Good thread; you could creep it off in all sorts of directions. If it were to follow the "..what would you NEVER want to fly" line of thought, I'd offer the following:
- aforementioned Wright Flyer, Bleriot or indeed any pre-WW1 aircraft
- having just read Mr Lecomber's article about displaying a radial-engined Camel, I'm not sure I'd want to have been on any WW1 aircraft either.
- Fairey Battles anywhere near Maastricht
- Brewster Buffaloes anywhere near the Japanese (although the Finns seemed to do a remarkably good job against the Russians with these).
- He162, Ohka or any of those end-of-WW2 desperate monstrosities put together by the failing Axis powers
But to return to the theme, these are things I wish I'd flown:
- Sunderlands somewhere warm and non-threatening.
- Wapitis over Nepal/Tibet.
- Dakotas with my Dad during the Berlin Airlift.
- K-cars, Lynx and Cheetahs somewhere north of Seth Efrica back in the late 1970s.
But finally, if I'm proved wrong after all these years and it turns out there really is an afterlife, I know what it'll be like for me (assuming I qualify, of course):
Flying SOAF Hueys sometime in the early 80s, with Bob Prest and his Sqn mates coming through every year for the National Day flypoast just to remind us that FJ people sometimes know how to have fun too. Nearly as much as we do in rotary...