Plane / Planes / Aircraft / Aeroplane / Airplane appreciation

Yes it was as it happens!

The joys of working at home include being an able to look planes up on flightradar and see where they have been lately.

Lol. A340s can’t climb for shit

And to round the day off, a Hurricane has just done a roll over the house on its way west

A bit of a rare event at LHR tomorrow. An Airbus Beluga is due in to deliver some bits to repair a BA Airbus A350 that has been poorly for five months after being clobbered by a Virgin Atlantic 787. Best estimate of the arrival time I can see is around 11:00.

Anyone know what the silver US warbird doing laps over Swale (East Kent) is? Is sounds amazing. Big rotary engine at low revs. Tried to film it but failed.

bit of a rare event at LHR tomorrow

Went round the northern perimeter at about that time, there were hundreds of planespotters out, don't usually see any there.

Only big silver rotary warbird I know of is the P-47 Thunderbolt aka 'The Jug'.

Seen here at the last 'proper' Warbirds gathering.... (Duxford)

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Er, radial, chaps. 'Big' and 'silver' aren't contested.

Rotaries went out in 1918!

My mom used to work on Typhoons and Tempests. She got to test fly them after repair. They would have been lovely in raw metal.

Radial. Right.

Never mind the American / English language lesson.

All ic engines rotate ffs.

Was it the right plane?

The only other one I know that flies in the UK is the T-6 trainer... (Not really a Warbird imo)

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They were flying that (well, the one at Goodwood) when I had a flight in a spitfire for my 40th... the pilot chased it all over the south coast doing mock aerial engagements.

It occured to me long after i'd exited the previous page that what I SHOULD have responded to the rotary/radial correction with was: "no need to be a Wankel".

Yes "warbird" was also loose language. I'm not sure but the above makes a lot of sense. The wing shape is right. It's basically a Harvard right? It sounded way bigger than it looks.

Yep. Quite a distinctive large wing as you say.

One used to fly from Shoreham in Navy colours afaik.

It is quite capable in acrobatics.

The Pratt and Whitney engine gives a lovely low growl.

It sounded way bigger than it looks

They are notoriously loud

One used to fly from Shoreham

In the 70s, we often used to picnic under the final at Shoreham, by the old pill boxes. The Harvard was familiar to my dad from his RAF days, so he always knew it was coming by sound before you could identify it visually. It was obviously a very different beast among the herd of Continental/Lycoming boxer powered Cessnas.

Yes that P&W Wasp played a huge part of radial engine progression during WW2.

Used for fighters, bombers, trainers and transport.

I saw one recently at Brooklands as a cut away model. Like the Wankel Rotary car engine it could be modulated to increase power.

The Double Wasp and of course the largest radial ever produced, the 70L Wasp Major.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_%26_Whitney_R-4360_Wasp_Major

*It appears the inline Mustang Voodoo holds the outright speed record over the modified radials, Sea Fury / Dreadnought and the Bear Cat / Rare Bear however.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/worlds-fastest-piston-airplane-180969509/

We see a lot of Spitfires about this neck of the woods, so wasn't surprised to hear the incoming sound of a Merlin this morning. Usually they're just barely ticking over being followed by a cesna taking pics or maybe if you're lucky, doing a lazy victory roll over open country. This morning though, I happened to look up from the sofa and saw it blaring directly overhead and saw a late mark (zebra stripes and all) giving it full beans flat-out straight overhead. So cool to see and hear the V12 opening up. Such an incredible sound.

Might have been heading to the BoB Airshow @ Duxford this weekend...

Voodoo on one such pass @Reno...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq_i9RpvKuY

#DatSound

#DatSound

A Lancaster flew low over me the other day, I knew it was going to be loud when i saw it coming, but wow

Comet 4 on tour of Europe on pre-service trials, father was onboard meteorologist and took these pix

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What would those thousand bomber raids sound like?

RAF el Adam 1963, Avro Tudor and EE Canberras

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