While I was seeking out links for the previous entry, I came across the photo below and thought it was too awesome not to share:

In case you don’t know your aircraft, the prop-job is a P-51 Mustang, which was the fastest thing in the skies back in 1944 and is still, I believe, one of the swiftest propeller-driven planes ever built. The P-51s became famous in their day as the “little friends” that flew escort duty alongside the B-17s and B-24s, greatly improving the survival rates of the bombers and their crews.

The P-51’s wingman is, of course, an F-16 Fighting Falcon, which was the first plane I learned to recognize by type. (When the Falcons were first brought to Utah’s Hill Air Force Base in 1979, my parents took me to see the public flight demonstration; we were all flabbergasted at the way this plane could roar down the runway, then seem to suddenly rock back on its tail and blast straight up at the sky like a rocket. I had a poster on my bedroom wall for years…)

The F-16 in the shot above is from Hill AFB, incidentally; you can see the markings on the tail. I believe it’s also part of the Viper West demonstration group, which is stationed at Hill. (Apparently, pilots have taken to calling their F-16s “Vipers,” in honor of the starfighter craft on Battlestar Galactica. The new Galactica, no doubt, since the kids flying for our country today wouldn’t know a daggit if it stole all their mushies… grumble grumble grumble…)

Update: Huh… seems I was wrong about the origins of the F-16’s Viper nickname… according to this article, it was in fact borrowed from the original Battlestar series, way back in the late ’70s before the Air Force had officially designated the plane. So take that, fans of the reimagining!