I was born just about 400 yards (metres) north of the main 31/13 runway at Prestwick airport nearly 68 years ago. You might say that I was heavily into aeroplanes for as long as I can remember.
The civilian aircraft in use when I was a youngster were DC-3s, DC-4s, DC-6s and DC-7s from the Douglas stable. L049, L749 and L1049 from Lockheed and the B377 Stratocruiser from Boeings. The odd Liberator, Languedoc, C-46 and even a Fokker XXII went by occasionally.
The USAF supplied such aircraft as the B-17, B-29, B-50, B-36, C-47, C-54, C-74, C-82, C-97, C-118, C-119 and C-124. The US Navy provided P2V Neptunes and the odd Martin Mercator.
There were many others.
To get back to the thread, I could lie in bed at night and identify most of them with quite a degree of reliability just by listening to the engine noise.
I slept very well despite the noise. In fact it wasn't noise to me but music. Only two things would wake me; the first was an unusual noise and the second was the Grumman Albatross with which 67th ARS was equipped. That aeroplane made so much noise that it could wake the dead 200 nms away. If I remember correctly, the engine was un-geared so the prop tips were supersonic (like the T-6/Harvard).
Isn't nostalgia a wonderful thing?