I have been spending my workweek at a Lockheed Martin manufacturing facility in Dallas/Fort Worth where they make two of the most cutting edge fighters, the F-22 and F-35. I didn't know too much about them before this visit but check out the video below of the F-22. It can basically do a backflip. Absolutely unbelievable.:wow: F-22 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW2Hvu_mUdU&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyKYw_p1Hrc All I gotta say is this shit makes motorcycle racing look sane. Sometimes my job ain't too bad.
I watched a show on Discovery about modern/future war planes. The Raptor has some unbelievable thrust vectoring capabilites that make it able to basically stall then just sit there. Impressive to say the least.
Normal people can visit here, for some cool aviation! All vintages, both private and military. Makes a damn cool vacation.
+1:up: I've been 3 times...BY FAR, the best airshow I've ever been to. CAF, EAA, literally thousands of airplanes of all types. You definitely need to spend a few days to ee everything!! Greatest memory of Oshkosh has to be the first time I went there, (1980?) my childhood hero, Pappy Boyington, (remember Baa Baa Black Sheep?) was there selling/signing prints and copies of his book. He was closing up shop and this guy kept on pestering him to sell him a picture and Pappy kept telling him "Sorry, I'm closing up, you'll ned to come back tomorrow". I just sat there (I think I was 9) awestruck to be standing so close to my hero. The guy kept on pestering Pappy and even I could tell that he was getting sick of this jerk that wouldn't take a hint. I was afraid to say something because obviously, Pappy was trying to get out of there, but I wasn't going to miss this opportunity. Finally, I mustered up the courage to point at the poster he was rolling up said: "That was your first mission with the AVG, when you had just arrived and suddenly had to scramble and found yourself leading a flight of guys that you had never flown with before." He just looked at me and asked how I knew that. I told him: "I've read your book 7 times." He smiled, asked my name, grabbed a pen, signed it and gave it to me no charge! ($50 print!) As he told me "No charge", he gave a look over to the jerk and smiled at him. As soon as Pappy went back to packing stuff up, the jerk came up to me and started pestering me to sell him the print, eventually offering me $100 for it. My dad, who had watched the whole thing, but hadn't said a word up to this point,(and usually never did, dad was a firm believer in letting me figure things out on my own!) stepped up and told me: "Don't ever sell this. It's more special than any amount of $$." Of course I didn't sell it to the jerk, but, sadly, I no longer have the picture anyhow. I lost it when my apartment burned to the ground in '94. Anyhow, Pappy's dead, (God rest his soul) my print is burned to ash, but Oskosh is still going and I'm sure is every bit is great a show now as it was back then. Sometime, I'd like to go back....
Dude, I think you've seen alot of this shit before...I seem to remember going to airshows with you and your father when we were kids. Other planes can do "backflips" as well...only they call it a loop. And didn't your grandfather (illegally) once loop the Chester bridge in a prop plane circa 1960. When you getting back from TX? When can you ride?
Yes it was a prop plane, but it was also a sea plane with fucking pontoons. How about a Sunday night ride?
Allright, a little clarification - Slacco is my brother, and our grandfather was a Navy WWII PB4YT-2 bomber pilot. After the war he trained pilots on sea planes and apparently he decided to loop the Chester Bridge in West Virginia for shits and giggles.
