Coolest traffic you've seen in person

Well, it's not technically in-bounds, but as I fueled up at KVUO, I watched the Thunderbirds take off from KPDX, just a few miles away, on a ferry flight across Washington. If I was a little faster, I'd have seen them in the air...
 
flying with my neighbor in his champ, seeing the Russell Stover blimp as it traveled along I-35. We weren't a whole lot faster.. I started carrying a cheap digital camera in my flight bag not to long after.
 
Got to trail an AN-225 for a brief period of time (well above it of course). Very cool to see from the air.
 
While prepping for my checkride, I went up in the pattern to do some touch and goes at kcid. As i am turning downwind for my first landing, I hear tower talking to "shadow heavy". Turns out an E-6B looking glass aircraft wanted to do VFR pattern work with me. I was so nervous making sure I avoided wake turbulence and didn't get in his way, I cut it short after 3 landings. It was cool though.
 
Cruising along on a XC, I looked down and saw my shadow moving across the landscape. Suddenly, it was completely engulfed by a much larger shadow. I looked in the opposite direction to see a C5A going overhead. Not really that close, but it is a REALLY big plane.
 
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Arriving at SDM one day I found myself cleared to land number 2 behind 'Maid in the Shade' (B-25).
 
I was flying my 172 back from San Diego to Camarillo over the coast line. Before I was in Long Beach I had 3 blimps pointed out to me by flight following, on the third one I asked my friend "what is this, bring your blimp to work day?", he said "no you idiot tomorrow is the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl". That cleared it up. Same flight before I went through the special VFR corridor over LAX flight following pointed out a A380 on our left, that thing sure made me feel small up there.

Not my flight but a friend was flying a Helcat with the Zero in formation to a airshow up north. He was using Gruman as plane type and the zero was using Mitsubishi. ATC pointed them out to a plane in the area, the reply was "I think I see a Helcat chasing a zero, am I correct?"
 
Taxiing out for departure, shared the run up area with a Lockheed Electra. Went back to the same run up bay the next day - the grass behind it had four clear dead streaks from the prop wash!

A few days later, shared the pattern with Vintage Wing's Boeing Stearman.
 
When I was a nav in England the ATC called out 'Speedbird One' for us.

Today Speedbird one is just BA's luxury A318.

Back then, it was the Concorde!
 
Don' know about topping the one about seeing the Shuttle, but this might come close.
Being based at Teterboro for nearly six years, I did a lot of flying all over the East Coast from Maine to Florida. The opportunities to be in the air with other aircraft were limitless. Over NJ, a pair of Staggerwings in formation, over Ma were 2 Vees, 3 each of B-52s doing NOE flying. Lotsa different WWII aircraft heading to or from area air shows at various times and places. For those who don't live in the Northeast, at one time you could fly along the South shore of Long Island at or below 500 ft(maybe you still can). You had a really good view of the entire operation of JKF down to about 100 ft. MSL. Monitoring the JFK tower freq was always interesting. One beautifully clear day they were using 4L for arrivals and 31L for departures. I was tooling along the south shore at 150ft or so when I saw a Concorde just breaking ground. That was extra neat to see because on final about six out there was another Concorde gear down coming in to land with another Concorde 3 miles in trail. All three were leaving huge trails of black smoke. Seeing 3 Concordes airborne at the same time is something that will be etched in my feeble mind forever.

Noah W
 
Mesquite traffic(HQZ Mesquite,Tx.)my instructor and I are near pattern altitude departing from rnwy17 when we spotted traffic off our two o'clock approximately 5 miles out, crossing right to left in front us. I mentioned that it looked like a B-29, we communicated our intentions and they their's,we learned it was indeed Fifi. The B-29 crew was giving rides to veterans that morning and was returning to Addison. We changed our heading and advised Fifi of a nordo aircraft in the area.You can imagine what a thrill it was for a low time student like myself to be in the air and communicating with a B-29. That's the kind of stuff I dreamed about as a kid.I was light in the seat the rest of my lesson and really got my money's worth that day!
 
Too many cool incidents, but the most recent: Flying T&Gs behind a Ford Tri-motor for an hour. It was pretty cool watching them train a new pilot.
 
Henning said:
I was heading back to Long Beach from Vegas coming up on Edwards AFB just at that crack of dawn where there is an orange line on the eastern horizon and the western sky is a deep violet. Edwards approach calls me up, "04Y, traffic at your 12 o'clock opposite direction descending out 120,000', the Space Shuttle" I looked up and there it was glowing.
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ebykowsky said:
That's awesome.
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Assuming it is true...
See here for why I doubt this: http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63701&highlight=Crash&page=53
 
Not sure which is the coolest, I'll list some cool traffic I've seen....

F-15, F-16, F-18, Harrier, F4U, B-17, AC-130, Challenger III (Sean Tucker's), and probably a few others that I can't think of right now.
 
Maybe not a winner given previous posts, into Love Field (Dallas) this spring , "cleared to land #2 behind Liberator" . . . a what ? Sure enough, he turned final about 1/2 mile in front of me, B-24 Liberator from the Confederate Air Force (I know, I know, "commemorative").
 
Definitely flying to Oshkosh and spotting the P51s holding over warbird island. I was inbound in a B25 :)
 
Back when I was a student pilot (and KLZU was a non-towered field!), my instructor and I were crossing over the field while a Beech Starship was on short final. We got to watch it land and roll out as we were directly overhead.
 
