On the Ramp Right Now!

Well here we go!   A plane REALLY after my own heart!  

I snapped on the hangar lights early this morning to find THIS:

The Air Cam !!!!

Recently purchased by it's pilot and some partners, it's headed for Arizona.









Looks suspiciously like the aluminum arrow shaft the B.O.T.'s use with their cameras!











A 100 foot run and he's off to Arizona...

Pretty cold flying for an Air Cam!!!

Yeah, he DID have a heated vest and pants though. We have several guys here that fly open-cockpit Magni-Gyros year-round with this gear, and have a big time.

The Air Cam looks well powered, it must haul butt. Sitting up front like that must be a real thrill ride.
Be great to own one and make a living from photo and video in the air!

Found a video but you will have to turn the sound off.

http://vimeo.com/26538393

Came to work a couple mornings ago to find this M.D. 500 parked on the ramp in the pre-dawn darkness (they'll ALWAYS be "Hughes 500's" to me).

I didn't notice the double-tail rotor set until later on when I took these photos as the sky lightened.

These are my favorite civilian helicopter, and we've also seen some pretty mean military examples too. They are small and fast, and fly like a chubby little Ferrari.











My brother A.J., a retired Sargent in the Missouri Highway Patrol, put his surplus Cayuse to good use, ruining the harvest for a lot of dope farmers back in his days with the Patrol.

Snuck down to the airport Thursday morning, hoping to get in some solitary time with the Snowbird project.  Got the last of the lettering finished.  The "Military Number" near the tail is actually the date of our airshow (featuring the Canadian Snowbirds) this coming May...an idea from our "Certified Canadian", Captain Ron !

Rush Limbaugh's magnificent Grumman 550 Gulfstream waits for for it's crew and Mr. & Mrs. Rush to return from Thanksgiving Dinner...



Worked to gather and organized the giant mess we made in our little work space between an abused Cessna 172 and a 3.8 million dollar Phenom Jet...



Lettering/Markings wrapping up...ready for a "Dry Run" on Friday...  

Also, to give proper credit, the "Snowbird" lettering was done by our airport manager Bruce, pictured below with some of his Happy Airport Elves !!!

Thanks Roddie !


I'm ready for this deal to be done !!!!

My friend Pete, and his Radial Rocket, make the cover of Trade-a-Plane...and no...it's not for sale !!!

Wow, that was fun! Great work pointing the camera in all the right places.
There was an aileron roll, but at one other point I wasn't sure, did y'all do a loop?

Rusty

RknRusty wrote:Wow, that was fun! Great work pointing the camera in all the right places.
There was an aileron roll, but at one other point I wasn't sure, did y'all do a loop?

Rusty

Hey Rusty,

The roll was actually a "Barrel-Roll" a blend of loop and roll that keeps you in 1 G conditions all the way around. It was cool, but I REALLY enjoyed the breaks at the top of the duster climbs, diving, with a smooth roll-out on the deck that had us booking through the bottomlands down low, and pylon turning around some solitary trees (didn't get that on video...too busy eating it up and trying not to Redneck Hoot !) .

"Rocket" is right.

I enjoy this thread as I spent 20+ years on Army Airfields and some were co located on Air Force or Civilian airports. I got to see a lot of interesting aircraft.

As a Rat Fink fan of the 60s and 70s this airplane on "our side" of Stuttgart International (Echterdingen Army Airfield) was fun for me



The nose art



These are internet photos as I rarely had a camera with me in those days

So then, the day changed...my aching shoulder stopped aching, my right knee miraculously came back on-line with no complaints, the old-guy-late-afternoon-stupor simply vaporized...

I had a Mustang taxiing in !!!!

I have to admit to spinning in a circle for a moment, trying to remember where I kept my always-strategically-placed camera before my brain got some traction, as the airplane of all airplanes cruised toward me on Taxiway Alpha.

