this summer I was at a big party on Texada island, which is one of the gulf islands near Comox CFB (Canadian Forces Base). This is where we keep a couple squadrons of f18s this side of the Rocky Mountains.
Well, on the Sunday, I am not at the beach, about a 5 minute walk, and I hear this _sound_.
Living in Vancouver we have seaplanes taking off all the time, but this sounded different, and like more than one plane.
I make my way to the beach, and three guys, two in p51's and one in a p38, with a Super Chipmunk style stunt plane hanging around, but no in formation. I wish I had my camera with 720p video fully charged, but I didn't.
So imagine, a beach with about 1000 hippies on it (don't worry, I'm not a hippie
), and having these three planes doing dive bombing runs for fun over the beach.
It was so awesome, and way better than any air show. I am sure the pilots were pretending to shoot hippies, but thats just me.
The whole fading in of the sound, and the doppler effect. Gives me goosebumps. I barely even got a look at the Chipmunk, and those are cool as --- as well. Piston engine develoment was at it's peak then. the incoming jet engines moved focus away, but man, what Alison was doing with turbo compounding has not been bettered by much since.
