A-37 Walkaround EAA Airventure Oshkosh 2024

Рет қаралды 53,176

Erik Johnston

Күн бұрын

Charles Largay gives a detailed Walkaround tour of his A-37 Dragonfly at the EAA Air Venture Oshkosh Airshow 2024

Пікірлер: 118

@JulioAvalos3000 6 ай бұрын

Glad to see people restoring these pieces of history.

@madyogi6164 6 ай бұрын

Sure is! What deserves the most applause is an intent to keep it fully operational and ready to fly.

@Red-rl1xx 6 ай бұрын

I built a model of an A37 a few years ago! Glad to get a close-up look! Thanks to this gentleman for restoring this one for us to see!

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

@TheGravitywerks 6 ай бұрын

Thank you, sir... for your investment in history and for sharing it with us! Beautiful aircraft!

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

@barbaradavis393 6 ай бұрын

You may not be sure why you did all this work, but I am glad you did. I started at Cessna when we were working on the A-37. It is great to see it running again.

@michaelnaven213 6 ай бұрын

Excellent video and this gentleman was the person for a fantastic history lesson.👏👏👍👍

@joeblow5037 6 ай бұрын

Thank you very much for spending all the time and effort to bring this beautiful warbird back to life, Sir. Old Marine F-4J radar tech

@benprewitt4600 6 ай бұрын

It's great to finally see these aircraft getting the love they deserve! Thanks for putting this post up!

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

My pleasure!

@mouneshaidar7040 5 ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing. A real joy going thru this

@jcheck6 6 ай бұрын

Great review Erik. I flew them active duty in a FAC role (OA-37) in the early '80's stateside. Ours had the AAR probe on the nose and air refueled regularly. I don't recall the high "G" onset as mentioned in the vid. Fun aircraft to fly.

@kennethjones3337 6 ай бұрын

Absolutely a fantastic video. This guy knows everything about this plane. Great job Erik

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

@Helibeaver 6 ай бұрын

Very good interview. Enjoyed this one Erik

@EirikV 6 ай бұрын

Beautiful AC! Thanks for the video

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

@johngilbert6036 6 ай бұрын

This is the coolest small attack aircraft. I saw them 3 times while in Vietnam with 1/14 Infantry, Firebase John Henry working out of Fire Support Base Hardtimes. Two of them flew in and worked out on a mountain about 2 Clicks from us. They went straight down released his bombs and went straight back up. I never saw any other modern plane do that. amazing it did not lose his wings. all three times we saw them we stopped what we were doing and watched them. These guys are crazy but I bet it was fun to fly, maybe like an A-10. That was the only times I saw them over a span of 4 days. Glad you restored it. F100s and F4s from Phu-cat and Cobras were our main air support.

@molivroman9806 5 ай бұрын

I have a huge respect for people like him who do this work. Craftsmanship!

@zaphodb9213 6 ай бұрын

Great walkaround, as usual. This guy is hilarious. Please don't stop doing these!

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

More to come!

@oisiaa 6 ай бұрын

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these in-depth videos. Please keep doing them until you have a library of every aircraft ever made!

@jtbDDOepMNNVIpk 6 ай бұрын

Thanks Erik for allowing Charlie to share this with us.

@Danko05 6 ай бұрын

Amazing job done to keep this bird alive...!!! Great walkaround on this piece of history.

@HammerheadModelMaking 5 ай бұрын

Thank you for posting this, gonna be building a 1/48 model of the A-37 here shortly and this is providing some invaluable reference material!

@garrykraemer8993 6 ай бұрын

Wow, Awesome walk-a-round of the A-37. I flew the T-37 right out of UPT as a FAIP (First Assignment IP). I learned a lot training UPT students. The T-37 used a TO climb of 200 knots minus 2 knots per 1000 feet. It was underpowered, but a very reliable trainer. We used the turn out of the traffic pattern at 500 feet and 200 knots as the start of the ejection envelope. I wished I knew how many spins and spin preventions I have done. Stan Eval used to demonstrate an accelerated spin every time we had an annual contact (VFR, Aerobatics, stalls, traffic pattern and single engine landing).check ride. It would make my head spin! Thanks for keeping this aircraft in service.

@patrickwahrer8089 6 ай бұрын

Brought back a lot of good memories. I worked on these while I was in the Air Force. Tough to work on as a tall person.

