Aviation BS and Photo Thread

All the smoke from the fires in NorCal this morning coming out of MRY

 

There were a few of them that came out of here that were reproductions with American built engines disguised in them. I do know that there is a legit -262 with Jumo engines sitting over there that was part of Paul Allen's collection that they had engines running on last fall and did some taxi tests with. They use a little weed whacker engine to start it that sounds funny as hell. I know they were getting ready to fly it but I don't know that it ever happened.

Unfortunately since he died and now with Covid they have been closed and things have been real quiet over there. Normally during the summer they are out flying planes all the time and driving around tanks, firing blanks that shake our whole building. It's always fun to watch people that haven't been here for it before start freaking out until they realize no one else even flinches.

 

I was in the jumo one. They got the airframe around 2000 and it was in all sorts of pieces in various states of restoration around 2001 when I was there. My granddad was an old Boeing guy and knew some folks that knew some folks because it was a secret at the time they even had it. This was long before the elaborate hangar they have now, it was in basically a shed. I'll have to do some digging when I get home, I'm fairly certain I know where the pic is.

 

Smoke in Bozeman....It was my first time to Montana and I couldn’t see anything! Bummer.

 

Was about 15 miles south of there two weeks ago.
Quite a different view.



Working in the tailwheel this week. Two point landings yesterday. Will be a couple weeks before I fly again though. Weather went to crap today.

 

Cool story.

 

...^^^... Yep, believe it or not, my childhood experience as a paper delivery boy, folding and throwing over 200+ newspapers a day for 6 years and later Little League baseball pitcher helped me out a lot with 2.75's later in life.

The old primitive manual targeting systems were horrible and bounced all over the place. A grease pencil mark on the wind screen and learning to anticipate and lead with a 2.75 was crucial to putting the ordinance on target.

 

I was there Monday-Tuesday

 

Do you live in Bozeman?

 

Oh nice! I’m going back on Saturday but I’ll only be on the ground long enough to fuel and load passengers and then to head out. I want another overnight up there, especially without the smoke in the air

 

Well....we could’ve maybe had an out of towners meet. I was in Butte on Monday afternoon for the night then hopped over to Anaconda for passengers Tuesday.

 

Wish I was going camping! It’s been a while since I’ve had the truck out

 

Wait, do you happen to know the Wanders family in Belgrade? Bill, Renee and their 3 boys?

 

That’s my uncle and family up in Belgrade, they live in between the park and ball field up there. I fly up from phx every year and go ice climbing and snowboarding at snow bowl with my uncle. And I was just there months ago and mountain biked Discovery and Big Sky bike park. Tons of fun!