Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Big engines overhead....

I was at work yesterday and heard the unmistakeable roar of some very big propeller driven aircraft passing over the store. A quick peek outside revealed just as I expected. Miss Mitchel, a beautiful B-25 that's well known to the air show circuits up around here was making a pass heading into the Lakeville airfield. She came over the store at about 500 feet on final approach, and I could clearly see the tail guns, and even the top turret, as she lined up to land. I will never tire from seeing these WWII birds still flying around. Hat's off to all our vets, but especially those that tooled on, or flew the birds of WWII.

Used to work at a shop where the rear doors opened up to the runway of a local municipal.. lots of old war birds called it home. Not much work got done during the yearly vintage plane fly-in, but the best was the A1 sky raider that lived there. That thing sounded like a funny car on roll-out. Everyone stopped work and watched when that one went out.

As for low fly-overs, the best I've seen was a P3 Orion blowing the shingles off my house after making a slurry drop. We could see the pilots face as he blew by, nose straight up the lead plane's ass.. Greatest sight and sound ever.

I've got to think there must have been a bunch of ground troops that were darned glad to see those A-1s come lumbering in. Can't imagine the gooks were too happy to see 'em coming though.

Jeff, don't know if you have ever been to the Plane Museum at the Mpls Airport...it is over on the reserve side near Ft Snelling.

there are actually some pretty rare planes there.. I know that they had an SR 71, which alone is worth being able to see...

is the Planes of Fame still out at the Eden Prairie Airport?

I know when I was in the Chopper Unit in the Guard over at the St Paul Airport, we had some really great airshows over there...

we got a buzz by, with a couple of P 51s when we were on duty once..... that was cool... couldn't have been more than 100 ft off the ground and came by at 300 plus MPH.. right over our formation when they were doing roll call one morning...


and like my 'buddy' Rancho, I love to hear the old R 3350s in those Skyraiders fire up... another plane on my most favorite list...

was lucky to grow up on Air Force bases, to be able to see a bunch of really cool aircraft in my life...

Here she is,

Seafire-

I haven't been over to the museum at the airport in years, but if I remember right, they lost the Blackbird. It's been moved and is on display elsewhere if my memory serves me right. I've been to Flying Cloud about 8 times. Sat for an hour talking to an SBD Dauntless pilot out there. Man, did he have some stories. How anybody came back alive from a mission in those planes is beyond me. I used to work at a rifle range on the river bluffs near the airport, and on when the shows were going, we got all the flights coming over us. B-17, B-25, P-51, P-38, P-47, AT-6. 'Saw 'em all, and many more too. On the evening of 9/11, after the towers fell, I came home from work like everyone else, glued to the radio, listening to history unfold. I worked up in the northern part of the cities and chose not to cross the 169 bridge, thinking it might be a vulnerable target. I detoured through Eden Prairie and crossed the river down in Shakopee. Passing the Flying Cloud airport was a chilling sight. Stationed over the main runway sat a Cobra gunship, loaded to the hilt. Had any planed moved on the tarmac, it would have been shot down. The fighters based in Duluth were on station orbiting the Twin Cities for many day.

I've always been a big fan of the Skyraider. Man, what a plane. There's just some inherently like able abouot ugly, ground pounders like that and the Warthog.

We have lots of big engines overhead. Slurry bombers and bucket helicpoters. The most recent fire is up to about 6000 acres.

I remember a few short years ago I was working at a field where they restored the B29 Fifi. I'll never forget that sound when they took her out to taxi around the field.

That happens right here a few times - usually in August when the big air show at Oshkosh is being held..

One time I heard one helluva lotta noise comin' outta the sky and looked up to see a B-52 paralleling the freeway, and a hair south of my lawn, at about 3000 feet of altitude.. Gawd - hadn't seen one in the air since '67 on Guam.. the size of those birds is somethin' else..

Couple hours later a P-47 and P-38 went by in formation.. Always wanted to go to that show, but can't seem to find the time.. Dang..

One of my favorites from pioneer flight museum, last May fly-in. I don't have a pic of the DR-1 darn it!

Last year about this time I was watching my grand kid playing in a little league tournament down just north of Houston. Heard a big drone from the sky and looked up. Durn if there wasn't an old Liberator B24 wallowing through the sky. Looked like it was lining up for a fly by of Houston Intercontental.

Those Mitchells are LOUD!

With all due respect to the WWII fighters and bombers, they pale in comparison to the mightiest of the piston driven engines.
The nitromethane burning monsters of the NHRA must be witnessed to be believed.
Video and audio do a piss poor job of capturing the violent nature of these beasts.
(the rap of the throttle in the pits as seen in video at the 2:27 mark has caused numerous soiling of the linen by first time spectators)

Dittos, had one come right over my place year before last during the monument fire. He was easing up after a drop west of my place, came thundering over out of a dense, rotten red- brown wall of smoke, backlit by a mid afternoon Sun.
Felt, rather than heard the prop beat in my gut first, THAN heard the roar,
.......looked west and there were 4 big vortexes boring my way,.....than the bird appeared and went over at no more than 300'. Folks that saw that drop (N.Side of Ramsey Road on BLM range) say that his props were slinging a little mesquite around, and that he put the slurry exactly where it was needed.

Thrilling, and God Bless those guys !

GTC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM2-PoD-SgU

Had I been a 20 year old youth in 1943....this would have been the bird I would have chosen. Tuff Tuff!!

No comparison whatsoever. Let's see how a dragster does with it's engine shot up by a belt full of German machine gun ammo. We're talking about the planes that helped keep us free, and frequently brought their crews home with half their engines shot out, big chunks of wings missing-heck one guy flew a P-47 through a WALL and came home in it! No dragster's ever gonna do that.