Av gas Hydraulic oil Exhaust from a big radial coming to life..don't get to experience that much anymore. Lingering humidity after a rain Rubber smell of aircraft tires 4th of July
Many more but the most prized is the smell of perfume laced letters my then to be wife sent me almost daily for two deployments.
I'm pretty sure these would be part of my late father's answer. He spent a lot of time in and around PBM's during WWII.
Most of the above, but most especially jet exhaust.
And the cold, sharp smell of pure oxygen in a freshly cleaned oxygen mask. I don't get to smell that one these days, but it's right there in my memory almost 50 years later.
The memory is so strong that I still know we cleaned our masks with benzalkonium chloride, and its faint odor combined with the rubber of the mask and the supposedly odorless oxygen made a very heady combination unavailable anywhere else but a cockpit.
In Asia in the '50s it was the smell of benjo ditches. The troops used to say you weren't really a man until you'd gotten drunk and fallen in a benjo ditch.
We also said that if smog was a combination of smoke and fog, the prevailing atmosphere in Taipei was smit. A far cry from what modern Asian cities are today.
Paul
Stupidity has its way, while its cousin, evil, runs rampant.
JetA burning on the tarmac of the airport brings back pleasant memories.
"All that the South has ever desired was that the Union, as established by our forefathers, should be preserved, and that the government, as originally organized, should be administered in purity and truth." – Robert E. Lee
Smell memory is exactly why I opened "Baggy Zero Four" like this...
"It was as if the world had farted in his face. The air that came in through the jetliner’s door hit him like garbage gelatin: smothering hot, with overtones of sewage, dead fish, diesel smoke and jet exhaust. It was Cam Rahn Bay, Republic of Vietnam, and First Lieutenant “Rusty” Naille knew his nose would never forget that first olfactory assault as long as he lived. How long that might be was up for grabs."
Nobody who went there can read that without reacting -- strongly.
The submarine definitely had a smell, wasn't offensive at all, just noticeable. I always assumed it was vaporized diesel fuel that came inboard through the tank vent, but could have been a combination of things. I still have a cruise bag that retains some of that smell, if I need to feel nostalgic I can just put it over my head.
Although I have not tried it, I'm pretty sure if you put a splash of JP-5 in a glass of water and I took a drink from it, it would take me right back to good old CV-61.