Coolest traffic you've seen in person

B-17.

I was in the pattern to land one afternoon and happened to see something large and with a familiar shaped vertical stabilizer off to the north. Cancel that landing, dial in warp factor 5 and let's see what it is. As it turns out, B-17's burn a lot of fuel and people who own them fly at economy settings for that reason. I chased it down pretty quickly (it was going about 140 knots) got several nice air to air shots and headed back home.

Last fall, a C-130 with a bunch of pods hanging under it (4 IIRC) was climbing to the West out of Dobbins. It was a couple of thousand feet above me when I saw it. I decided to follow it, and was gaining ground on it at about 170 knots. I probably never got within a couple of miles, but was surprised that it didn't leave me in the dust pretty quickly.
 
B-17 for me, too.

It was an EAA bird, on tour. I spotted it ready for takeoff with a load of passengers, but it had to hold short of the runway, while I was on short final.

It looked shorter than the regional jets that I usually see at the same airport.
 
Returning a borrowed Piper Cherokee to Miami, immediately following the devastating passage of Hurricane Andrew on August 24, 1992, all aircraft had to join a single, slow procession that started to form just north of Fort Lauderdale. Miami center radar was inoperable so we had to visually follow the preceeding aircraft. In my case, I was told to follow a Learjet whose callsign I'll never forget: N500EF. Our home airport, Tamiami, was destroyed with many hangars flattened and planes tossed in pieces all over the Everglades just west of the field, so we were being directed into Opa Locka. Upon landing, we parked next to the Learjet 35 and watched as 12 people disembarked what looked like a 7 passenger plane. It reminded me of the clown car at the circus. One of the passengers was none other than Emerson Fitipaldi who had recently won the Indianapolis 500. That was a coolest traffic experience.
 
At Lincoln, NE circa 1969 on a fine Sunday afternoon:

Lnk Twr: "Cessna 28J (me) cleared touch and go 17 Left, traffic is a Boeing seven-four-seven touch and go on the right." I, and no one else had ever seen a 747 yet. I was on final and looked back and to the right and saw the traffic. I grabbed my E6-B and placed Mole's constant under the index. It was obvious there were insufficient molecules of air available to support both of us and I conceded:

Cessna 28J: "Lincoln Tower, Cessna 28J will be full stop."

Lnk Twr: "We understand, cleared to land."
 
Let's go back to 1954. I'm a 16 year old solo student over the LA basin when I spotted 3 Navy blimps in formation over Santa Monica. I snapped a picture of them which over the years got lost.

Paul
Salome, AZ
 
In the 1990s, I was sitting in the runup area while Marine One (the President's helicopter) landed. That was the shiniest helicopter I have ever seen before or since, and it looked like it was being flown VERY smoothly!

In the 2000s, I was sitting right seat in a CAP plane that was being used for Air Force interception practice, and the jet fighter that was intercepting us zoomed by directly underneath us.

A few years ago, south of Edwards Air Force Base, a B-2 passed me at my altitude (5,500 feet).

With the past year or so, I flew up to Napa to see the B-29 Fi-Fi while it was there. I arranged to be doing raxibacks when it was scheduled to depart, so I ended up in the runup area while they did their runup on the runway. The tower controller asked if I would like to taxi to the other runway to takeoff, and I said that I would prefer to stay where I was and watch the show!

A few weeks ago, while transitioning Moffet Field's airspace, they had me at 1500 feet while the Collings Foundation's Mustang flew 500 feet below me to do an overhead break.
 
Flew touch and goes in the traffic pattern at Kinston, NC in a Warrior while sharing the pattern with the Air Force One 747 (or the backup). I'm sure the POTUS was not on board at the time, so technically it wasn't AF1. Still...cool. Circa 2006. In 2013, was in IMC flying practice ILS approaches at Raleigh Exec (KTTA), holding over the NDB while three C-130's were doing the same thing 1000' below us. Also cool to see.
 
B-17, Supermarine Spitfire, MiG-17 all in the pattern (not at the same time) with me at KAPA, Centennial, CO.

A flight of two A-10's outside of Cape May, NJ. The Thunderbirds at KACY, Atlantic City NJ. I landed just before they did. The next day, I departed just before they did, and they all saluted me as I taxied by. Very cool.
 
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Two F-4 phantoms (1984) diving 1/2 mile ahead as I was transitioning an MOA that was supposed to be clear of activity at the time. :yikes:
 
Mot me but still cool

A friend was tooling around NORDO in an ultralight just outside of a VIP-induced TFR that surrounded Edwards AFB and he either busted it, or just got their attention by being near it. He was treated to a fighter intercept, gear down, flaps down, everything dirtied up...etc. The pilot waved, took a couple pictures, cleaned up and disappeared over the horizon.

A couple of minutes later, and at a respectable distance on either side of him, the same fighter and his buddy treated him to a low pass and a zoom climb with afterburners.
 
I was flying in the back of an ERJ-145 between DEN and TYS earlier this year and I saw a B2 bomber about 5-10,000 feet below. That was a weird plane to see fly.
 
This was many years ago in the UK. There was a purple airway in effect, which meant that a Royal was flying in the area. I returned to White Waltham after the purple airway was supposed to have ended. No radios back then, but I had a light signal to stay away from the field. I saw an RAF DH Dove about to take off from the active. After it left I got the green light to return and land. I did the standard over head join at 1500 feet, only to see Prince Phillip and his RAF instructor flying towards me, contrary to all regulations! A quick break and go around to land. I thought that I might get dinged for something, even though I was in the right, but no one said anything about it!
 
Marine One (three helicopters) about 2,000 feet right underneath of me, just outside P-40.
 
An E-2 overflew the runway when I was on a tight downwind in the 152. He then flew into the next county before starting his crosswind so as to give me plenty of time.
 