@rolacook222 6 ай бұрын

Great informational narrative from an experienced pro!👍🏻

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

@rolacook222 6 ай бұрын

@@ErikJohnston I did! Best to you. Rola (Oregon)

@lynnpreuninger5050 6 ай бұрын

I worked on T-37s at Sheppard from 1985 to 1990. We had the bird resistant windshields in ours. Installed a lot of them.

@JonathanFinkGroup 6 ай бұрын

Great tour by someone who clearly knows! Thank you both.

@MrHiboost95 6 ай бұрын

That is an incredible restoration job. I'm sure that you smile every time when you're around it. I have been around warbirds since I was just a little lad. Back in the mid '90's through the mid 2003's. My father owned a 1953 DeHavalen DH-100 Vampire Jet. We hangar it on display at Tom Riley's Flying Tigers Warbird Air Museum located in Kissimmee, Florida. I was just in my late teens/twenties at the time. I truly wished that I was rated to have the honor to flown the vintage fighter jet experience like your currently enjoying presently. Take Care, Scott

@johnnygee173 6 ай бұрын

Thank you Charles and Erik. That was fascinating. I worked for Cessna in Wichita for 40 years. Never worked on the A-37 or T-37. I used to see our production test pilots takeoff in these from Mid Continent (now Dwight D Eisenhower) Airport. After rotation, they'd keep the plane ~50 feet off the runway and then climb straight up. When I retired, Hill AFB was doing the maintenance on these aircraft.

@4speed3pedals 6 ай бұрын

My guard unit, MD 175th ANG was equipped with the A-37 Drgonfly. Today, they have the A-10. Being an airframe repairman, I loved it because it was such low maintenance other than when something would happen to it. One summer in Savannah, Ga for summer camp, I witnessed a near mishap than one of our pilots probably turned his green flight suit to brown. The area is damp, humid and it rained most every afternoon. The joke was you could set your watch by the rain. In the morning, it was usually foggy in the month of July. I was in the hanger and with nothing to fix, we would set up chairs looking out at the runway. . One of our jets was coming in for a landing and as I saw it appear through the fog from the hanger, the plane was perpendicular to the ground with the left wing time a few feet above the ground. My only assumption is that he miscalculated where the runway was through the fog and only discovered he was off the runway when very close to touchdown. My jaw dropped and you could hear he went max throttle with both engines. He was able to regain altitude and than landed safely after making another approach. This incident is testament of the power this plane had otherwise I don't want to think of the possible outcome. I got get to see an F84 take off and the C-124 Globemaster land during those two weeks, something not many have witnessed.

@geauxtigersdjs 6 ай бұрын

Our AFRES unit at Barksdale AFB flew these too till replaced with brand new A-10s in 1980 or 1981.

@The_Magic_of_Zelda 6 ай бұрын

Great job keeping this historic jet flying. My father flew in trainer version (T-37 Tweet) before he flew the T-38 Talon.

@jiceBERG 5 ай бұрын

It was great listening to this gentleman speak about his airplane. Very entertaining

@madyogi6164 6 ай бұрын

Very interesting bird! Thank you for this walk around!

@gcrauwels941 6 ай бұрын

Mr Largay was thorough. I didn't realize these had such performance.

@bernardanderson3758 6 ай бұрын

I know of a retired Pilot who flew the A-37 in the Vietnam era and this one is amazing

@Duality306 6 ай бұрын

When I was a senior in high school I got to go to the air range at Camp Atterbury here in Indiana ...the Illinois ANG were flying A-37's then....got to see 4 of then firing the gun and shoot rockets....Amazing 🇺🇸

@Blitz9H 6 ай бұрын

Yes!! Same here. I remember watching the A-37s rolling in on the range. Quiet too. A-7s, F-4s, and A-10s also. A-10s in the Euro 1 scheme then.

@Duality306 6 ай бұрын

@@Blitz9H ......No A-10's on the day we went which was sad....A-37's ,A-7's, F-4's (C,D, and E) and a couple of AH-1 Cobras

@Blitz9H 6 ай бұрын

@@Duality306 Nice on the AH-1s. I used to take many trips out to the tower.

@alank808 5 ай бұрын

Tweety Bird. Flew them out of, Barksdale in Louisiana, 917 tac unit in Late 70`s until we got A10. Very fun flyer. Very nice job on the restoration Sir.

@skagerstrom 5 ай бұрын

Love the Dragonfly! Such a good looking airplane!

