Ftrplt request

Brothers of Briar

Help Support Brothers of Briar:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

LL

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 29, 2007
Messages
2,084
Reaction score
1
I've noticed that Wiki has excellent aircraft articles that include a lot of development and deployment info.

(Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-18 )

Being an aircraft junkie since birth (must be a genetic thing), I wondered if you'd list the ones you've flown so interested BoB'ers like moi can fill themselves in on what your office was like back when you smoked bandits instead of pipes.
 
My goodness LL, not something I expected to see on the board this evening!! But since you asked.......

Military...Trained in the T-41 (Air Force version of the Cessna 172), T-37 (side-by-side two seat jet trainer), and the "White Rocket," the wonderful T-38 Talon (only supersonic trainer in the world!!). Fighter assignments were the immortal McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom (C, D, and E versions) and the fabulous F-16 "Viper." I flew the F-4 for about 18 years and the F-16 for 5 years. Combat time in both aircraft. During my military time, I "sniveled" rides in the British Lightning, French Mirage, British Hunter, British Buccaneer, German F-104 and US F-15. Never flew in the F-18; but I flew a lot of simulated combat against it!!! :D I retired from the USAF (Reserves) in 1993 with 25 years of service.

Civilian...Usual array of small, single and twin engined flyers early on. After going to work for the FAA in 1985, I checked out (i.e., Captain-rated) in the Boeing 717, 727 and 737 plus the various Douglas DC-9/MD-80 series and MD-90 series airliners. I've also flown various Cessna, Gulfstream, Bombardier, Falcon, etc. business jets as well as the Boeing 747 and Airbus A-320. I also hold a Flight Engineer rating.

My flying days are over. I retired on 1 April 2008 and quite frankly don't have a great urge to fly anymore! To many other things to do! However, through my consulting business I am involved with aircraft flight simulators. I do still "fly" them on occasion. :lol: Hope this helps :pipe: FTRPLT
 
Outstanding! 8) :D

Thanks for the rundown. Here's how bad a case I have: in accepting a job in Dayton, Ohio years ago the deciding factor was the AF museum and the big airshow. :mrgreen:

Man, if you and I ever meet at a pipe show I'd have a hard time talking about pipes.

Thanks for the info, and for your service to the US of A.

:cheers:
 
I do love flying all the various aircraft on my computer.The planes we glued
together in the 50's from the Revell kits........the ME-109's,Spitfires,Mustangs.
It'll be as close as I ever get but it feels so realistic with the new graphics and
performance modelling. 8)

Winslow :sunny:
 
Well LL, no flight experience here but...
I was in the USAF from 1976-1980, I was trained in Telephone Communication, specifically Cable Splicing, anywhere from 24 pair to 2400 pair cable and the installation of all periphery equipment. I was stationed at Eglin AFB and my partner and I were ordered to install a new cable dryer in a remote compound named cite C6. When we arrived at the compound we were assorted inside by too armed mp's, The plaque on the building at the entrance read, Cite C6 UFO Tracking Facility.

We asked several people just what they were tracking but mum was the word.
I never flew anything but I was quit possibly very close to something that was out of this world.......
 
I have been in the aviation field since 1975 and never did get a pilot license because the flying end of it really has never interested me. Having said that I do have right seat time on some pretty old stuff. As a flight mechanic on ferry trips we use to take aircraft from the Marshall Islands to the states or Taiwan for overhaul. I have flown the old (and still one of the best airplanes ever built) DC-3 (C-47) cargo into Mexico, DC-4 (the military called it the C-54) passengers and cargo in the Marshall Islands, DC-6 (C-118) fighting fires and cargo into Mexico, the C-46 Curtis Commando (cargo into Mexico) and the DeHavilland Caribou (DHC-4/C7A) passengers and cargo in the Marshall Islands.

While in the Marshall Islands we had the last two C-54's in the military inventory. Both had served time during the Berlin Airlift. I helped fly back one from the Marshalls (Kwajalein Island) to the bone yard at Davis Mothan AFB in Arizona. About 6000 miles in an aircraft at 10000 feet going about 140 knots. I didn't think we would ever get there. Two sixteen hour legs listening to four R2000 radial engines without any prop sync. This was the days before all of this fancy GPS stuff and we were using the old Loran C navigation system which is basically an old oscilloscope with a bunch of wavy lines. Flying into Hawaii we found out the military still remembers December 7th and scrambled two F-4 fighters after our ass because we were where we were not suppose to be. Those were the days.

I will take the days of the old piston pounders over this modern jet stuff any day of the week. You had a sense of accomplishment running and tuning up an old R2000, R1830 or R2800 engine. Now they are just giant vacuum cleaners that make a bunch of noise.
 
Yeah, I've never flown a plane...

But it would be amazing to get my license someday.

I always crash the flight simulator thingy...even when my father helped me (he used to fly) I still ALWAYS crashed. But I would yell out, "Mayday, Mayday!" which was fun. I eventually just made the whole objective to see how creative I could get with crashing my plane.
 
I wouldn't trust myself to fly a plane. I'd end up landing it like a lawn dart.
 
Top