One day a few years back flying the Bay Tour, Norcal kept calling out multiple "traffic 500ft, moving slow, probably a helicopter". One was the Metlife Blimp and the other was Eureka (Airship Venture's Zeppelin). Lots of "traffic in sight, it is the blimp" and "traffic in sight, it is the zeppelin" that day as all three of us did turns around the bay.

I've had 747s restricted below me at 3000ft as I passed by SFO at 3500ft countless times.

And then there is this traffic over I-5:

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ebykowsky said:
You think Henning/Pete is drinking another $500 bottle of wine while he posts? Well, I'd rather suspend my disbelief and accept the post at face value. More fun that way.
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Don't know what he is drinking. I get enough BS from cable news, don't need it here. If false, it seems to run down the other legitimate stories posted.
 
I was flying the Citation home from Vegas early one evening, I think we were at FL 370. Anyway it was nearly dark, center calls and asks if it was still light, odd question, but yes it was at altitude, but looked dark on the ground. He says he has traffic 12 o'clock 20 miles converging 2000 feet below us and wanted us to see it before he turned them.:confused: It was a B2! He turned them south about a mile in front of us, it was really neat. The setting sun behind us shining on that beautiful airplane! :D Brought a tear to my eye! :D
Another time we were fishing and the Space Shuttle flew overhead on the back of a 747! Another time with no camera! :mad2::mad2:
 
So many blimps. I'm telling you, they look fun, until you sit in one for 10 hours to go 125 miles. I've flown in the pattern with a number of vintage warbirds and that's always fun.
 
N747JB said:
I was flying the Citation home from Vegas early one evening, I think we were at FL 370. Anyway it was nearly dark, center calls and asks if it was still light, odd question, but yes it was at altitude, but looked dark on the ground. He says he has traffic 12 o'clock 20 miles converging 2000 feet below us and wanted us to see it before he turned them.:confused: It was a B2! He turned them south about a mile in front of us, it was really neat. The setting sun behind us shining on that beautiful airplane! :D Brought a tear to my eye! :D
Another time we were fishing and the Space Shuttle flew overhead on the back of a 747! Another time with no camera! :mad2::mad2:
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I saw it fly directly over my old house in Daggett CA with the shuttle on it, years ago from Edwards towards the East Coast. It was so weird sounding, and so low for a 747 that it woke me up. Too cool.
 
I was waiting to take off at KGGG with an AWACS airplane doing Touch and Goes in the pattern. It took 2 T&Gs before they let me take off. WOW that plan was big!!!
 
ebykowsky said:
Criteria: both you and the traffic had to be in the air at the time; not plane spotting from the ground or seeing aircraft on the ground from above.
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Even if I was sitting in a plane with the engine running, holding short of a runway? I have two in that category: The Beech Starship landing right in front of me as I was holding short of the 27 threshold at OSH, and an F-16 rotating right in front of me at night with the afterburner on as I was holding short of the intersection of 18/36 and 3/21 at MSN.

Then there's the one where I didn't see the traffic - Only the tracers as they shot up the firing range at night! :eek:

I did see some F-16's up close and personal - I was on flight following at 12,500 feet when I got "Skylane 71G, traffic ten o'clock and 2 miles (by the time that was out of his mouth they were at 12:30 and ~1/2 mile), flight of two F-16's..." Luckily I already had my camera out - Click, click, gone, out of sight in less than two seconds. I was able to reply "traffic in sight, no factor" but they were long gone by then.
 
I'm less then 20mi northwest of Beale AFB.. On a flight to SMF once, ATC told me I had traffic at my 12 o'clock and 500' below that was a U2... So I snapped a pic.
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SixPapaCharlie said:
How about these guys?
I caught them with my DSLR while transitioning Alliance in Ft. Worth.

When they asked if I had traffic in sight it took everything I had not to respond: "I have the bogie in sight"
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Knowing the KAFW crew and their appreciation for humor (listen to ATIS Information Bubba to understand what I'm referring to), you would have gotten extra points if you said, "Six Pappa Charlie, Have the Bogie. I'm too close for missiles, switching to guns."
 
Coming past Mountain Home AFB in the Fairchild ATC asked me to make best speed. 2 A-10 would like to come by to take a look.

I was going as fast as the 24 would go, they came by as slow as they could, and blew right by.
 
Back in the mid 80's, I was on an early morning trip from KFAT to KPHX at FL270. The controller ask me if I wanted to see something spectacular. "Sure, what have you got?" "Look at you 11:00 position in about 10 seconds." It was a SR71 with a T-38 chase plane just a few files away almost vertical.
 
Most of mine were out in the China Lake/Edwards range (R2508). Flew over the top of a U-2, and had actually a pretty close pass with an F-35 and F-16 chase.

Other than those, flew over a cell of B-52's somewhere over Utah a few months back. That was pretty cool to see....they are bizarre looking until you can tell what you are looking at. On a similar trip a couple years back bringing a jet home from Nellis, I flew within view of a B-29. That also was neat.
 
SCCutler said:
Two A10 Warthogs, near Fort Hood. Very close, really cool.
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I had "A10, flight of two, twelve o'clock, 1,000 feet below you, four miles," called as traffic once. I replied, Potomac, traffic in sight, only see one."

After a short pause, one A10 driver replies, "that's the idea".

As they passed below me, they were flying Thunderbirds-style formation -- almost touching.
 
!983 or '84 Popping over from Frederick Md to Dulles in a 172RG to drop a guy off. Dulles clears us to land behind the Concord. I was watching real close to see where that nose wheel came down on the runway.:rolleyes:
 
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