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Aircraft/ piloting analogies


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It's interesting how people get to where they are in life, with the activities and events they enjoy. Opportunities presented, choices made, lessons learned, then here we are. My Dad built me a mini bike when I was 13 and started my life long motorcycle infatuation. Whatever direction life took, motorcycles were there, along for the ride. Even the times I didn't possess one, one possessed me. I've often had the feeling, as Chuck expressed, the bike "disappears" from beneath me. Oddly, I'm inclined to close my eyes for as long as I can (not very) to fully experience the "flight".

Airplanes. The first 5 times I left the ground in a plane, I was asked to get out. (US Army Airborne jump school) A half hour in the back of a C-119 and you're ok with the exit.

A couple weeks ago the Blue Angles flew over my house at maybe 2000 ft in tight formation and hauling ass toward a belated Memorial Day flyover downtown. My arms went up and I yelled loud as I could smiling ear to ear.

Two very unfortunate and very close to me incidents have kept me out of small aircraft, saving me I think, from an expensive hobby.

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36 minutes ago, footgoose said:

It's interesting how people get to where they are in life, with the activities and events they enjoy. Opportunities presented, choices made, lessons learned, then here we are. My Dad built me a mini bike when I was 13 and started my life long motorcycle infatuation. Whatever direction life took, motorcycles were there, along for the ride. Even the times I didn't possess one, one possessed me. I've often had the feeling, as Chuck expressed, the bike "disappears" from beneath me. Oddly, I'm inclined to close my eyes for as long as I can (not very) to fully experience the "flight".

Airplanes. The first 5 times I left the ground in a plane, I was asked to get out. (US Army Airborne jump school) A half hour in the back of a C-119 and you're ok with the exit.

A couple weeks ago the Blue Angles flew over my house at maybe 2000 ft in tight formation and hauling ass toward a belated Memorial Day flyover downtown. My arms went up and I yelled loud as I could smiling ear to ear.

Two very unfortunate and very close to me incidents have kept me out of small aircraft, saving me I think, from an expensive hobby.

Back in the 1980's I owned a Bimota DB1. Riding it one day it struck me that when riding this quite tiny bike there was actually no part of the bike visible to the rider even peripherally. You had to actually tilt your head down quite a way to get any part of the bike into you visual range (I'm 6'2" in the old money) It was rather like flying along 2.5 feet off the ground in a crouch position.

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Ciao   

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Ha ha

I've been lucky enough to have been up in a helicopter and an old Tiger moth and DC 3.As a passenger not a pilot!

I've also skydived, my Dad was a paratrooper in the British Army as a young man so almost felt compelled to try  it!

Although all of the above were truly life affirming experiences, the helicopter  ride  was over a glacier  in NZ,tiger moth flight was over the Great Ocean road here in Oz and the DC 3 a flight over Melbourne and the Port Phillip bay at night.

I have to say they can't compare to my lifelong love of motorcycling and the experiences that it has given me!

Gotta say though, how bloody lucky are we  in that we can do all this!!

Cheers Guzzler

 

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  • 6 months later...
1 hour ago, footgoose said:

the P38 and the F4U...  easily the most beautiful aircraft from the era. followed by the Spitfire and Messerschmidt BF109

For beauty I'd fly the Griffon Spitfire but if I actually wanted the best chance of surviving WW2 as a fighter pilot it would have been the P47 Thunderbolt hands down.

Ciao 

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22 minutes ago, Lucky Phil said:

For beauty I'd fly the Griffon Spitfire but if I actually wanted the best chance of surviving WW2 as a fighter pilot it would have been the P47 Thunderbolt hands down.

Ciao 

Absolutely. For sheer horsepower and firepower the P47 was clearly superior. Some of the combat history I've read lately has left me occasionally feeling a bit sorry for the opposition.

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