2006, shortly before my check ride, I flew from Orlando Exec (KORL) to Leesburg (KLEE) for some landing practice. As I was inbound I heard them clear a Catalina to land. Sure enough, I saw the PBY land and a few minutes later, take off while I was still in the pattern. Headed down to Lakeland for Sun-N-Fun.

John
 
We had Ospreys pass 500' below us down in NC.

I once was on final for 36R at Oshkosh when Blue Angel 7 made an overhead break on the left side.
 
I saw the Thunderbirds when they arrived for the 'Thunder over Michigan' in KYIP last year... KARB tower was nice enough to point out, that we have to do left traffic so we stay away from them... :D We were approximately at the same altitude - and it was a very impressive view! :yesnod:
 
mjburian said:
Flying from Timmerman (KMWC) to Middleton-Morey (C29) two months ago, I passed just south of KMSN as a flight of F-15s were inbound from the north. Got to witness an overhead break at about 3 miles out the passenger window (the knife-edge jet nearly filled the window). I had a hint it was coming from the ATC chatter (and the slight redirect I was given), but never thought to grab my phone to snap a photo.

Still, that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
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Speaking of a formation of eagles, these guys looked pretty cool. I'm pretty sure I got an upraised middle feather from one of them, though ...

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Took of behind 2 F16 jets in Maine ,we were in a C172. They lifted off climbed about 30 feet and went vertical. Straight up !!. Tower asked us to please follow their take off pattern for noise abatement. We tried.
 
Saw a pair of F-16s doing low high speed maneuvers in a local MOA. I've also been intercepted by a former student in the said F-16. He was saying hello.
 
Pilawt said:
Speaking of a formation of eagles, these guys looked pretty cool. I'm pretty sure I got an upraised middle feather from one of them, though ...

P1050477.JPG
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Last year when I did my SES training in NW Wisconsin, I had a bald eagle fly along side of me. Freaked me the eff out. But in a good way.
 
Used to volunteer lots of hours at Oshkosh, back in the era when Black Sheep Squadron was popular. They would always try to do nice things for us volunteers. Mine was a ride in a B-25 during the airshow.

Imagine 3 Corsairs stacked off the left wing of a B-25 with Oshkosh in full tilt as the background. That's as good as it's gotten for me. Had the pix for the longest time, but no longer.

Jim

PS- Oops...guess that doesn't qualify as traffic, being a formation. Oh, well :D
 
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Not sure if this counts, but I was sitting in the back of a Seminole and we were holding short of the runway. There was an air show that weekend and a USMC (Semper Fi!) F-18 did a 20-30 foot AGL low pass over the runway. I think he was doing about 180-200 knots or so and then did an unrestricted climb to 10,000 after getting to the departure end of the runway. We had to hold short for wake turbulence for about 6 minutes before tower would clear us to take off.
 
I've had two V-35's pass 500' below me while flying to my place in NC.

We used to regularly fly approaches to the parallel runway at IAD when the Concorde was landing.
 
I've flown close to C-130's flying out of Patrick AFB since I started my training and that's always cool. The best though was on my discovery flight, there was a B-25 from the warbird museum based out of KTIX that was doing touch n goes.
 
Flying into SBP as I exited the Avilla pass I found myself nose to nose with a Ford Trimotor.

He was climbing out slowly and I was at the rotorcraft pattern altitude.

“Experimental 509QB; opposite direction traffic, twelve o’clock, one mile, 700 feet, climbing, report in sight.”

I caught a picture of it back on the ground as we departed.

I have also encountered a B17 and a B25 in the pattern at SBP.
 

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While getting my PPL-

"Skyhawk bla bla bla, #2 to land-you'll be following the B-29 (FIFI)..."
 
I was out bumping around the traffic pattern practicing some landings in not-so-ideal conditions when ATC started giving all kinds of upwind, crosswind, downwind extension instructions. I was able to watch a one of them land as I approached the numbers on one of my downwind legs.

I finally made a full stop and called it a day and watched the last two land. I think there was 7 of them IRRC.

 
Mtns2Skies said:
I was flying in the back of an ERJ-145 between DEN and TYS earlier this year and I saw a B2 bomber about 5-10,000 feet below. That was a weird plane to see fly.
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Yeah, the B2 is always strange to see in flight. I've seen one in Utah fly overhead a couple thousand feet above us. Very cool!

But the coolest for me? Probably a P-38 buzzing around Chino while on approach into LAX.
 
I saw a whole bunch of Grumman S-2Ts in CalFire livery at Ukiah yesterday.

Those guys kept a very impressive pace of air tanker operations.

Made a hell of a lot of noise, too, but it was good noise. Those are all twin turboprops, loaded to the gills when they take off.

I went in there on my instrument cross country. Had I known ahead of time, I would have gone somewhere else and stayed out of their way. Dang, there were a lot of traffic calls while on the localizer.
 
Omalley1537 said:
While getting my PPL-

"Skyhawk bla bla bla, #2 to land-you'll be following the B-29 (FIFI)..."
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Yeah, it's pretty cool to hear the callsign "Stratofortress 529 bravo ... "

We stopped for gas at KWJF (Lancaster CA) on our way home from Arizona last year, and were pleasantly surprised to learn that Fifi was due in for a scheduled appearance on her tour in just a few minutes. So we hung around for the show.

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Afterwards we continued north. Thunderstorms in northern California convinced us to stop for the night at Sacramento. We landed at the former McClellan AFB. The Lions Gate Hotel, just off the field, is the old officers' quarters, and the lobby and restaurant are in what used to be the Officers Club. In our room was a souvenir postcard with a photo of B-29s in the hangar at McClellan. Sort of a themed day.

LionsGate_01.jpg
 
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