Being a new boy I thought I’d start a lighthearted thread. You Guy’s are all fairly knowledgable but there must have been a time when you mis-identified an aeroplane at a show – usually attracting astonished looks from them that know.
I offer my two howlers.
1. Biggin Hill September 1970 – Identifying an HP Hastings as an FW200 Condor!!!
2. West Malling (Great Warbisrds First 1980?) – Shouting to girlfriend that there were two more B-17’s on the far side of the airfield. They were in fact cut-outs for the TV series We’ll Meet Again.
Or are we too ashamed!
Or just perfect?
Peter
By: adrian_gray - 11th March 2005 at 09:43
If you are in Wytham Woods on top of the hill and a VC10 turns onto finals at Brize, it looks bloody scary from up there – big plane, head on, engines pedalling like hell… The first time I saw one I wondered what the hell it was, see enough of them going in there (and the wingtip-to-wingtip echeloned pairs are very impressivce when they fly by Oxford!), it’s just that change in viewpoint…
Adrian
Adrian
By: Archer - 11th March 2005 at 08:56
Pretty sure I dropped a biggun about a year ago when I swore blind – ON THIS FORUM! – that I’d seen a civvie reg VC-10 at Cairo airport three years ago.
Numerous folks, who really do know their stuff about VC-10’s, came back and said, nope, no civvie 10’s out there any more, must’ve been an IL-62.
No chance, says I. I know what a 10 looks like, and I know what a Classic looks like. Dug my heels right in.
But on reflection I really do think I got it wrong…. 😮
Aaaahhhh, justice at last!!! 😀 😀
I must’ve done that a few times myself, but I cannot remember what the subject of the misinformation was I’m afraid.
By: DazDaMan - 11th March 2005 at 08:51
A trip to West Malling 10th and last with a now ex-mate he said the Spitfire was American, thought the Hurricane was a Typhoon but to top it all pointed at Sally B and said it was a modified Lancaster!
May we please find him an torture him, at least for the first faux pas??
I’m probably guilty of a couple of mis-idents. One I can remember is wandering through the old Blue Max Museum at Booker and spying a curvy tail with an RAF flash on the fin and saying to my aunty, “Ooh, there’s a Spit behind there!”.
Walk around the side to reveal…. somebody’s Chipmunk! Well, come on, all I could see was the tail!!
By: Mark12 - 11th March 2005 at 08:01
Cessna 150/Concorde
How about identifying, albeit briefly, a Cessna 150 as a Concorde?
The aircraft, in the middle distance, was making a broad slow climbing turn to port and I was viewing directly from the rear, seeing no forward motion. The sun caught the full span upper surface of the white wing and for the moment looked just like a Concorde on finals. 😮
Mark
By: dj51d - 11th March 2005 at 03:16
The worst I’ve personally done is identified a N3N as an N2S. I once witnessed a gentleman point to a T-28C, tail hook and all, and explain that it was a P-51.
By: mexchiwa00 - 10th March 2005 at 23:51
When I was in Florida awhile back coulda sworn I saw a white Sunderland on the lake. And well, it was a white Sunderland. Hehe.
By: Will J - 10th March 2005 at 18:11
I can remember, sat on the grass at Duxford a few years ago (the 2000 Battle of Britain show) seeing an interesting silhouette on the horizon. Borrowing a pair of binoculars I ‘reliably’ announced the imminent arrival of a Lancaster to my dad, a group of friends and my girlfriend. As it turns out the ‘Lanc’ turned out to have two radial engines and to be a product of the Beech factory…..
I’ll get me coat..
By: Arabella-Cox - 10th March 2005 at 17:53
Pretty sure I dropped a biggun about a year ago when I swore blind – ON THIS FORUM! – that I’d seen a civvie reg VC-10 at Cairo airport three years ago.
Numerous folks, who really do know their stuff about VC-10’s, came back and said, nope, no civvie 10’s out there any more, must’ve been an IL-62.
No chance, says I. I know what a 10 looks like, and I know what a Classic looks like. Dug my heels right in.
But on reflection I really do think I got it wrong…. 😮
By: davski - 10th March 2005 at 17:52
Overheard someone telling their buddy with some confidence that the Yak racing in the Unlimited heats at Reno was in fact a Spitfire. My own personal ID faux pas involved Mike Crimble’s Piston Provost and RNHF Sea Fury trainer… that’s all I’m saying except that they were both parked at some considerable distance away from the crowd line and I was suffering as a result of the high pollen count!
By: Black Knight - 10th March 2005 at 17:43
I used to laugh at the BBC’s Airshow programme. I think her name is Fenella George, but she always seemed to be a little more interested in Mark Hanna than the programme, especially when she covered the Cranfield Classic Jets show & was chasing after him when he arrived in the F-86. Poor chap couldn’t get away quick enough.
By: Eric Mc - 10th March 2005 at 15:07
I remember that 🙂
I used to whinge about the standards of commentary on these latter BBC airshow programmes – especially from the various “bimbos” they used to bring in to add a touch of glamour, obviously with zippo knowledge of aircraft.
Now I wish they’d just show the odd airshow, bimbo or not.
Once Raymond Baxter handed in his retirement application, airshow coverage on the Beeb began a slippy slope to oblivion.
By: Black Knight - 10th March 2005 at 14:59
One of those airshow programmes that used to be fronted by Noel Edmonds, there was some totty covering the Southend show & she said ” And here is our next display item, a Supermarine Seafire, the Navys answer to the immortal Spitfire.” It was actually the RNHF Firefly.
By: Stieglitz - 10th March 2005 at 14:04
I was at an airshow in France where there was also a static show of aircraft. Each aircraft had its plate with info. Behind the plate of the VL Viima stood the Focke Wulf 44 Stieglitz and the unique Viima stood after the plate of the Focke Wulf 44. This mistake was rapidly changed once I had seen this. :diablo:
PS: I didn’t change the positions of these aircraft. :rolleyes: 😉
PPS: The airshow comentator made the same mistake with these 2 aircraft during their flying display.
J.V.
By: Old Fart - 10th March 2005 at 13:55
At Southend Airshow last year the RAF Falcons had just jumped and landed the Herc came round for its usual pass when some Scouser behind me jumped to he’s feet pointed at the aircraft and jumped up down down shouting:
“Thats a f***ing Nimrod that is a f***ing Nimrod”
after picking myself up from the bottom of the cliffs with my sides split through laughter I sat back down trying not to laugh.
A trip to West Malling 10th and last with a now ex-mate he said the Spitfire was American, thought the Hurricane was a Typhoon but to top it all pointed at Sally B and said it was a modified Lancaster!
By: adrian_gray - 10th March 2005 at 13:23
If you search the forum you’ll probably find a couple of mine…
Asked for an ID on a 4-engined turboprop I’d seen at some height… turned out to be a DH Heron! Misled by the narrow cowlings for inline engines…
And I managed to ID a P51D as a high-back model, and wondered where it was from… must have been on something funny that day…
Adrian
By: Corsair166b - 9th March 2005 at 23:42
Don’t know about mis-identifying at an airshow, but a friend of mine has pulled a couple of doozies in the past…..while in Britain on one of our trips, this person asked our British host “Why do they put Targets on British planes?” and almost earned us both a trip back to Heathrow in the aftermath…
This same person also sent an e-mail out to all of our aviation friends announcing that the CAF B-26 had just crashed….TWO YEARS after the incident had happened!
For obvious reasons I keep this person’s identity secret, but other than those two mistakes, this particular person loves airshows and warbirds and is a helluva a photographer (AIB, you know who it is, keep your lips sealed…)
Mark
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March 9, 2005 at 9:48 pm