TA-4 Skyhawk back seat ride

[SS427]

My brother just sent me a couple of videos of his first post restoration flight in this TA-4 Skyhawk. He rewired/restored the Skyhawk last year and written into the restoration contract is a check ride. The other video was taken at an airshow flying formation with a A-1 Skyraider and Douglass SBD Dauntless. The first video is rather long and has no music or audible cockpit audio but is otherwise pretty cool. There are many videos along with it on YouTube showcasing the restoration and first flights. Enjoy!

Check ride (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7JtZfYV4hA&feature=relmfu)

Air show formation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei561uqomVo)

[Xplantdad]

Nice!!!

[JRSully]

If somebody got their hands on an F14, I would re-mortgage my house for a ride. That A4 is beautiful remember the Angels flying those back in the day

[SS427]

Well JR, that could border on impossible and even if you could you would HAVE to remortgage your house! To my knowledge there are no known civilian owned F14 Tomcats and our military retired them some time ago. My understanding is only Iran continues to fly the F14 and I think we both know a ride from them aint gonna happen! Your best bet would be to go to Russia and fly in one of their MIG 29's (upwards of $50k). Not a cheap adventure but very similar to the F14. When the movie Top Gun was produced 26 years ago it cost the production company $20,000 per HOUR to rent the F14.

Here is another shot of the TA-4J my brother sent me this morning.

[PeteLeathersac]

Wow Rick, your brother really is livin' the dream!!!
Best of all is he knows it!


<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/beers.gif
~ Pete

[SS427]

Thank you. His dream would be to ride the front seat but for now he gets back seat rides in a LOT of Warbirds every year. He has gotten me into several as well.

[mockingbird812]

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[JRSully]

Yes, you are correct Rick. Govt dropped almost all the of the mothballed Tcats into tub grinders out in the desert to keep the parts out of the black market and ultimately ending up in Iran. Only hope is that some trillionair gets one out of Iran intact someday, long shot at best. Musclecar Review shot my car out at the abandoned Calverton LI facility where they built F14s back in the day. 2 10,000 ft, solid concrete, military spec runways just wasting away. Had a lot of friends and family involved with the F14, one of Grummans finest works

[ZAPPER68]

Cool video Rick...thanks for sharing.

[Tenney]

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[m22mike]

That was neat trip back in time for me Rick. What a great little workhorse it was, and older that allot of use here.... <<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/flag.gif


http://a4skyhawk.org/sites/a4skyhawk.org/files/images/463-A3-Tanking-A4-2CD5D2_rg-smith.jpg

[mockingbird812]

A-3 Whale! Very interesting egress procedure! <<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/no.gif <<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/shocked.gif