R U Kidding?

(Source)

Whilst motoring down to the wedding venue on Friday, I noticed a flash of sunlight off of an object in the sky just above the horizon. Why, that must be an aircraft performing a turn of some sort, I said to myself. (Whereupon The WSO asked me to stop muttering to myself.)

We were not far from Culpeper, VA when I noticed this aerial phenomenon. Upon approaching closer, I saw an aircraft with a nice shiny blue paint job, a shiny old school U.S. Navy paint job whirling this way and that in the vault of the heavens. (Actually the aircraft was in the midst of an Immelmann, no whirling was involved.)

Said aircraft was promptly misidentified by Your Humble Scribe.

At first I thought this -

F6F Hellcat

Then I noticed that the aircraft had a bubble canopy and wasn't nearly as hump-backed as a Hellcat, so I immediately thought this instead -

F8F Bearcat
(Source)

So I fixated on that, telling The WSO, "That's a freaking Bearcat!" (To which The WSO replied, “What’s a Bearcat?” Kids these days…) A quick check on my handy-dandy smart phone (after the fact) seemed to confirm that the aircraft I had been looking at was indeed a Bearcat. Bubble canopy, rounded-nose indicating a rotary powerplant, and the tail looked about right.

But something bothered me about that tentative ID. I thought that the engine, while sounding like a military piston engine, didn't sound powerful enough. Not the engine sound I would expect from a big, powerful fighter aircraft. (And the Bearcat is big, not P-47 big, but big.) So I had to rethink my original ID.

Easy enough to search for the Culpeper Air Fest (saw signs for it eventually, that's how I knew what to search on), well easy enough if one is not at a wedding, more particularly one's own daughter's wedding. Sure we had Wi-Fi but...

"Put down your phone and help us move this stuff!"

So all the research had to wait until Tuesday.

"Why not Monday Sarge?"

Well, reasons. Like driving and flying and trying to catch up on much needed sleep. The first two things were successfully accomplished, just to mention in passing.

Anyhoo, discovered that the bird was actually a T-28 Trojan, a Navy trainer but also used in combat during the Vietnam War. The aircraft belongs to an astronaut, no really, here's the proof.

As to the "that's just not loud enough moment," here are the specs for the Bearcat's and the Trojan's powerplants -

F8F Bearcat: 1 × Pratt & Whitney R-2800-30W two-row radial engine, 2,250 hp 

T-28 Trojan: 1 × Wright R-1820-86 Cyclone 9-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, 1,425 hp

But from a distance, with similar paint jobs, who wouldn't be confused?

They all have similar silhouettes don't they?

As to "Why no pictures Sarge?"

I decided to watch the show for as long as possible, rather than fumble the camera out, acquire the target, and miss the aerobatics on display. After all, we were headed to a wedding, weren't we?

So no kidding, Your Humble Scribe misidentified a warbird...

It's chagrined I am.

A pretty bird, neh?