Largest Single Engine Airplane?

[Orange Anchor]

About as bad-assed as jet fighters can possibly be right there.

That's the '57 Chevy of fighters. Big led sled with an enormous engine.

And the cockpit was reportedly about as noisy as a 57 with the pipes off. The ACM sat near the cockpit and created one helluva howl. So, many of the Thud drivers have special helmets fitted for them. It was called a Lombard.
Different from the normal helmet of the period.

 

[Inverted]

Nice. Only tailwheel time I've got is in a Champ, so I'd imagine that it would be quite a bit different there.

Gotta step on the opposite rudder you are used to because the prop spins the opposite direction. It was a very cool experience.

Some really really cool airplanes are listed in here its very interesting. The F-105 is a gorgeous piece of jet age history.

 

[MikeD]

Re: Crazy.......

What, nothing to say about the mighty Thud or Air Tractor or how Doug needs some (wink, wink) time off?

Dude, you're getting soft!

Doug knows what he needs to do. We have a line on an old 123 that we can be putting to use, with a little maintenance.

And the F-105........defines a manly jet. No question.

 

[Orange Anchor]

Some really really cool airplanes are listed in here its very interesting. The F-105 is a gorgeous piece of jet age history.

You know what that cover on the nosewheel was for, right?

 

[MikeD]

You know what that cover on the nosewheel was for, right?

Wasn't that the ground radar reflector?

 

[Orange Anchor]

Wasn't that the ground radar reflector?

Precisely. Oddly enough, the Thud presented a poor radar return for the radar of that period and most approaches were GCA (ground controlled approaches). Having an ILS in the airplane was unheard of.

The Thud was the type airplane that engendered a huge following and deservedly so. It went downtown, it carried a huge amount of the bombs and the guys flying it paid a huge price. The 100 mission Thud patch was THE patch when I went through UPT.

I got the Swift up today and we went up to Andrews NC for a burger. When we came back there was a guy looking at my little bird and we began talking. One year ahead of me in UPT and just up the road at Reece. He is now flying an AeroCommander for a contract group spotting forest fires. We talked for a while and as we parted, he said, "Do you realize how fortunate we are to still be doing this?" I had to nod. He was right. Exactly right... 40+yrs and still climbing in cockpits AND enjoying it.

 

[MikeD]

Precisely. Oddly enough, the Thud presented a poor radar return for the radar of that period and most approaches were GCA (ground controlled approaches). Having an ILS in the airplane was unheard of.

The Thud was the type airplane that engendered a huge following and deservedly so. It went downtown, it carried a huge amount of the bombs and the guys flying it paid a huge price. The 100 mission Thud patch was THE patch when I went through UPT.

.

When I was going through A-10 school long ago, many of the IPs started in the jet when it was still TACAN only, no ILS capability.

 

[Orange Anchor]

When I was going through A-10 school long ago, many of the IPs started in the jet when it was still TACAN only, no ILS capability.

Jez.. when I started flying the VORs had a blue and yellow segment on the indicators.

The -37 was TACAN only. The -38 had a FLIGHT DIRECTOR and an ILS. The O-2 was TACAN and ADF only. The tanker when I transitioned into it was getting an FD-109 and you had to have 'FD-109 qualified" in your training folder before you could fly one of them.

Friend of mine just got home from a deployment to Afghanistan. I will try in the next few months to get out to DM and talk to him about the tour. Should be interesting over a few beers.

 

[MikeD]

I will try in the next few months to get out to DM and talk to him about the tour. Should be interesting over a few beers.

I'll be home then by that time in TUS.

 

[derg]

Re: Crazy.......

Off topic: Which is why I get a kick out of people that send requests for the mods to delete or otherwise modify posts of theirs or others they don't like......maybe there's info they don't want out etc. Yet what they don't know is that these threads/posts are Google cached pretty quickly, so it makes no difference anyway!

Return to topic....

Yes! THANK YOU!

"Dear Doug please delete!"

Pointless. If you don't catch it by the time your editing authority runs out, it's already indexed and cached on Google. When it's cached, it's cached and well, at that point it's cached.