Thread: Do aircraft turn your prop?

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I heard Bob Hoover interviewed once. Somebody asked him what, in his opinion, was the best aircraft he ever flew.

He answered immediately:"F86. It would do anything you wanted it to do."

Jim

this is more like canada's front line fighter

I'm a little partial to theses three, I worked on all three.

Spent a goodly amount of time with this old girl .......... loved every minute of it

My time was on the old Grumman S2F Sub Tracker's used as multi-engine trainers for pilots in the Navy.

Do aircraft turn your prop?

In a word: YES!

Uncle Sam's Canoe Club let me play with them, and sometimes I kick myself for not following on with that occupation. The sound of a radial with a prop, the bigger, the better, excites me to the point of giddiness; makes my insides wiggle. We live near the North Las Vegas Airport, and there are several planes there regularly that have radials, and often, one or a few will fly in for a visit. I have almost wrecked my self trying to get outside when one flies over. Love the picture of the Connie, Bob, thanks for putting it up; in my mind, the Constellations were some of the downright prettiest planes ever. Some years ago, there was a documentary on the TV about one that was restored her in The States, and then flown to Australia; good show.

After I got released from active duty and went home, and back to my old job building power lines, I had a close encounter with a couple of Corsairs out near Twentynine Palms: We were taking our lunch break, and had gotten down in a dry river bed that was about thirty or so feet deep to sit in the shade of the cut bank to eat. There came a deep throbbing rumble in the ground that got my attention real quick, and I got up to get away from the cut bank for fear it was going to cave off. The river bed was a few hundred feet wide, and pretty twisty. Around the curve of the river came two Corsairs in Marine Corps livery, flying below ground level, down in the river bed; they had their props on high pitch and their engines were just above a high idle. As they came in sight, the pilots spotted us standing there with our mouths agape, and waved as they went by, and disappeared around the next bend. I was so wound up I couldn't sit still for the rest of the afternoon. When we got back to work, we could see them off to the north flying over the ranges on the base.

I'd love to see a Corsair in flight. Still watch Bah bAH BLACKSHEEP!

Bob Hoover---

I flew for Reading Aviation in Reading, Pa years ago(1966?) and at the Reading airshow Hoover was doing some stunt flying---typical P51 stuff--loops rolls etc---then he took up a twin engine AeroCommander and did some demo stuff----the factory guys were standing same place as me on the ramp after Bob had done some kind od high power/speed maximun manuver, he came back towards the airport with one engine feathered---factory guys started mumbling stuff about him blowing engine--when Bob instead of putting the gear down for a landing,rolled the plane into the dead engine and then pulled it up into a loop, extending the gear at the top of the loop(upside down) and landing out of the bottom of the loop---quite a demo flight---and all the time he had a pot of coffee sitting on the glare shield and didn't spill a drop!!!!I think he used the coffee level to tell him if skidding or slipping---
He definitely holds my #1 spot----Most I do is just try to keep from spilling my coffee during straight and level crz!!!

I think Mr. Hoover has the admiration of a lot of people. How about pouring ice tea.....................backhanded...............inverted!:

Thanks Bob----thats what I was talking about!!!

There are some fabulus pilots out there from that era of props to swept wing jets-----

About the most harrowing thing I been thru was on a training flight on a B720---the instructor pilot was an ex Air Force test pilot who of course was too old to get hired by the airlines as a line pilot but they did hire those guys for instructors. Usually on a training flight there would be 2 crews and would switch positions during the flight. The pilot getting an upgrade from flight engineer to co pilot was having a lot of trouble with dutch rolls on approach however at this time the lesson was to show that a swept wing jet stalled from the wing tips inward---to proove this, they pull the circuit breaker on the stall warning/stick shaker and just keep getting slower and slower until the aircraft pitches nose up , proving that the wingtips lost there lift first---well just as this happened , the co pilot thought he was getting a dutch roll (aircraft yaws and as the swept wing swings more directly into flight path causes a roll) and he stepped on the rudder just as the a/c stalled---this instantly sort of snap rolled the a/c over into a spin which the instructor pilot said" I have it" and very smoothly executed a recovery from the snap and one turn spin all the while I was standing in the cockpit door pouring coffee for the other trainees--never spilled a drop however even tho we were flying east and recovered east we did go from 28000 to 14000 feet altitude----

Copilot got extra similator time!!!!!!

Jerry

Thunderbirds at the Kirtland AFB 4th of July Airshow.



Surplus F4


Surplus F16

Several years ago my wife gave me a copy of Bob Hoover's book "Forever Flying". I loaned it out one time too many and it didn't come back. I would recommend to anybody.

Somewhere round here I have a snapshot of him I took at Oshkosh. He was talking to a young girl while signing an autograph. He was wearing his usual flying attire, a dress shirt and tie (but not his straw hat).

I was going to attach it to this posting but naturally, I can't find it.


Jim

I'm a long time supporting member of the Planes of Fame at Chino Airport & part time photographer.