Warbirds

Warbirds, Collins Foundation Tour

We live 2 miles line of site from our local airport, which is one of the stopovers for the Collins Foundation Warbird tour.

Since we are in the glide path when conditions are right, I get to sit on the deck, enjoy some coffee and watch as the planes head out over the ocean on the hourly flight tours.

P-51C Mustang (2 seater)
B-24 Liberator (only "flyer" in the world)
and my favorite:
B-17 Flying Fortress

Sometimes not more then 500 feet directly over our house - there is nothing like the sound of 4 rotary engines purring along.
And that is a lot of unmuffled cylinders. 4x9 cylinders for the B-17 and 4x14 for the B-24. 56 cylinders on one plane!

The overflights are tours, $450 per person on the bombers (30 minutes) or $2200 for 30 minutes in the P-51.

And if ever you could call an aircraft sexy - I would have to say the P-51 is at the top of the list.

At the end of the tour I have gotten to see the 3 or 4 planes on tour fly off together over our house several times. What a sight.

I can only imagine what it would have been like in WWII when these bombers where taking off en masse.

This is from a couple of years ago when we stopped at my buddies shop.

One of the bombers and the P-51 (iPhone 5)

Re: Warbirds, Collins Foundation Tour

Cool!

We live on the flight path to DIA (Denver International Airport), so I get lots of airliner shots from the yard:

Re: Warbirds, Collins Foundation Tour

Never took pictures of the regular planes. We live within 30-40 miles of Newark International, JFK, Laguardia and Mcguire Air force base and countless small airports. So commercial airliners are a very frequent site (was out on the ocean the night of Flight 800 and saw that as well, just didn't know what we were seeing).

The airport near our house is county run and has become home to many corporate and small noisy jets.
And having several bases nearby, we get treated to Blackhawks, Chinooks and occasionally we still get to see Hueys. The USCG air wing is based out of Atlantic City, but whenever they do ops up in our area they refuel at our local airport. And we have seen the Marine One trio 5 or 6 times over the years, twice at almost tree top level.

And of course, there is the obligatory banner plane flyovers all summer long.

Maybe it is time I start taking more pics of things they fly. Unfortunately, many of the neat things flying close I don't hear until they are almost on top of us.

Re: Warbirds, Collins Foundation Tour

Our local airport has 2 warbird shows a year. I guess I am lucky because the runway points to over our home. I can see all the comings and goings from my backyard. We get B 17's, B 24's, P 51's, P 38's. B 25's and many fighters. The big ones I can here coming down the runway and they sure do rattle the windows in house going over at 300 feet. We are close to several local airports that have warbirds hangered at them. So, I get an airshow almost every week. If you are ever in Calif. A must see is the collection at Chino airport and the museum in Palm Springs.

LOVE IT....those old radials are LOUD and there is nothing that sounds like a "Merlon" at full throttle.