Just for Fun

Great posting. Thank you.

What a neat coincidence. I looked over your very interesting post then stepped outside of the shop to see what the weather was doing and there was a B-1B doing touch and gos at the airport. The touch and go flight path puts them just over the top of the shop.

I attended the Indianapolis 500 in 2001. One did a low level pass over the track. Very impressive plane.

When the Green Bay P ackers were going their Super Bowl run in 1996, I was travel over hwy 172 when one did the fly over Lambeau Field after the national anthem....... Inspiring feeling.

That is, plain and simple, very very cool!

Look out the right hand window and zoom in to see an AC130 gunship.

Drew K

With the writing: AZRAEL - Angel of Death (i think) painted on the side.

Thanks Lyn, very impressive. And thank you Drew for pointing out the AC-130...

Way cool lyn!

The tech head in me can't help but think about getting a crink in my neck servicing the overhead console, definitely a young blokes job...

Very cool.

I guess that must be in a museum somewhere. Aside from the fact that the avionics look ancient -- no flat panel displays, a couple small monochrome CRTs and a whole lotta needle-and-dial gauges -- I see a C-130 parked on one side along with a mock-up of the front end of the Space Shuttle. And I think that's an F-111 parked in front of the B-1B.

Looking at the wear on the co-pilot's stick, and that chunck of exposed foam by his feet, I say she an old girl alright.

Look again, that is an AC130. Also an MH53 or CH53 between the B1 and the F111

Drew K

Yeah I saw your earlier note that showed up while I was till typing my comment.

First flight was in 1974.

There are 9 B1-Bs on display, but I can't figure which one this is.

Looks like a partial tail number of 051 based at DY (not sure what base that is).

Follow this link to see the rest of the museum.

Drew K

B-1B, AF Ser. No. 84-0051, is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB

From: Wiki.

I was looking around at the overmap and saw in one of the outside displays was a C-141, nicknamed the Hanoi taxi. It was the aircraft that conveyed American POWs out of Viet Nam. I saw that aircraft when it was flying missions out of RAF Mildenhall. I got a crew-chief to let me on board to look around and see the writing done by the POWs. I wish I had a mobile phone back then that would take pictures.

Drew K

Travel the world....

http://www.360cities.net/

Very interesting.

I AM ACTUALLY MORE FASCINATED BY THE CAMERA THAT CAPTURED THE DETAILS THAN THE DETAILS THEMSELVES. I love it.

Interesting photography. That does look like the Air Museum near Wright Patterson AFB. That is a great place to visit. Be prepared to spend a couple of days. There is a huge amount of equipment to see and history to read about. There are 3 huge hangars that are divided by WW1, WW2 and the Cold War eras. Very neat.

North of Wichita, Ks. a little ways is the Smokey Hill Weapons Range (all inert bombs) operated by the Kansas Air Guard and about every other year they have an Open House for the public. It is very cool because the planes that come over range fly within their operational parameters, not like an Air Show or some other demonstration where there are high altitude and low speed limitations.

A number of years ago there was an F-111, Ardvark, that dropped his bombs and then made a flyby that was amazing. You could see the tops of trees above him as he came by.

Several years ago the Kansas Air Guard had B-1's based here at McConnell AFB and the KANG was just changing missions so this was the last sorties flown from McConnell with the B-1's. They dropped their bombs and then made flyby's at about 600 mph and about 300' off the ground. It was cool, afterburners lit, wings swept and smokin'. They also had F-16's, A-10's, B-52's over the range. I would certainly hate to be on the receiving end of our well-trained warriors and equipment.

The original B-1's had quite a bit of trouble with different facets of the plane but eventually it became a real work horse and supported a lot of missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.