Let's have a proper Canberra again! Maybe a PR 19++? Or a Hunter Mk ?? Or a Lightning Mk10 ? Or just a PP, Mosquito, Vampire or maybe(?) an up to date Swift?
Bill

Plenty of Blaniks still around, including several for sale if you're keen to scratch that itch; the going rate for airworthy examples seems to be between 15,000-30,000 Euros.

Roll rate still measured in degrees per minute...

Blanik
 

As perhaps the only Warsaw-Pact-produced aircraft to be operated by several NATO air forces during the Cold War, the Blanik makes a good trivia question.




(Italy, U.S., Spain)

I did wrong...I just looked it up... no I've never seen a B36 a B something but definitely not a B 36
I'm adorned in ashes and sack cloth Lol

Wasn’t there an aborted effort to do this 3-4 years ago?

Victor then.

If it was in the US, B-17, B-24, B-29?

SAAB Viggen instead of Jaguar and replace Lightning with same ac.

Touch paper light!

KC10 instead of Victor K2 .

When I did my flight refuelling course at Marham in 1962 the school already had classroom boards made up with the VC10's fuel distribution system.

Avro Anson, very under rated, but lovely to fly and very reliable!

I was going to ask as you mentioned your noise cancelling headset and B-36 in the same sentence (Noise cancelling wasn't around in that time period)

The XB-70 was quite the beast, not sure Greta would prove it's come back though.... :p

Shackleton MR 2 - with the pre-tailpipe exhaust stubs.

I'd just love to get covered in that wonderfully odorous water-methanol slime just one more time while clearing out the water-meth tanks. Red face
This thrill was almost equalled by the feeling of sheer joy experienced when chiselling off the exhaust stub nuts on a wet and windy Gib dispersal, a regular event for an engines bod carrying out an after flight servicing when the old grey lady returned without her full complement of stubs.
But it was worth it just to hear the magnificent growl of the four Griffons as she flew past at low level.

Cruel. very cruel ! .....but true...;).:D...however, it was great for loops, and stuff, as you just pointed down, , hoiked back and up and over she went

Civil - VC-10 (or DC-10 tough choice for me)

Mil - Vulcan

Well if we are allowed to get fanciful...

Single seat Strikemaster with a Mk16 seat, Williams FJ44-4 blower, HUD, inboard drops, outers stressed for 600 pounds, wired for wingtip 9 Lima, and a single BK27 with ammo on the other side via a crossfeed.

A bit silly perhaps but if you could make it for the same price as a Super Tucano.....who knows.

I can't believe NONE of you have said Spitfire !! I'm disappointed in you all. All go away and think of your actions pls.

Oh, I took the Spitfire for granted. XIV, cut down rear fuselage and unclipped...

The A1D SkyRaider I remember one pilot telling me "it carried so much you could start your own war"

Transport - VC10
AAR - Victor
Fighter / GA and sheer beauty - Hunter
Specialist capability - Harrier
Rotary - Wessex (later marks)
Trainer - JP5
For fun? The Shackleton, just to watch it "landing" ten feet off the ground for about half of the runway length.

And plenty of room up top

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f36f64ccd.jpeg



https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9fc1d2aff.jpeg

Gonna be greedy and say Martin Baker MB5 too.

And I would love to have seen the BAC.221 fly.

When were these things ever in RAF Service?

Here

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1722728

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1062314/

https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1063386/


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0127ad07e4.jpg

Would love any of the Skyraiders. I'm in the understanding that it coped a lot of beating too (only by what I've read of the subject).

Not exactly Royal Air Force, Nutloose.

Hawker Fury biplane

Supermarine Nighthawk. Someone's going to have to catch that pigeon.

Could not agree more about the Viggen. First flew in 1967 (before the Jaguar).
and (at the real risk of lighting blue touch paper) was a much more realistic answer to NATO's vulnerable airfields than Harrier ever could be.
You would have hole a lot of concrete to stop Viggens flying from an airfield!

In many ways the Draken was even more ahead of it's time- compare performance and range with the Lightning and consider it was running on just one Avon

yes. Supposedly they were to be used as tankers. Even the engines are same same as a CRJ-100. Now the hornets tank each other off the boat and they are running out of airframe time. The A-3 was another one that should be brought back. It could tank AND electronic warfare. It would top off the strike aircraft whilst simultaneously jamming.

Catalina Flying Boat
 

One of the most amazing aircraft

One going spare on Loch Ness.............

Priceless ! at last, the urban myth that has been around since 1949 has finally been debunked !..Who would have thunked prefacing GSA with RAF ( and some roundels here and there ) had nothing to do with the RAF ! ....:D

Fixed that for you! :p

F104 Starfigther :cool:

I never saw the BAC.221 fly, but I did see it trying to fly at Farnborough in 1964 when it aborted its take-off on the Saturday!

Edit: (and of course that aircraft was never in RAF service either)

LOMCEVAK - need a back seater?

My first piloting experience was in a Blanik at RAF Odiham with an RAF instructor. Of course it was in RAF service. Did some really good engine off landings as well...

No doubt all of us who knew what really happened have seen fit to draw a respectful veil of silence over dead_pan’s earlier mention of the highly secret Wiggins Aerodyne development, which was so tragically terminated.

That said, were I forced to pick a winner from all the splendid and much-loved aircraft thus far suggested, it would land - by a very short head indeed! - with Nutty’s offer of the (similarly named, but totally different) Fairey Rotodyne.

Oh, what a sad setback to military aviation was the political squashing of the Rotodyne project (and to civil for that matter - but for being a bit noisy, which wasn’t seen to be too big a problem back then) ... and, like so many others, to the once-proud UK aircraft industry.

Er, Beadwindow please. It isn't generally known that the Wiggins Aerodyne was "tragically terminated". In any event there was rather more to it than that.

Two aircraft that, in my opinion, epitomized brute force, purposeful menace and raw power:

The Douglas A-1 Skyraider (especially in "Sandy" RESCORT/CSAR mode)

The Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low (a thoroughbred beast of a Helicopter)

Better still bring back the GAL Hotspur Mk III - Train 1 Cadet and give another 6 cadets gliding experience all on the same flight.