Round Engine Day

Had a great time this afternoon with my friend Matt at the combined Flying Heritage and Historic Flight “Round Engine Day” at Paine Field. The main event was a series of fly-bys: FH’s P-47 Thunderbolt and HF’s Tigercat and Bearcat. As a bonus, we got to see quite a few more aircraft in the air: B-25 bomber, North American T-6A, A-1D Skyraider and some Chinese-built Yak clones (at least that’s what I think they were). After the flying, we visited the new Historic Flight “Kilo-6” museum and came away quite impressed. Lots more photos after the jump.

Before the festivities began, one of the new 787 Dreamliners claimed the runway.

Grumman F8F Bearcat from Historic Flight, taking off.

Grumman F7F Tigercat taking off. These are all seriously large aircraft, you could walk under the nose of this plane.

There were three of these Chinese-built Yak clones flying today.

While we were watching the official show, the Mitchell B-25 “Grumpy” came trundling out to join in the festivities, unexpectedly (at least it was to us).

The Bearcat, Tigercat and Thunderbolt in flight.

Thunderbolt “Tallahassee Lassie.” The P-47 was known as a “cadet killer”–so powerful that it’s very difficult to fly if you haven’t much experience, I gather.

Tigercat with “Grumpy” waiting on taxiway.

B-25 lifting its nose gear during takeoff.

After the flying (seemed!) to be done we went and visiting the new Historic Flight “Kilo-6” museum. The collection is nowhere near as extensive as the Flying Heritage Museum, but you can walk right up to all of the aircraft and poke around (without touching, of course). This is their Waco UP7F biplane. All of their exhibits and aircraft were immaculate.

This is their P51B Mustang “Impatient Virgin?”–the ladder was placed so you could go up and take a peek in the cockpit.

This is their North American T-6A. It flew earlier in the day and we just caught it landing as we pulled up for the main show.

“Grumpy” was open to visitors. The flight deck was off limits, but I poked my head up into the various access hatches. This is not an aircraft for the claustrophobic. Brave men flew these, I can’t even imagine.

The B-25 was nicely shop-worn.

Cockpit of the Mustang.

As we were leaving, we found this A1-D Skyraider just taking off, so we stopped to watch it do some fly-bys.

We viewed the flights from the west side of the runway and had an enjoyable time. You miss out on the engine start and commentary from the museum staff, but the planes are quite a bit closer and it was not very crowded. In all, a very enjoyable day!