@UltraMagaFan2 6 ай бұрын

The A37 is one of my favorite Vietnam era airplanes. It’s cool to see that one has been restored to flying condition. I hope Charles comes to the Charleston or Beaufort air shows one year so I can see it in person.

@AcroAirwolf 5 ай бұрын

Very cool video, thanks! Great work! Hats off! Was he talking about Gerhard Neumann, as the german designer of the jet engine from GE? I know the owner of the Gerhard Neumann Museum - also known as Starfighter Museum - here in Germany.

@clargay Ай бұрын

Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain

@AcroAirwolf Ай бұрын

@@clargay Thanks!

@BullGator-kd6ge 6 ай бұрын

Just saw that exact bird perform in Kennewick yesterday. Looked like a real gem to fly. Snapped some very good pictures of it.

@gregellis3859 6 ай бұрын

When I was a kid, we went to an airshow at what was Carswell AFB but is now the Navy JRB in Fort Worth, Texas. After watching this video, it reminded me that I have seen one of these planes before. Sure enough, my Dad had taken a photo of one at this airshow in 1977. It was assigned to the Air Force Reserve and it had a long airborne refueling probe out the nose. But otherwise it looks exactly like this one even with the homing antennas, etc... I also have a photo of what looks like the training version as well. The T-37. Just interesting to have old photos of these very cool warbirds. Thanks for sharing the video.

@jimle22 6 ай бұрын

Excellent presentation. Did not know about this aircraft. Thanks for the info.

@equaltothetaskaviation6440 6 ай бұрын

nice on erik - love the dragonfly

@theguitarbunker 4 ай бұрын

The longevity of these jets was commendable. I was in Tucson during 1986 and they were at DM, AZ, operating in a FAC role. Some of the airframes had flown in Southeast Asia.

@ErikJohnston 4 ай бұрын

Oh wow! That’s cool!

@dont6441 6 ай бұрын

Impressive! What a project!

@nickbayer7847 6 ай бұрын

Appreciate it Erik 🤠🤠 The Tweet is one of my favorite underappreciated aircraft!

@eaglekeeper7737 6 ай бұрын

I was lucky enough to get an incentive ride in one of these at Davis Monthan AFB in 85 or 86. Great flight . I was a an A-10 Crew chief at the the time.

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

Very cool!

@jr0815_aka_gulredrel 6 ай бұрын

Great walkaround video. I've seen a T-37 in a museum some time ago. Really looks like a rugged construction that will fly forever.

@Bernard32 6 ай бұрын

I worked outdoors a lot in construction. In NE Pennsylvania, during the 1980's, we used to see these planes flying over once in a while. There were always 2 or 3 together, rolling and zig zagging but never in a tight formation. They were great to see. I also saw one at the Reading Pa airshow in the 1980's on static display. The nose art was the Miss Jamie Lou! I remember because my wife was named Jayme.

@mytube001 6 ай бұрын

Lovely little plane! I've loved the look of it since the first time I saw one.

@HanHan-fb7zh 5 ай бұрын

At least one millionnaire who knows how to use his money for his expensive passion ! Thanks for sharing 😊

@reaper2345 6 ай бұрын

Very informative. Always one of my favorite aircraft.

@brainyhead1 6 ай бұрын

What a great job on the restoration!

@SPboxcar67290l 6 ай бұрын

The nickname Tweety Bird is sorta opposite. It makes you think of a cute cartoon character but the screech of those jets is brutal. I just read a pilot's recollections of training at Vance AFB and he loved the T-37 but he called it a,"kerosene powered siren". I wonder how many former A-37/T-37 crew are wearing hearing aids today. Thank you all for your service. I think that Charlie covered it all. And, "that's about it..."😊 Great vid!

@Dom1xel 6 ай бұрын

I saw his performance at the Moses Lake Airshow! Absolutely amazing

@multibucker 6 ай бұрын

Absolutely amazing… thank you.

@lawman5511 6 ай бұрын

When I went through crew chief school in ‘66 at Shepherd AFB, there was a wing of Tweety Birds for pilot training. I had no idea those little airplanes were such hot rods.

@garyeaton5719 6 ай бұрын

Thanks for the information, often wondered how this plan was used. I didn’t realize it was flown in combat in Vietnam.

@glennhargrove3299 6 ай бұрын

I may have seen this aircraft at Danang when I was there from 9/69 to 8/70. The Viet Namese flew these. I remember once seeing one come in when the landing gear would not come down. They foamed the runway and the pilot did a nice job of putting the plane down. When it stopped, he opened the canopy, jumped out and ran as hard has he could from the aircraft. It suffered very little damage.

