Scudrunners

Some of the interesting airplanes I have flown are.


Mooney Mite.


Anson Mk 5.


Grumman Turbo Goose.


MS 760.



How about you guys, gals. transgendered AC/DC etc?


See, I am trying to be a better person by being as inclusive as possible so I don't accidently offend anyone.  :)

I have a bit of time in one of the world's two airworthy Thruxton Jackaroos, which were widened Tiger Moths built in the fifties because Tripacers and whatnot were so heavily taxed (because of economic protectionism) nobody could afford them.  I also have a whack of time in Canada's oldest Cub and professionally I dabble in MU-2s.


I would have loved to try out an Anson but there's no way I could cram myself into a Mooney Mite no matter how bad I wanted to.

I flew the Ansons for Austin Airways, they used them for Magnetometer work dragging a bomb about two hundred feet behind them.


The Anson was a real nice flying airplane except for the brake system which was a real abortion with vacuum over hydraulics.


The Colonel would have liked it.

Duo Discus

E

My log book is composed entirely of C-150, C-172, and PA-28 time.  No one here will find these to be terribly interesting (I even yawned typing it out), but the PA-28 is mine and that makes it awfully interesting to me.

Chuck Ellsworth wrote: Some of the interesting airplanes I have flown are.


Mooney Mite.


Anson Mk 5.


Grumman Turbo Goose.


MS 760.

I can see why the Anson, the Goose, and the MS 760 all made the list, but of all the airplanes you've flown why does the Mooney Mite rank up there with those other unique machines?

Extras,Pitts, Tiger Moth, Chipmunk, Harvard, Giles, Finch, Cub, Jodel, RV8 - none of the nose geared planes stand out in my mind at all.


The Extras are robot video games, go where you point them at any speed. Easy to fly, hard to fly well and easy to kill yourself in.
Tiger Moth will kill you with adverse yaw like nobodies business if you don't pay attention every second. I don't like them much.
Chipmunk has no bad habits I can find yet. Absolute dream to fly but needs baggage space and a bigger engine and less oil to clean.
Harvard has a fun high speed stall and aileron induced stall that I'm sure bit a few people over the years.
Giles 202 has the most amazing roll rate of any plane I ever flew and it will spin with the nose above the horizon.. but I'll never fly one again after the tail separation in NY. (RIP Andrew).
Finch is fun open cockpit and squirts grease at you just for fun.
Cub is .. well somehow just pure fun. Open door on a hot day into a short strip or on skis .. its pure flying fun.
Jodel .. bent wing tail dragger, my first solo so I have a warm place for it.
RV8 is a lovely little machine, too bad the spar is not as strong as it needs for proper acro and the aileron induced stalls during rolls are annoying.

[quote author=cgzro link=topic=3260.msg9234#msg9234 date=1465210954]Tiger Moth will kill you with adverse yaw like nobodies business if you don't pay attention every second. I don't like them much.[/quote]
I find that kind of thing is what makes an airplane endearing...

Unusual (by today's standards) aircraft I have flown
(not all of them interesting, actually) ...

Harvard/T-6/SNJ:  great sound, built like a tank,
weighs like one, too.  No vertical to speak of, as
soon as the nose comes up the airspeed heads
for the door.  No noticeable roll rate.  I have no
idea how the Tillsonburg guys do form acro in
them - I struggle with solo acro

Hotrod Harvard: clip-wing, 700hp geared 3-blade:
Amazingly non-weird.  Prefer to stock.

T-34: nosewheel Bonanza in drag.  Uninspiring,
mostly what I recall from >25 years ago was
ridiculously heavy rudder pedals.

P-51: Incredibly, painfully noisy.  Ailerons got
ridiculously heavy at high speed.  Bled off speed
horribly with any G.  Fast, could not turn.  Easy
to land and take off (but required rotation like
jet with NLF wing)

Waco UPF-7, etc: Nice, big old biplane.  Truck.
A bit of a struggle to do acro.  Flew the new
production one recently, was underpowered
with Jacobs.

Stearman: lots of variants.  2 and 4 aileron,
engines 22hp to 450hp (that I flew).  R-985
was a tad nose-heavy but great for surface
acro.  Built like a tank.  Best aircraft to crash
in that I know of - you will survive.  Flying one
is like having sex with a woman with the
biggest tits in the world, which is great I guess
if that's your thing.  Does ok acro.

