Mt. Rainier is back there, barely.

A 1947 MiG-15, seriously beyond cool (Mach 0.85), but oh $o thir$ty: 300 gallon$ per hour! (And unlike some other flying here, not tax deductible.) Part of my work for the Department of Defense was with the modeling and simulation of foreign equipment. While this classic is hardly a contemporary foe, flying it did bring some concrete understanding to the abstract perspectives I was used to.

My flight instructor was a fun character, full of reassuring quotes:

"Don't use the ejection seat unless you absolutely know you're going to die, because it'll hurt you just a little bit less." (It's basically like committing suicide to avoid getting killed.)

"If you touch down at the 4,300 [foot] mark, you’re not stopping it on the runway. You go off the runway in a jet, you’re gonna die. Our penalties are severe."

“These airplanes are inherently dangerous. Disneyland takes something that’s safe and gives you the illusion that it’s dangerous. We take something that’s dangerous and give you the illusion it’s safe."

A Super Cub out of Chandler, Arizona, where I did my tailwheel training over the Christmas holidays one year. You'd think that after a couple decades of flying, this little guy would be easy, but everyone — including instructors — says it's the hardest plane they've ever flown. These instructors have 10,000-hour pilots come saying "it's just a Cub," and then getting their asses kicked, just as I did. This thing shows no mercy, in some respects worse than a helicopter, which is determined to kill you if you so much as blink. Quite a humbling experience.

The Super Cub is basically the same as the original Cub, with the addition of a huge, overpowered engine, which makes it a handful to fly. The original Cub is docile: "The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you." (Max Stanley, Northrop test pilot). But it was very helpful later for seaplane training in the PA-12S below.

And later aerobatic training in the Waco Great Lakes biplane, again at Chandler Air Service. This guy's video doing the same stuff in the same plane is much more polished than mine.

The classic B-17, Sentimental Journey, with a promotional video. I was just a sightseer on this one, no logged flight time

The world's last flying B-29, Fifi, with a promotional video, again on board as a sightseer only. A view from the top, tail, and cockpit.

Not quite as sexy, but this C-45 was basically a freebie flight along with Fifi. Most of these are supported by the Commemorative Air Force, which basically provides a bucket list for those of us who love aviation.

My current research involves machine learning of helicopter flight dynamics, so I've been spending a lot of time flying the littlest whirlybird there is, the R22, out of Spokane Felts Field. This isn't my picture (since it's hard to get one like this) or text, but I completely agree. As a rated pilot in both airplanes and helicopters, I'll admit to having complete schizophrenia because there's practically no overlap in the skill sets.