What airplane have you flown with a cool story behind it?
Posted by dakk33@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 89 comments
My “cool fact about this airplane” is that I used to fly John Glenn’s old Baron 58 after he sold it to its current owner. It’s also the one that he set the speed record in from Dayton to Washington in 96 minutes. Always thought that was pretty cool. What’s yours?
GG135LR@reddit
I flew the second last B737-200 ever built. Not as cool as flying the last one, but quite close.
ViperCancer@reddit
When I was in training I got to fly the F-16 0778. It was the first F-16 with an air to air kill, the first AMRAAM kill and done by future 4 star general Gary North.
Whiplash007@reddit
Probably the first US Viper with an air to air kill (AMRAAM definitely). The Israelis and Pakistanis got Viper air to air kills earlier than USAF did.
ViperCancer@reddit
I think you are correct. First for US F-16 and first use of an AMRAAM for a kill.
Entire_Ad3411@reddit
Not one I flew (enlisted AF at the time) but I got to see and touch "Lucky" the F-15 that got an air to air kill on an Iraqi helo with a guided bomb in the Gulf War. It was part of the rotation when I was deployed to MSAB. Even got them to fly a flag on a mission in it for me.
gnowbot@reddit
Did it have a kill symbol painted on the fuselage?
ViperCancer@reddit
Yes. A green star.
dakk33@reddit (OP)
Flying an F16 already makes it incredible, but the first air to air kill? That’s legendary
Both_Coast3017@reddit
Former PC12 drug mule.
Silly_Rub_6304@reddit
I don't know how cool anyone here will find this, but I flew a good 10+ hours in a P210 Silver Eagle: a Cessna 210 that was converted to a turbine powerplant. The Allison turbine is roughly the size of a loaf of bread and puts out ~450 HP. For every 10% change in power, you have to re-trim the rudder. Chaotic cockpit layout but smooth as butter to fly. I got to fly it into the flight levels once. :)
Both_Coast3017@reddit
Flew in one of these, sick plane. Super fun to fly
bottomfeeder52@reddit
sweet
emianako@reddit
B-HNL (formerly N7771) which was the first ever 777 prototype. Was used as a test plane by Boeing for 6 years before being used commercially by Cathay Pacific
Bluedevil1992@reddit
Took the very first airplane modded into the Talon config to the boneyard. Also flew the surviving Talon from the Son Tay raid to Cannon AFB, where she sits at the gate. 1873 was not originally a USAF aircraft, that's not even her real tail number! Should be parked in front of Langley.
H8s2Land@reddit
I flew a PC12 that was sold to a guy who flew it into a Tstorm. It broke apart and killed all on board.
Doc1010@reddit
Wasn’t that the same PC12 that was owned by the attorney representing Casey Anthony prior to the Tstorm owner?
H8s2Land@reddit
Whoa dude! Yes. I’m super impressed that you know that. And the owner of our charter business flew her and the attorney after she won her trial.
Doc1010@reddit
Ha! I remember when it was for sale as the owner I was flying for at the time was in the market for an NG so that was presented. It was a very nice Pilatus. The accident report, however, is most-certainly one of the more horrific ones I’ve read.
H8s2Land@reddit
Yes, it was kind of a shot to the soul to see an aircraft that you were intimately familiar with in pieces.
Doc1010@reddit
Totally. Absolutely awful. I’ve had it once but on a smaller single-engine piston with one fatality. Hard to forget those images, no doubt.
towelpills@reddit
I discovered my Cessna 172 accidentally showed up in the airport episode of ADAM-12.
Also I flew the Facebook Aquila
Greedy_Guarantee7348@reddit
I've got some time in the oldest flying dash 8 - older then me by a few years
ChopAndDrop27@reddit
Flew a King Air that had a plaque in it stating that it was the personal aircraft of Olive Ann Beach.
BluesyMoo@reddit
One of the Piper Warriors that I trained on, N564PU, was intentionally crashed in a successful suicide. It was a great plane :/
Mustang_289@reddit
N50545; the 172 that the Kings were detained at gun point in.
http://avstop.com/news_august_2010/john_and_martha_king_held_by_gunpoint_over_aircraft_tail_number.htm
Veritech-1@reddit
Didn’t expect to see a tail number that I have flown here lol
irishluck949@reddit
Flown that one too!
mduell@reddit
I operated the last produced copy of a particular model of Cessna for a number of years; they actually "forgot"/didn't document they delivered it, so the serial was excluded from SBs for quite a while until I contacted them because I needed one.
12477@reddit
I have flown PA28 serial number 28-56 - The first PA-28-160 in my country, dating back to 1961, and was used by Piper as a sales demonstration.
