Antonov AN225 lands in Toronto

I remember when I lived in Houston it would visit fairly regularly ferrying oil field equipment all over the world. Quite a beast!

 

Cool pics. Thanks Tamas

 

I believe it was an AN225 I saw at the San Diego air show 25+ years ago. The placard describing the plane said how many 18 wheelers, with tractors, could fit. Seems that number was in the double digits, 16 or 18. It also said the cargo hold was large enough to land a Cessna 150 in. Not sure I believe that.

 

I'm sure that I have mentioned it before but I was fortunate to see this monster twice and it always amazes in flight as well as on the ground. I got to thinking ( and that can be dangerous) that I have a long list of airplanes that I have seen in my life time starting in 1929. I'm going to write them down. I'll post them if anyone is interested in being bored on some rainy day. I have flown over 40 different types as PIC or right seater, too. Not bragging, just having fun looking back at some fun stuff.

 

I would imagine the Spruce Goose is on that list.

 

Dang ! I haven't seen the whole HS-1 but I saw a part of it in 1945 when Hughs sent the vertical fin to Langley Field to be tested in the full sized wind tunnel. That wasn't the full sized fin, however. It was a 1/10th size model of it and it was so large that they had to test it in the full size tunnel. We saw it arrive on one Sunday morning on a flat bed truck in a rig that mounted it on its trailing edge. We had no idea of what it was until we got to talk to an NACA guy a few days later. He told us that , " It was the tail for some kind of flying boat that Howard was working on." I saw the Martin Mars fly several times at Abottsford. They had a wooden building built on the runway for them to demonstrate a water drop and it smashed the building flat when the water hit it.

 

Please allow me to separate to items of recall that got over lapped. The vertical fin model of the HK-1 , not HS-1 as I mentioned, was a 1/2 size model over 25 feet span. The 1/10 size model was the back half of the flying boat hull with fin attached and took up most of the flat bed trailer that it was on. I think that the HK-1 identification was changed to H4 soon after. The HS-1 was that beautiful Hughes racer. I made a mistake to think about posting a list of all the airplanes that I have seen, flown, or flown in. It's close to 100 and growing. It would be rather useless and superfluous.

 

The late British test pilot Eric Brown flew 487 different aircraft in his career, believed to be a record. Did you ever meet Captain Brown, Bob?

For that matter, Bob, are there any other famous test pilots you met?

 

I am nowhere near what Eric Brown was, or what other great pilots where. I was an airport bum and worked at an airport for three years after the war and things were wide open and loose. I was able to fly a lot of stuff that was old and some of it new. I was able to continue that for something like 40 years and most flight experiences were short, something like 20 minutes some times. Then it was off to fly something else for 15 minutes. The smallest was most likely an early Aeronca of 34 HP and the largest was a DC-3. So, I'm no expert or an ace pilot, I tried a little bit of anything that became available just to see what it was like. I knew Bob Hoover, Lew Wallick, Orville Tosch, Jack Leffler, Ernie Gann, Bob Penny, Joe Hughes, Chuck Lyford, Betty Skelton, and many more great pilots but that doesn't make me anything more than what I called myself before, an airport bum and the only thing that I accomplished was a bunch of wonderful memories. Those who I mentioned accomplished great things.

 

Forgot to mention Bryan Wygle and Jack Wadell, first flight of the 747.

 

Last but not least, Tex Johnston, 367-80. And Clayton Scott, who's company built the replica B&W, Boeing's first airplane. I helped on both of them.

 

That's still a pretty good resume, Bob. I didn't meet test pilots as much as I overheard conversations others were having with them. At a gathering of test pilots at Northrop's airport in Hawthorne in 1987, I eavesdropped on Scott Crossfield and Tony LeVier. Someone mentioned that Yeager was there but the consensus was that he was an arrogant ass and you really didn't want to approach him unless he already knew you.

I also attended a dinner meeting in suburban Philadelphia about a year earlier for a talk by Chuck Sewell, who was Grumman's chief test pilot at the time and was the first man to fly the X-29. Unfortunately, Sewell died about a month later when the engine in a TBM that he was ferrying quit just after takeoff.

And I remember attending a talk at the Museum of Flight in Seattle given by Al Haynes, who managed to get a DC-10 with no hydraulics down in Sioux City well enough to keep more than 1/2 of the passengers alive. And I met Tex there as well, signing books in front of the Dash 80. So I heard from a few hero pilots in my lifetime. And then, there is you! I'm glad we got to meet on a couple of occasions. Now we just need to get the FHCAM open again.

 

Right! It made me very sad to hear that they were shut down for an unknown length of time. That place is a jewel and an important piece of living history.

I'm sorry that I never met Haynes. A very nice guy. I became good friends with another nice guy, Lew Wallick, when I worked with him on the restoration of his P-12 ( B-100), very down to earth and friendly with everyone. Same with Bryan Wygle, Jack Wadell, and Bob Hoover. Hoover surprised me at an aviation gathering at the MOF some 15 years after we met him at Abottsford when he came across the room to greet me. He even remembered my name after that long. Had a lot of fun with him at the airshows. I met Johnston briefly in the -80 program and met him many years later at QB meetings. He softened up in his later years and was much quieter.

 

Yeager was actually pretty approachable if you were interested in WW-II flying instead of the Mach 1 routine. He was at the Gathering of Eagles at Maxwell AFB in 1987 while I was attending school for the AF. I sponsored Ray Brooks during the meeting, and got in a few good words with Yeager. Most of the astronauts were the same way and enjoyed talking about their operational and test time in aircraft before they became astronauts instead of the "What was it like on the Moon?" questions they usually got.

 

I should point out that there were a few fighter pilots too, who usually spoke at IPMS (plastic modelers') conventions: Bud Mahurin, Francis Gabreski, Hub Zemke, Robin Olds, RAF pilot Geoffrey Page and Luftwaffe pilot Wolfgang Falck. Others were signing stuff at airshows; I "met" both Greg Boyington and Randy Cunningham at an otherwise ordinary little airshow in Bellingham. I had met Cunningham years before, at an airshow in Jacksonville, when he was still in the Navy, shortly after he returned from Vietnam. Also speaking at conventions were John Hilger, Doolittle's second-in-command on the Tokyo raid, and George Gay, the sole survivor of VT-8 at the battle of Midway.

I guess I should consider myself fortunate to have been around to hear all these gentlemen speak. Outside of Cunningham, they are all now in pilots' heaven, where I'm sure that a bit of "hangar flying" still takes place! (Sorry to hijack this thread; I've seen the An-225 and that was a privilege, too!)

 

Just for my own curiosity I wrote down the airplanes that I saw from 1929 to 1935 and the list has 26 on it including the Aeronca C-3 in which I had my first flight in 1935 for my 9th birthday. Also saw he Hindenburg fly over our house in June of that year. Now for the next 6 years., 1935 to 1941.

 

Bob, I'm almost certain that you're the only person who's ever been on FChat who can say that!

 

Yup, that one even predates me a bit.