• If You Are Having Trouble Logging In with Your Old Username and Password, Please use this Forgot Your Password link to get re-established.
  • Hey! Be sure to login or register!

Favorite Airplane

Lots of reasons. Not an easy airplane to handfly up high, hardest to check out on, flew to my favorite layovers ( HNL, SYD, HKG, ANC, etc). Ended my career on the 11 with my son in the right seat. 8000+ hrs.
Whats not to love! Lots of great memories.
Lou
 
Maybe if you gentlemen would take us for a few laps in a Widgeon, we would agree!

I have never had the opportunity, though I have drooled over a few.
 
Widgeons look a bit like a cross between a Beech 18, a battleship, and a tank. I assume they do not handle like that?

My favorite is the lowly J-3. I have had mine for 55 years.

I have owned Stinsons and Mooneys - privileged to fly Stearmans, Wacos, Gullwings, Boeings, and Airbusi. Still like the Cub best.

We wanted to own one last airplane - choice: early 180, maybe 180hp taildragger 172, or possibly a Decathlon.

Found the Dec - half the price of a 180, ten times the aircraft of a converted 172, and an all around superior choice for me.

If I could afford a Widgeon, I would instead get a type rating in a PBY, and a checkout in a P-51 and an F-86E.
 
Well I am going to put in my 2cents at the risk of being accused of heresy and say my new favorite is the Cherokee 235. I still love my J-3 and much modified J-5 (more of a fat 18 now really) and I have been enjoying a Focke-Wulf Piaggio 149D for the last several years which is a really fine flying aeroplane and aerobatic to boot, but the humble Cherokee is a revelation and if I had to have just one aircraft in the future (perish the thought) well, um, it might be the 235!


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org
 
I have flown a lot of cool planes, but I had the first Pilatus PC12 on a charter certificate in Montana, and that is a fantastic machine. Flew it into Schafer Meadows, and lots of other grass strips, but also went nonstop from Bozeman to the east coast many times. Don't know of any other plane that can do that.
I still love my '56 C182 a lot, but if I had the money...
 
Lots of reasons. Not an easy airplane to handfly up high, hardest to check out on, flew to my favorite layovers ( HNL, SYD, HKG, ANC, etc). Ended my career on the 11 with my son in the right seat. 8000+ hrs.
Whats not to love! Lots of great memories.
Lou


Lou, that is awesome flying with your son!

Kurt
 
"Whispering Death" D2C1BBA8-B8FA-434F-B21E-F99827539866.jpeg
 

Attachments

  • D2C1BBA8-B8FA-434F-B21E-F99827539866.jpeg
    D2C1BBA8-B8FA-434F-B21E-F99827539866.jpeg
    57.1 KB · Views: 270
From a control harmony stand point and just nice flying characteristics my list is Hawker Fury, light frame Ag Cat, Chipmunk, Great Lakes, CAP10C, J3, PA11, PA18, PA15, PA16, PA17 and the Carbon Cub FX3. There are other airplanes I like for their utility but these are my favorites to just fly. My list of airplanes is short but look forward to adding more to this list.
 
Last edited:
Arctic Tern of course. Otherwise a 206 on amphibs because fuel drums are too hard to load in a 185.
 
MD-11, PA-18, early C-180, BE-18, B727, B747, DC-8, DC-10, LR-JET in that order.
Lou

A guy I know gave a talk to our pilot assn yesterday about the airplanes he's flown.
I thought it would be all about the warbirds & aerobatic stuff he's flown,
but most of it was about his airline career.
He started back in the early 1960's, at the end of the piston-powered airliner era--
he really liked big radials so got himself into Convairs & DC-6's instead of a jet.
30 or so years later, he ended up flying (I think) the MD-11.
 
My favorite transport category was the 767-300. Handled like a fighter flaps out (both inboard and outboard ailerons working). Easy to land. Always very honest in handling manners

My favorite turboprop was the King Air F-90. Total hot rod with good honest handling

My favorite light twin was Aerostar 601P

My favorite single was a Comanche 400. Somehow you always felt like you were flying a bare engine with wings.
 
This was one of my favorites. I was lucky to be able to fly it for a year, most of which was as a flight engineer. Did manage to get some stick time. I thought it flew just like a big Piper Aztec. Love those big radials.

Douglas_DC-6B%2C_Northeast_Airlines_JP6994439.jpg
 
My favorite single was a Comanche 400. Somehow you always felt like you were flying a bare engine with wings.
:onfire: Loved that airplane too, a poor man's P-51. It was so thirsty that you could watch the gas needles moving down.
 
This was one of my favorites. I was lucky to be able to fly it for a year, most of which was as a flight engineer. Did manage to get some stick time. I thought it flew just like a big Piper Aztec. Love those big radials.

Douglas_DC-6B%2C_Northeast_Airlines_JP6994439.jpg

Pete
As a 14 year old kid I went with my dad on a RTW trip in a DC-6. Will never forget trying to sleep in the bunk behind the radio rack with a sunburn between Honolulu and Wake Island! Later got some stick time in one while on furlough flying auto parts out of Willow Run.
Ah, the memories! At my age they are beginning to mean more and more.
Great thread!
Lou
 
In the early 80’s I had a charter in a Navajo late one night from Kenai to Bethel to fly parts and a mechanic to a broken down DC-4. On the way out, we blew a cylinder off the right engine. Continued on (no place else to go that was closer) and when they got the 4 fixed, they offered me a ride home and let me sit right seat and fly.. what a great flying airplane. What I remember most was the engineer sitting at his station working an oscilloscope. Also if I remember, there was a janitrol heater that they fire up for wing anti-icing..
 
Lou, that is awesome flying with your son!

Kurt

Kurt
Thanks. It stands as my proudest and most memorable time in Aviation.
BTW, years ago I had the privilege of a guided tour by your father of his hangar at Eastsound on Orcas. He proudly showed me your grandfathers pilots license signed by Orville Wright. A real privilege.
Lou
 
Lou,
Years later when I was in my 185 flying from Barrow to Kotzebue I heard one calling in with the N number of one of our old -6s. I had a chance to visit with the pilot who told me that the auto parts business had slowed so he was in Kotzebue with it hauling fish from the beaches to Anchorage. The -6 had had all of the pressurization equipment and interior removed and a structural bulkhead installed just behind the forward baggage door. He had a tide chart on his approach plate holder. When I asked him how he got the courage to land on the beaches he told me that he rode in the jump seat of a C-119 to check it out. :roll: The paint had been stripped to the bare aluminum but you could still see the Northeast pilgrim etched in the metal. Those were the good old days.
 
My favorite is the PA18. A Super Cub just can’t be beat for just taking an airplane ride to nowhere, which I do about a fifty times a year. A close second is my V-77. You can’t make a quick fuel stop with the Gullwing. It always draws a few people out to talk.
 
PA-18A with 50's original paint scheme. L-19 and 450 Stearman. The L-19 is useful because it can sit outside without a hangar. It also flies great. Not fast, doesn't have long range fuel. In my view a Stearman is possibly the best flying airplane ever built. After owning and operating 11 through the years: A.) Now too expensive to run a lot B.) Too cold in winter. C.) really needs a hangar, and its hard to push in and out. Still a classic Super Cub will turn my eye anytime, or the rattly sound of a 135/150 flying by. For short money, you cannot beat a Pacer.
 
Back
Top