Chief Test Pilot of the National Research
Council - great guy, I gave him some dual on inverted spins - asked
me how I got into flying jets, because everyone knows that you
can only fly jets if you've [i]previously[/i] flown jets.

"Clean living" was my response.

All airplanes are the same.  They push air down, they push air
back.  Read up on the systems and go fly them.

I really worry about aviation getting dumbed down so much,
Chuck, that you need a checkout from an FTU instructor if
you want to fly a 172N and you have 1,000 hours in 172M's.

Fuck that.  Read the POH, learn the systems and go flying.

From your not-so-local 20th century pilot  ;D

Hey, that reminds me.  Are some experts here going to shit
on me again today because they think I only fly at little airports
in Canada?  Dump away, experts.  I like to hear from you.

PS  Great article this month in the EAA WBA magazine about an
ex-RCAF pilot buying and flying a MiG-21.  I'm sure he's a
[b]BAD PERSON[/b] too, but I found it fascinating.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

We are a dying breed Andy and looked upon as unprofessional because we are comfortable with reading the manual and getting familiar with the layout of the interior and then flying the thing.


So far we have not found one that did not fly basically just like all the rest.


Go to Chino and get a ride in a DC3 and do a take off and landing in it and you will get a hard on so big there will not be enough skin left to close your eyes.

[Colonel]

Be fun to add a DC-3 type rating to my FAA ATP.

I would be very surprised if I needed more than
one or two flights.  My father tells me it's much
easier to fly than the D18 - he flew the Dakota
and Expeditor in the RCAF, mostly unintentionally.

I remember he told me one day they needed a
duck call to go hunting, so he jumped in a DC-3
at Cold Lake and flew somewhere and got one. 
A duck call, that is.

As a CEPE pilot, I'm not sure he worried much
about type checkouts.  Probably less than I ever did.
I know he spent some time as an IP in the OTU,
checking out pilots in the -104.  Best if we don't
talk about that.