Flying in a P51 Mustang

[cessna152towser]

Wow, fabulous video Terry, best on full screen on youtube.
Closest I've been to this is a half hour back seat flight in a Soviet Yak-52.
I wonder if the passenger in the Mustang had his camera strapped to his helmet. I wasn't allowed a camera on the Yak-52 due to safety issues where crashes had been caused by passengers dropping objects which fouled the control cables.
How easy would it be to get to the Heritage Flight Museum in Bellingham WA from Vancouver Island?

[tulloch]

That is great. I had the pleasure to know a man for a while who, when a young man in his early twenties, had been given a great big P47 Thunderbolt and the instruction to go out and break, wreck and blow up things all over Germany. He, in his 80s, still looked back in wonder at how they gave him such great toys and paid him too. Those aircraft were the height of development. What a great video. Thanks.

[BoldHighlander]

Thanks gents, I'm glad you all enjoyed it!

I want a go! Sadly I doubt that I would ever fit in. We have a two seat-er Spitfire that does the air show circuit here, but I think that very few get to have a ride in it.

I had occasion to be at Inverness airport the other day and there right in front of the waiting room window(20 yards) was a single seat-er Spitfire with engine running waiting to take off, it was there for a couple of minutes and off it went .WOW! I just had to get that in! Anyway there is a connection------the Merlin engine.

I agree Jock, I love the sound of the Merlin Rolls Royce!

And I've always felt the lines of the Spitfire was one of the sexiest airplanes ever made!

B17038 by haukehaien, on Flickr

What a cool photo Haukehaien! I'm envious, that has always been one of my dreams (riding in the nose of a B17)!

Wow, fabulous video Terry, best on full screen on youtube.
Closest I've been to this is a half hour back seat flight in a Soviet Yak-52.
I wonder if the passenger in the Mustang had his camera strapped to his helmet. I wasn't allowed a camera on the Yak-52 due to safety issues where crashes had been caused by passengers dropping objects which fouled the control cables.
How easy would it be to get to the Heritage Flight Museum in Bellingham WA from Vancouver Island?

I thought of you as I posted this Alex

Not sure how they filmed this, but I'm sure your probably correct.

As for getting here from the Island...a ferry ride, a jaunt across the Peace Arch border crossing, then a 20 minute drive south to Bellingham (& a phone call to me...of course! ) and your there! Actually I don't live far from the airport, I see the P51 & some of their other aircraft fly low over my house frequently!

[BoldHighlander]

I was out on the lake a few miles during a surface interval (tech diving) when we heard the strangest prop noise... Looking around we see a B-17 sweep over the ridge and down into the bowl of the river basin- like it's on a close-support bombing run. The thing does a great circle around the entire harbor at what seems like 75mph, banked steeply to the port side, then rights itself and heads back north up the lake toward the show.

My whole team and the support crew all just stood there, mouths agape, for the entire five minutes it was in view.

Now if it had been escorted by a few of the Mustangs... well, we'd probably STILL be standing out there drooling

That's a cool story Scott.

Reminds me of a time, around 1991, we were having a yard sale when we heard this tremendous droning sound. Everyone looked up and there in perfect "v" formation were about a half dozen planes sporting red meatballs on their sides/wings!
Everyone just stood in dumbstruck silence....I think for a moment we were all transported back 50 years ago, to that day that shall live in infamy!

I recognized some of those planes as ones that have appeared in Hollywood movies (in truth most, if not all, were AT-6's repainted to resemble the infamous Zero).

That's a moment I'll never forget...

That is great. I had the pleasure to know a man for a while who, when a young man in his early twenties, had been given a great big P47 Thunderbolt and the instruction to go out and break, wreck and blow up things all over Germany. He, in his 80s, still looked back in wonder at how they gave him such great toys and paid him too. Those aircraft were the height of development. What a great video. Thanks.

A pleasure & an honor
I had the pleasure (& great honor) back in 1981 (July 4th) to meet "Pappy" Boyington of AVG & Black Sheep fame, as well as three of Doolittle's Raiders.