Slick-62@reddit
Army got 2 UV-20A Porters, 79-23253 and 254 to replace the last 2 Beavers in the active inventory flying ring missions in Berlin. I have time in both.
e_pilot@reddit
I flew the second to last 747 built, haven’t had the chance to fly the last one yet.
whatdoestheregsay@reddit
Not crazy cool. But my discovery flight like 6 years ago was in an old Ohio Highway Patrol 172. Still painted black and grey with the silhouette of the state to this day, and sitting on the ramp at KRVS.
weaselkeeper@reddit
I flew a B-25J Pacific Princess off the USS Carl Vinson twice in 1995, September just off Waikiki, October SF Fleet Week. Google it.
Cessnateur@reddit
Found video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6LuAJ3LEsk
What kind of wind did you have over the deck? What was your indicated liftoff speed, and how much of a gap was there between that speed and Vmc?
weaselkeeper@reddit
The boat was giving us 40 kts over the bow, there’s no stoping once your about a third of the way down the deck you’re committed and with that short of a runway I honestly quit looking inside and kept my eyes on the task at hand, last I saw was 80 kts so I knew we were good to go and as soon as the bow wave of air hit us we were off then i did look and it was 110 kts as we cleared the bow. Depending on weight (fuel and armament) no bomb load of course take off is typically 100-120 kts but it will stager into the air just above 85 kts.
Outrageous-Many-2928@reddit
COM/SEL Glider Dispatcher. Got to fly an Emirates A380 flight simulator. I’ve also flown an B757, B767 and DC8 simulators.
DisregardLogan@reddit
Those are regular sims
Outrageous-Many-2928@reddit
Yes, full flight simulators.
DisregardLogan@reddit
That’s not what this post is talking about
Which_Material_3100@reddit
I flew the “Hanoi Taxi” (C-141) on my fini flight in the Air Force. This plane brought home American POWs from Vietnam and is now in the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH
BigCasetteBoy@reddit
I flew the last bank check flight for Ameriflight and the LCF at Atlas
redditburner_5000@reddit
End of an era
RuthlessGravy@reddit
I've got plenty of time in 121PB, the Cessna 402 featured in the TV show "Wings." It was registered 121PP in the show. It has since been scrapped, the thing had like 40K hrs on it, but still ran routes around New England until the end.
poisonandtheremedy@reddit
That's a good one, mainly because grew up in South Shore MA 👍🏻
ManifestDestinysChld@reddit
I grew up in the Metrowest, but I loved going to Navy air shows at South Weymouth NAS.
Roger_Freedman_Phys@reddit
I once flew a Cessna Cardinal that had been flown by Francis Gary Powers — the U-2 pilot who was shown down over the Soviet Union in 1960 — when he was working as a airborne traffic reporter for Los Angeles radio station KGIL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Gary_Powers
dakk33@reddit (OP)
That is awesome! The stories that guy must’ve had.
jkoz226@reddit
Definitely shouldn’t have been able to tell.
Kauffman67@reddit
I've got 300 hours in a B-25. Most right seat but around 80 PIC.
the_kerbal_side@reddit
Which one?
Kauffman67@reddit
Belonged to a museum in Texas in the 80s and 90s.
Ok-Motor1883@reddit
I fly the last plane stolen by the barefoot bandit that he crashed in the Bahamas quite often. Great plane, great story. Look him up, crazy guy.
cicinaulianovsk@reddit
I was flying a C172 that previously belonged to a company that rescued people living in remote areas.The missions ranged from transporting the sick, food, medicine, etc.
exploringtheworld797@reddit
Leonard Nimoy’s (original Star Trek) Bellanca Viking.
shadeland@reddit
There's been quite a few Star Trek actors to fly. Shatner has a private pilot cert for SEL and glider (but probably hasn't flown in a while). James Doohan flew gliders in WWII, Nimoy, and Michael Dorn/Worf is an accomplished pilot, plus the woman who played Vina from "The Cage/Minagerie". And of course Roddenberry himself was a B-17 pilot.
westtexasdeathpencil@reddit
A bit morbid compared to other entries here, but I recently learned that one of the twin otters I used to fly was previously used by the Argentine military to operate death flights during the dirty war. They called it “The Executioner”.
shadeland@reddit
Was it a jump plane?
SuperSaint77x@reddit
Back in the day I instructed in a V-tail Bonanza that was used for drug trafficking. DEA caught the guy at a small airport in TX. Apparently the local sheriff was at the airport at the time and managed to take possession of the aircraft by storing it his personal hangar. When the owner went to retrieve it had quite a bit of unaccounted Hobbs time after the arrest, but he didn’t press the issue as he was lucky not to lose the airplane.
Sad-Umpire6000@reddit
I got half an hour or so of stick time in an SNJ that was modified to be a Nakajima “Kate” torpedo bomber for Tora Tora Tora! Didn’t get to do the landing but I got in a couple low passes and some maneuvering.
