Air Combat USA

[Jimbo 0]

Anyone ever do this?

It's too bad that jumping has sucked up almost all of my available funds, this looks like it would a lot of fun (and probably just as addictive as skydiving.)

Air Combat USA

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[ltdiver 3]

I have a friend who's wife bought him this for his birthday one year! He's already a pilot but loved this ALOT!!
Wow, what a wife!!!

ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[Guest]

I met a woman at work last week who was wearing one of their leather jackets. She and her hubby flew against each other, and she gunned him 4 times out of 6...heh

When I asked her if they'd gone to LA for that, she said that Air Combat USA tours major cities at some times of the year, which is why they did it up here in the Puget Sound area instead of down there.

As for actually doing that, it would be fun, but not $895 worth of fun (think of how many jump tickets that would buy, or a new canopy...!), IMHO. Their other prices make real flight school look cheap, BTW.

The Marchetti SF260 is apparently pretty zippy, but would you rather pretend to fly a plane and pretend to be a fighter jock/jockette for a day, or jump out of them and be the real deal?

mh

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[Brisco 0]

There is an outfit near Atlanta - Sky Warriors I think is the name of the place. My dad and my uncle did it a few years ago. Dad brought home a neat video tape with 3 camera angles - one on the tail over looking the whole plane, one on the gunsight and one in the cockpit looking back at him. The plane was a two seater and the pilot sits in the rear seat. His job is to take off, land and keep you otherwise out of trouble. I think it was about $695 for the ride which lasted about 2 hours. Dad loved it!

Brisco

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.

[Gawain 0]

Quote

... $895 worth of fun .... (think of how many jump tickets that would buy, or a new canopy...!)

That'll buy you about an hour of coached tunnel time...some day though....Air Combat...Hang Gliding...SCCA Racing...I want to try it all...

All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make you happy...

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[quade 4]

I did it quite a few years ago.

Air Combat has been flying out of Fullerton for a lot of years and they have a pretty damn good safety record considering what they do. I HIGHLY recommend the experience to anyone that has ever dreamed of a little ACM in a plane worthy of it.

Yeah, the Marchetti 260s are bitchin'.

If you don't know how to fly, it'll still be a blast, but if you DO know how to fly, the experience will be much better and if you already do a little acro . . . f'in' a bubba.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[kevin922 0]

Was looking for a website for the place in atlanta (if you know what it is, please let me know) came across this:

Sky Warriors Crash
(The following was copied from www.landings.com.)

The pilot and passenger of a Beech T-34A Mentor operated by the Atlanta-based Sky Warriors dogfighting school were killed in a crash near the Georgia town of Cartersville April 19th (1999?).
Dan Bouck, 51, of Atlanta and Ted McFann, Sr., 60, of Alpharetta, Ga. were killed when a wing separated from their T-34 while engaged in a dogfight with another of the school's planes, authorities said. Bouck was the Sky Warriors pilot and McFann the passenger; both were experienced pilots with ATP licenses.

No one on the ground was injured and the second T-34 landed at Sky Warriors' home field without incident.

Based at Fulton County Airport-Brown Field, just west of Atlanta, Sky Warriors was one of the first air combat schools in the Southeast. Earl "Stinger" Arrowood, another ATP pilot, is the president of the company.

Sky Warriors operated a fleet of four camouflaged T-34s outfitted with laser guns and video cameras. In addition to air combat adventure rides, they also offered unusual attitude/spin training, formation flying and fighter lead-in training.



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[airgord 1]

April 1990, my buddy Eric and I did this in Cali. I flew with Robert "hollywood" Kuntzman, Eric flew with "RP" we ended up going 3 for 3 and got to do some extra aerobatics as the people scheduled after us canceled, because of clouds inland we flew out by the islands and we seemed to always get into a vertical fight and on one of them I remember looking down (straight forward, I was getting my ass kicked on this one) and seeing a ship under way about 7000' below us and wondering if they could see us up here about that time Eric came over the radio with "GUNS, GUNS, GUNS"! Got my self shot down.
Back then it cost $400 bucks the prices went up fairly fast after TopGun came out and got anything military aviation related into mainstream use
(leather jackets being the leading product)
Go do it, "hollywood" let me fly all the way to short final back at Fullerton.

[AggieDave 6]

There's a place in my hometown (Sherman, Texas) that does this, but with Tanks! I always wanted to go out and do the tank "dogfighting" but never made it out there. Eitherway, I doubt I could have afforded it. *shrug*

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[airgord 1]

That crash and one other caused the FAA issue an AD (airworthyness directive) to ground the entire fleet of T34s in the country for a main spar defect until they could have a inspection and repair procedure worked out.
They are all back in the air now, with speed and manuever restrictions for some models (A's or B's).
The T34 owners association says that the new inspection procedure for the spars has found very few aircraft with with cracked spars and are lobbying the feds to have the restrictions removed.

[flyhi 24]

I jump with Larry Elmore, one of their pilots. He flew for TWA until the age of 60 and then hit the No Pilots Over 60 rule. On his 60th birthday, he did 60 jumps just to metaphorically thumb his nose at the FAA. Then he started working for these guys. Great person and skydiver. Recently did the SOS record thing in CA.

Shit happens. And it usually happens because of physics.