PT-22 Ryan: with Kinner radial.  Delightful.
Coarse prop like to taxi fast.  Forward link
gear flatters your landings.  Likes incredible
speed out of a dive for vertical acro.  First
time I flew a loop in it (at low altitude) I
tried to baby the old girl on the entry speed
and I ran out of airspeed over the top and
torqued out into an inverted spin.  I like
inverted spins at low altitude.

PT-19 (Fairchild, modified to PT-26 Cornell
closed cockpit).  A very heavy, docile
taildragger.  Incredibly smooth inverted 6
Ranger engine.

Beech 18:  people make this out to be a
fire-breathing dragon but it's not.  A sweet
flying airplane, two lovely R-985's and a
beautiful wheel lander.  No idea what all
the fuss is about.

Pitts (all models): 2000+ hours, mostly
0.2 at a time.  Lots of aircraft look like
a Pitts, but none of them fly like one.
Exquisite flight control response.  Light
in roll with spades, square stick.  Loves
to pull G but plenty of induced drag at
high alpha kills energy.  Fun to approach
with constant speed prop but people
freak out in the landing because they
can't see forward in the 3-point attitude -
very WWII-ish.

Skybolt: disappointing.  Better than a 172,
I guess.  Heavy, heavy ailerons.

DR109:  wood-wing Extra.  Heavy.  Lots of
roll rate.  Ok but nothing to trade your left
testicle for.

Twin Bonanza:  God, I love the sound of
that airplane with geared O-470's and
open header pipes.  Like any Beechcraft,
a wonderful, solid feeling.  Like flying a
Mercedes.

Citabria & Decathlon:  I hesitate to include
these here - they certainly are not "exotic"
but I guess more uncommon these days.
Basically big Aeronca Champs.  Always felt
guilty doing acro in them - they don't do it
very well.  Get the metal wing.

Ercoupe:  Delightful.  Get one.  No rudder
pedals, just a steering wheel for the nosewheel.
You can fly it with the canopy open on a
summer day and steer with your arms stuck out.

Falco 8L:  Heavy, underpowered, high wing
loading, slow.  Hugged the runway on takeoff
like an underpowered jet.  Keep it light and
the engine pumped up and revved up.  Not
easy to make a high wing loading airplane
slow but Falco did it.

Maule:  narrow landing gear, plenty of character.
Newer variants are more docile, but will still bite.

C-120/140/170/180/185:  the heavier they are,
the easier they are to fly on wheels.  The 120/140
weighs about the same as it's boing-o-matic
landing gear.  Fond of the 185, though.  If I
had one I would turbo-normalize it and fly it
at 16/17 thousand feet, IFR with a cannula.

300/400 Cessnas: again, I hesitate to include
these.  Speedy.  I personally prefer the 421
with the TCM GSTIO-520 engines but I understand
I am in the minority there.

Piaggio Royal Gull.  Weird as batshit.  Loved it.
Wished I had one.

L29: little east bloc trainer jet.  Underpowered.
You will find Jesus at the end of a short runway.

Viper L29: twice the power, 10x the fun.  Get one.

L39: later east bloc trainer jet.  Sexy on ramp,
easy to fly and maintain.

Homebuilts: plenty of character, too many to list.
Flown acro in most of the RV's.  Gently.  Lots of
time in a wankel-engine homebuilt.  Scary at first.

I probably forgot a bunch.  I've flown pretty well
all the nosewheel SEL Cessnas and rag-wing (high
wing) Pipers and metal (low wing) Pipers and Beechcraft
Debonair/Bonanzas/etc.  All kind of boring except
the ones right out of maintenance that tried to
kill me.  Generally most nosewheel airplanes are
pretty boring (eg Columbia, etc).

Oh yeah, all the little 4-cyl and 6-cyl piston twins.
I think I mentioned a few above.  Nothing memorable.
Never understood the big deal about multi time.
they're all boring with two engines and struggle to
maintain altitude with one.  Regardless of what
anyone tells you, never attempt a single engine
overshoot.  Death.

[youtube][/youtube]

Land [i]beside [/i]the runway when the assclowns give
you the "truck drove out!" scenario.

My list isn't anything that most float drivers in the country haven't done before. DHC-2, -2T, -3T, -6.


What I do find interesting though is one of the Beavers has over 40,000hrs airtime. I love to ponder the places this plane has been, and wonder how many guys before me have held those controls.


An interesting plane that I need to fly in my lifetime is a DH.51 (G-EBIR). This plane is the oldest airworthy de Havilliand in the world. My Grandfather owned it in Kenya, where it was registered VP-KAA (the first plane registered in Kenya) and was so named "Miss Kenya". He donated it to the Shuttleworth Collection in England. This plane was also the mail plane in a British Airways commercial.