Aviation nut here, and I am looking at my calendar with a F-4 in camo colors. Damn I love it. I love the spitfire from WWII also. My favorite memory is feeling the concrete shake from about .5 mile away from a F-111 going full afterburner on takeoff. I truly thought my insides were going to explode. Nothing better than military power going full burner.
Remember this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eTms_G1yYPc Not necessarily my fav combat aircraft but, as a kid, when rest of family was asleep, I would slip outta bed, sneak into the living room, and turn on the t.v. just to watch this. It was back when the local stations used to sign-off at night. Wife's uncle was a pilot in the A.F. in Vietnam... he said all the pilots called the Lockheed F-104 "a missle with a man in it."
Discovery Wings show was great for this kind of footage. They had an F-4 setting low speed record. I think it was 50 feet off the desert floor going 900 mile an hour, ie one sneeze and you eat sand. I love fast.
There are pretty aircraft, but when you're in the shit and looking for help, this is who you call. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6Y6lZmLdtR4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Yep, love the 130's, in cargo or gunship. Another one is the A-10 Thunderbolt. Holy crap hearing that thing fire it's rounds! How about the damage they were able to continue flying with and bring a pilot home. Cripes!
Pass em on Hoodman! I loved armed forces day at the airport. We had a Guard and reserve Air Force unit. Atc let them do what they want coming and going. Why, because the reserve unit was a refueling guard unit and they could refuel after going military power. My pop was infantry, so no disrespect, but full military with fuel pouring really gives the power a real example of power. I love aviation, and military aviation is even better.
When I was designing the MK83 bsu-85b (a 1000 thousand lb air inflatable retarder bomb) the chief test pilot was flying the mission using an F-4. He said he wanted me to accompany him on our last flight which was that day. I declined because I was afraid that I would be killed or seriously injured if we had to bail out and that wasn't a rare occurance over at Pax. It had happened on two previous tests of mine. So he took off with the bomb on the F-4 and I assumed my position to watch the flight with ground cameras. As he flew into range, he inverted the aircraft so he could see the target and put the F-4 into a dive and released the bomb. But nothing happened. The bomb did not release and I alerted the pilot to the problem. You see the F-4 has a very short landing gear. So short that you have to actually squat down to look at the bomb load. So if it failed to launch and the nose or tail was sticking down it could crash the aircraft. So the pilot couldn't land until he could get rid of it. One of his options would be that he had to bail out which is what I was deathly afraid of. He told me that he would try again and so he circled around, inverted the aircraft, then rolled upright in a dive and tried to release the bomb but again nothing happened. So I told him to fly over my position at low altitude so I could inspect the undercarriage and so he did. No bomb was on the aircraft and so I told him so. His reply was "Well I'll be goddamned! That's the second bomb we've lost this week! Now just imagine yourself sitting in your living room when a 1000 lb, bomb crashes through your ceiling.