Since 1962...when my brother A.J. bought me a plastic Monogram Mustang (I possess one of those kits, found at a swap meet years ago)...the Mustang was MY airplane.  I flew hundreds of backyard missions, shooting down Nazis and Japs and the occasional North Korean with my invincible P-51.

So, I must be excused for a little slobbering and incoherent babbling at the sight of one of these sexiest-of-all-things-that-ever-flew flying machines !!!

I managed to welcome the Pilot to our ramp without making a total fool of myself.  He was a great guy, which is a gift in itself as these wonderful planes often seem to be piloted by giant-egoed types that can really take down a great moment.  He fueled his Mustang while I took photos, then headed to the restaurant for a sandwich...leaving me alone on the ramp with this Big Horse.

I got a bunch of photos, and then hoofed it over to my HHR for my video camera...wanting to be ready for the start-up of the Mustang's Merlin engine when my hero pilot returned.

With Mustangs, the audio is JUST as important as the video...and I DID get the start-up on a mostly quiet ramp, though, as always, God decided to mess with me...by having my goofy little coworker call me on my radio wanting to know where a certain clipboard was.  I yelled, "I'LL GET IT IN A MOMENT !!!!!", then turned off the offending walkie-talkie.  I HATE IT when these generation-whatever doofus's don't recognize the gravity of a special moment !!!

I'll be putting a video on this post, with anti-doofus-editing.

WOW COOL a quick search of the tail # found some history

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/p51registry/p51-4473206.html

Cool Kim!

Some guys have all the luck!

Looking at the info crank posted it seems like that plane prefers belly landing.

Harkens back memories of the late Jimmy Leeward and the "Galloping Ghost".

RIP Jimmy.   

SD

I bet you had a good look at that plane. Very nice indeed

Kim wrote:God decided to mess with me...by having my goofy little coworker call me on my radio wanting to know where a certain clipboard was.  I yelled, "I'LL GET IT IN A MOMENT !!!!!", then turned off the offending walkie-talkie.  I HATE IT when these generation-whatever doofus's don't recognize the gravity of a special moment !!!

Kim, that would be a nice subject for making another drawing or cartoon, same as the ones you posted before!

Lieven

wwwaaaayyyy COOOL!!!!!

and great photos, do you have a larger pix of this pic?

Why, yes I do !....

OVERLORD wrote:I bet you had a good look at that plane. Very nice indeed

Kim wrote:God decided to mess with me...by having my goofy little coworker call me on my radio wanting to know where a certain clipboard was.  I yelled, "I'LL GET IT IN A MOMENT !!!!!", then turned off the offending walkie-talkie.  I HATE IT when these generation-whatever doofus's don't recognize the gravity of a special moment !!!

Kim, that would be a nice subject for making another drawing or cartoon, same as the ones you posted before!

Lieven

May have to do it Lieven!!!!  I KNOW I sound like a grouch, but MAN!...there are stretches out here when NOTHING is going on, and on the rare occasion that I need it 'quiet on the set' for a couple moments, I become the most popular guy on the airport !

Had a lot of this happen...folks just don't realize their voices are recorded along with the video.  I once caught a Pietenpol landing on the grass at the Brodhead, Wisconsin Reunion.  Followed the plane through a perfect, left wheel, cross-wind touch down, and just as the right wheel touched the grass runway, a goober standing behind me yelled,  "That was F#^&$*&#ing Beautiful...Hope you got it!"

I talked about him and his mama all the way back to my tent!

Maybe this is just the suffering I've always heard about artists having to endure....

I did this ink-doodle when I was a teenager. When I was 5 or so, and my Grandpop was still alive, he'd use a cross-horse to cut wood for our stove, and when he wasn't using it, I'd throw a plank across it to handily convert it to a Fighter Plane.

I added the Monogram Mustang laying in the grass, though it'd be a few more years before I'd get it...

I'm not sure why I'm such a sentimental sop, nor do I know why I love machines as if they had blood, sweat, and tears. But all that aside, I find that picture tugging at my heartstrings. Thanks for the entertainment.
Rusty

thanks