3rd and 4th gen are the ones that fascinate me. The technology and the soul in the planes is amazing. 5th gen feels sterile to me.

Give me the spitfire, hurricane and mustang

Easy - ALL of them

WWII without a doubt. None of my family or friends of my parents who served in that war flew planes, but all of them fought where those planes played a part in their landings/fighting.

Not an aviation guy, but transitional technology is always fascinating. The leap from wind power to jet power will never not be interesting.

Well, I have to say all of them. So long as they drop bombs on people or shoot down other planes (i.e., not a freaking bus with wings) then I like them.

But, one of my earliest memories is going into a store (K-Mart, I think) with my parents and finding a Monogram P-40B Flying Tiger model on the toy shelf. I was 3, and that was the first model airplane I ever built.

So WWII aviation tops my list. Flying Tiger, Hellcat, Corsair, P-38, P-51, P-61, Spitfire, Hurricane, Typhoon, Bf-109, Fw190, A6M Zero. B-17, B-24, B-25, B-26, B-29, Lancaster, Ju88, Do17, Do217, G3M Nell, G4M Betty.

A close second would be the early jet age, particularly with the F-86. That airplane looks fast just sitting on the tarmac.

For Kyle Field flyovers, give me anything with multiple loud engines and afterburners.

WWII/Golden Era Props.

Century series, hands down.


Crude electronics (basically WW2 era), supersonic, afterburners, all the fun stuff. B-47, B-52, B-58 at the same time. These programs are often over-simplified/dismissed historically but really were engineering marvels of their era, regardless of production volumes/combat stats. I don't think many military aviation nerds would ever deny the penultimate 'cool factor' of the XB-70, though.

I've got a sweet spot for the F-106. My parents told me they knew I could hear as a new born baby because when the F-106s hit the afterburners taking off from Lindbergh Field I would jump.

My dad was an engineer at Convair his whole working life and next to his work in Kearny Mesa in San Diego was Missile Park. It was a park for Convair/GD families to enjoy, very nice and fun place. When they first opened Missile Park the centerpiece was a fully intact F-106 with only the engine removed. I spend hours climbing all over that thing, sitting in the cockpit twisting the joy stick and squeezing through the space left by the engine removal.

One day I was out there alone sitting in the cockpit playing fighter pilot and I punched the radio button and asked for clearance to take off and got an answer "What do you need?" Freaked me out and I ran back to the family car where my mom was waiting and told her someone talked to me over the radio. I really thought that. My guess it was someone on the loudspeaker at the nearby Atlas Factory.

Those were the days. Could you imagine letting kids climb all over a jet aircraft today? I'm guessing even in the 60s there were enough injuries on it, because shortly after the 70s began it was removed from the park. Was I ever bummed.

BQ78 said:

---

I've got a sweet spot for the F-106. My parents told me they knew I could hear as a new born baby because when the F-106s hit the afterburners taking off from Lindbergh Field I would jump.

My dad was an engineer at Convair his whole working life and next to his work in Kearny Mesa in San Diego was Missile Park. It was a park for Convair/GD families to enjoy, very nice and fun place. When they first opened Missile Park the centerpiece was a fully intact F-106 with only the engine removed. I spend hours climbing all over that thing, sitting in the cockpit twisting the joy stick and squeezing through the space left by the engine removal.

One day I was out there alone sitting in the cockpit playing fighter pilot and I punched the radio button and asked for clearance to take off and got an answer "What do you need?" Freaked me out and I ran back to the family car where my mom was waiting and told her someone talked to me over the radio. I really thought that. My guess it was someone on the loudspeaker at the nearby Atlas Factory.

Those were the days. Could you imagine letting kids climb all over a jet aircraft today? I'm guessing even in the 60s there were enough injuries on it, because shortly after the 70s began it was removed from the park. Was I ever bummed.

---

That's a great story.

I grew up in Lake Jackson, but this was a few years before my time. In Jasmine Park, there was a city building where kids could go see movies for free in the summer time. Parked next to that building was a F-84 Thunderjet. It was much as you described the -106, with only the engine removed. It was apparently a big deal for kids to play all over that plane as well. Wish I had been old enough to have been able to hop into that thing.

A few years after the F-84 disappeared from the park, I remember driving through town with my dad when I spied a metal object sitting in a field where Dixie Drive dead ends (it's now a huge neighborhood). It was a drop tank of the same style that the F-84 would have carried.

WWII era. Those planes were/are sexy. I live close enough to Ellington I can see a lot of the Wings over Houston air show, and when a flight of those planes go over, man that sound is something. I couldn't imagine looking up to see 1000+ B-17/B-24 and several hundred fighter escorts.