I also got a bit of stick time in our neighbor’s Howard DGA-15 that was once owned by Gen. Curtis LeMay.
Ustakion@reddit
A rather sad one. The ATR that flat spin in Brazil was actually my first Taste of flying ATR on base training
GryphonGuitar@reddit
I once flew an old Luftwaffe trainer which was used to train German pilots who flew in the Battle of Britain.
-burnr-@reddit
I used to fly Kingair 200 #7
Impossible-Bad-2291@reddit
I flew as a passenger aboard the Gimly Glider (to be clear, many years later).
-burnr-@reddit
Me too. Many times.
Headoutdaplane@reddit
Didn't fly it, but jumped out of Tico Belle, a c-47 that did one glider sortie and two jump sorties for d-day, was also involved in Market Garden and the Berlin Airlift.
It was weird thinking that I was in a plane that some paratrooper was shitting his pants on d-day
Fluxcapasiter@reddit
I've flown the first and second ever Cessna 172 to come with a g1000 from the factory. My school got the first 2
Former-Primary-3186@reddit
I got to fly N9344L a few years back, a CAP Cessna 172 that's now in the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB. It flew over ground zero the day after 9/11 to survey the wreckage--the only civilian airplane allowed in the sky over NYC that day.
It's a small flex, but that's my coolest.
ItalianFlyer@reddit
I flew the last 757 to ever roll off the assembly line.
Yellowtelephone1@reddit
I flew a glider that set a few records.
I set my own personal record in that ship too. Longest duration flight.
Bluzzard@reddit
I used to fly on a Boeing 707 military plane that was once hijacked. The E-8C were all Boeing 707’s from different parts of the world when they were modified by Northrop Grumman to become a military plane when they were developed in the late 80’s.
dopexile@reddit
The 707 had a period in aviation where there they were hijacked hundreds of times. They didn't have a term for it at the time, so they called it air piracy. Every month, people would hijack the planes and force them to land in Cuba to seek asylum or as fugitives fleeing legal prosecution. At the time, it wasn't considered a major problem because they ended peacefully.
dakk33@reddit (OP)
Wow! How did you find that out?
Bluzzard@reddit
We had a display that showed what each Boeing 707 was prior to becoming an E-8C. We had one bird that had the American Airlines logo on the Flight Engineers desk. Another was a German Air Force plane.
ThatLooksRight@reddit
I flew C-130s that were used in Operation Eagle Claw (the failed hostage rescue in Iran under Carter).
One had hit a sand dune and always flew crooked. Took a good bit of rudder trim.
If you know the story, one plane didn’t get returned to the unit after it was “borrowed.”
scudrunner14@reddit
Got to fly the last Cessna 195 ever made when I was 14. One of the last good memories I have with my pops before he went down. Was such a cool plane and it was a privilege to be able to go up in it
ThatHellacopterGuy@reddit
I’ve got a couple desert sorties on KC-10 82-0164, the aircraft flown by the winners of the 1986 Mackay Trophy.
FlydirectMoxie@reddit
I flew the B727 that DB Cooper bailed from. Ex NW bird that was converted to a freighter operated for Emery Air Freight. It’s been too long to remember the N-number. Might have been 435EX.
lowandsleepy@reddit
I used to fly an O-2A that was shot in Vietnam, still had the scab patches on the tail boom. Did government contract work in it and got to park it on an airforce base in a hangar with an F-35 and a U-2 for a couple weeks. The airforce guys went wild for it since it was still painted in AF colors.
WolfieStink@reddit
I’ve flown the Aerostar that holds the twin engine piston speed record!
Verna5048@reddit
Holy profile
WolfieStink@reddit
Lmao
dakk33@reddit (OP)
He’s the fastest man alive!
WolfieStink@reddit
I don’t get the reference if that is one
Pilot_Tim@reddit
My Cherokee was once owned by Edna White, a famous powerderpuff racer.
OCFlier@reddit
I almost bought the B58 Baron that was flown over Ground Zero on 9/11 by Cliff Robertson. He sold it to Clay Lacy, and it was his estate that was selling it. A beautiful plane, but it had been sitting for a few years and I didn’t want any problems with the engines.
Puddleduck97@reddit
I did my first solo in (and continue to fly) G-RAFG, a T67C Firefly that featured in a 90s BBC children's television programme.
R5Jockey@reddit
I’ve flown Rob Holland’s MX2.
dakk33@reddit (OP)
RIP to a legend
rFlyingTower@reddit
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
My “cool fact about this airplane” is that I used to fly John Glenn’s old Baron 58 after he sold it to its current owner. It’s also the one that he set the speed record in from Dayton to Washington in 96 minutes. Always thought that was pretty cool. What’s yours?
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