I have cleverly inserted exterior shots of the 10:30 flight for continuity... OK, it's just another excuse to ogle this big beauty.
A bit of a wait for takeoff, but there's so much more to look at than in an airliner...
Excellent. Marmalade in the port rack, beer in the starboard. Long Islanders, prepare to meet your doom!
Finally, the Cyclones are smoothly brought to full power, and Aluminum Overcast swiftly and smoothly surges forward. I'm getting all sniffly again just thinking about it- it was beautiful!! Even sitting backwards, barely able see outside at all, it was... well, it was beautiful. Snif...
Due to the low stance and mild deck angle, there's not much sensation of pivoting as the tailwheel comes up.
With nowhere near a combat load, she climbs easily.
As soon as the gear comes up, the crewman sitting in the other jump seat motions for me to unbuckle my seat belt and crawl forward to the bombardier's position... drop on all fours, under the flight crew's seats...awkward, but I think it'll be worth it...
A quick look out the cheek gun window; I can't believe this, look at those fantabulous Cyclones roaring away... clamber into the little seat up front, and...
Holy $#%&*!!!
Great day in the morning- what a view!! We're just levelling off, at about 1000 and better than 150 knots, I'm sure.
One of the other pax crawls forward to join me; we snap each others' portraits. I'm sure he looks as moronic in his "nose blister portrait" as I do in mine. We were both "giddy as schoolboys", to bend a phrase... we looked ouside, looked at each other, shook our heads in amazement, and laughed ourselves silly.
We two were fortunate in that about half of the pax, all seated aft of the bomb bay, were old enough to not be so eager to come up here (including one WWII Army vet who needed some encouragement on my part to squeeze his belly through the braces in the bomb bay- he made it to the flight deck, and was glad he tried), so we got to linger quite a while. I even went all the way aft, then came back, before we landed. Yee-haw!!!
Next: part 3!!
Great shots
All in all though, I'm getting a Tiger Moth ride for my birthday. 
