Man, the F-86 is one of my favorites. Such great lines and proportions. And yes, I know those are not technically F-86s.
At Dover AFB's airshow in about 2010 or so, there was an old guy in his 70s who did an aerobatic routine in an F-86. Most if it was less than 300 feet off the ground. Amazing stuff for retirement-age airframe with a post-retirement-age pilot.
F9F Panther
In reply to pilotbraden :
Did somebody say "Panther"?
No one remembers Grumman's F-11 Tiger. No one.
I bet the paperwork will be epic and embarrassing.
Duke said:I bet the paperwork will be epic and embarrassing.
Is that in Hazard County?
Lockheed Vega
Jim Austin of the Texas Chapter is repairing the damage to his 108-3 that occurred from a Piper mistaking his plane for an Aircraft Carrier. In May of this year the pilot of a 1980 Piper PA-28 landed on top of Jim's plane at Northwest Regional Airport, Texas!
Grumman F3F
A biplane Wildcat. How can you help but love it.
I've sat in this airplane. Probably right around the time this picture was taken.
Owner (and pilot in the cockpit) was Lex DuPont, yes, one of those DuPonts. A truly interesting and friendly guy with a passion for historic aircraft, motorcycles, and other vehicles. He had a running M29 Weasel.
I just found out Lex died about 2 years ago at the ripe old age of 88, after a long and interesting life. I had assumed he was long gone before that.
Lex also had a P-38 / F-5G similar to this one parked under a shed at New Garden airfield. The nose was a little shorter, but still rounded like this (not like the typical Droop Snoot conversion, which looks much more like a standard P-38 except the tip of the nose is glass). It was not operational for most of the time I used to climb around on it and in it. Some guy bought it, replaced the port Allison, and flew it out of there. Probably 1977 or so. That was amazing to see and hear. Unfortunately the P-38 crashed a couple years later, totally destroying it and killing the owner and his wife.
The P-38 was more like this one:
OK, it was probably 1976 for that Lightning. This is the plane after it was bought and flown out of New Garden. Apparently it was re-converted back to a metal nose before the crash, by adding an F-80 snout.
Can't post planes without Bob Hoover.
I've also been up in this T-28 (I think this is the one):
It was owned by my neighbor, who happened to be Pat Foley of Summit Aviation. Did some, shall we say, highly interesting things for the government in the '80s and early '90s. Our house used to get buzzed by these guys a lot, susually in groups of 4 (and sans the USAF markings):
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