@bradschwamberger1217 6 ай бұрын

Nice to see this aircraft fly again

@mcpig3240 6 ай бұрын

Got a picture of a VNAF one on the flight line Danang I took in '72. Tweety's were so damned cute.

@stephenbritton9297 6 ай бұрын

Would love to see Ron Rogers and him chatting about this aircraft!

@arthurkallansrud1950 6 ай бұрын

I crewed a A 37 b with the 917 FG AFRES. BARKSDALE,La. Then we got A 10 a in 1980. Loved both airplanes

@skenzyme81 6 ай бұрын

24:50 This stores interface sparks joy. An elegant panel, for a more civilized age.

@kicksnarehats11 6 ай бұрын

Such a cool plane + walkaround. But the gentleman seems so in love with his Dragonfly that he exaggerated its performance just a little in comparison: the T-38's got 2680 lbf dry thrust per engine, but 3850 lbf with afterburner. So there actually is a reason the Talon is supersonic. Anyway, considering the A-37's lighter gross weight, I can only imagine how nimble it must be.

@clargay 6 ай бұрын

Actual T38 on afterburner is 2900 lbs, not 3850. Wiki is incorrect.

@theLeadGin 6 ай бұрын

Cool to see one in flying condition. The one in Dayton is suspended so couldnt get a good look at it.

@Crashmetalstorm 6 ай бұрын

Very cool!

@briancooper2112 6 ай бұрын

In mid 70's my dad worked on B52 at K.I. Sawyer.

@sambarnes9520 6 ай бұрын

Great guy!

@brisiobrien1 6 ай бұрын

I used to crew those at Howard AFB in Panama from 1989 to 1990 when we overthrew Noriega. Fun airplane to work on. Fun fact: the mini-gun had an ammunition drum and when you turned it backwards it would spit out 7.62 live rounds under the drum. I did that a couple of times. I think I collected 10 rounds.

@freema22 6 ай бұрын

I always loved the A-37. They always seemed so sporty and fun to fly. The cockpit looks so roomy.

@jimsodowsky1298 6 ай бұрын

Tks for saving a part of USAF history.

@MAXIMUMintheHORMONE 6 ай бұрын

Awesome video

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

Thanks!

@SquawkCode 5 ай бұрын

I had a friend who died from a bird strike to the T-37. They used to come in for fuel when I was learning to fly. The 6,000lb dog whistle is no joke.🙉 Like he said if you look at these and a 500 series Citation, you'll see the resemblance.

@Mauleflyer100rv 6 ай бұрын

Nice job.

@ErikJohnston 6 ай бұрын

Thank you! Cheers!

@dradden1556 6 ай бұрын

Very nice

@briancooper2112 6 ай бұрын

Would love to ride in it.

@keithbrown9198 6 ай бұрын

Fascinating info about an aircraft I knew about, BUT knew NOTHING about. As a USAF ATC tower contrller I used to control a lot of T-37 "Tweets" and we hated them, they had barely enough power to get out of their own way and they were so noisy that the joke was if we had one exit on taxiway Bravo (which was very close to the tower) we would get a letter of reprimand. I didn't know until recently the A-37 had the same engine as the T-38. About bailing out though...seems like going over the side you're gonna catch that horizontal stabilizer from the front side, insetead of the back this time, but I get why you wouldn't want to mess with live ejection seats as well.

@jaysonpida5379 6 ай бұрын

great vid

@briancooper2112 6 ай бұрын

Miss seeing them flying out of Williams afb.

@tahsinmohammed-b5x 6 ай бұрын

This is the man

@LucaBarclay 6 ай бұрын

Last year they were at Avalon

@oceanhome2023 6 ай бұрын

OMG it’s a flying Gas Tank !!!!

@ApplemintYJ 6 ай бұрын

멋진 영상 잘봤어요~ 👍👍👍

@MichaelWilliams-sg1pq 5 ай бұрын

On April 28, 1975 as a navigator on a C-130E of the 21st TAS out of Clark waiting on the tarmac to load refugees out of Ton Sonhut AB, Saigon I saw a lone A37 flying outside the pattern. It was flying very low and proceeded toward a Chinook helicopter off loading South Vietnamese army soldiers and very accurately dropped a bomb on them. I later found out it was being flown by a North Vietnamese pilot and originated from Danang.