Does NASA still fly the Blackbird?
No but the U2 is still in service.
Heh, I get to check out a handful of Dakotas out by the airfreight apron whenever I fly out of SJU… growing ever fewer, though, a few of them are by now spares planes for those remaining in use.
Thread makes me think of a recent British Airways commercial (long version).
Why does everyone forget that the C-130 has been in production continuously since 1954?
I believe there are still a few WW2-era bombers in firefighting service in the American West.
That’s relatively easy. All you need is for the wind to be stronger than the slow flight capability of your airplane. I did this once in a Cessna 152 over Vashon Island here in Puget Sound. The wind at altitude was about 55 kts or so, and the Cessna could be slowflighted at around 45 knots (IIRC). I turned it into the wind, set it up for slow flight, and watched the landscape go backwards under me. Fun!
It doesn’t seem as though that would work, given the shape of the airfoil and the physics they taught me, but obviously it does. 
If the wind is blowing in your face at 55 kts, and the airplane is only going 45 kts, the only thing that can happen is you go backwards (relative to the ground) at 10 kts. Air is still going across your wings at 45 kts.
But that’s on a treadmill, right?
Ah! Thanks. Ignorance fought.
This, of course, assumes that the entire mass of air containing the aircraft is moving at 55 knots, which for obvious reasons doesn’t actually happen in real life.
Where is Chronus when you need him?
I imagine the DC-3/C-47 is going to be hard to beat, but another potential contender is the AN-2 Colt, which first flew in 1947. Many thousands were produced and I believe a considerable number are still in both commercial and military service. The Colt apparently also held the record for longest continuous production for a single aircraft type until edged out by the C-130.
On the miltary side, after the Colt and aside from the C-130 (first flight 1954), there is the B-57 Canberra (1953) which squeaks in by virtue of two examples which continue to be flown by NASA as research aircraft.
A similar bush plane is Noorduyn Norseman, first flown in 1935 and still in use in Canada. Used more wood than Beaver. Noorduyn had prior design service with Fokker. wiki
Sure it does, why wouldn’t it?
What do you think “wind” is? :dubious:
I’ll throw him a bone and suggest he was thinking of a 55kt wind speed at ground level which is usually pretty turbulent. But that’s what you’d have to consider if a plane was on a treadmill…
The bush pilot I use when in Alaska flies an Otter, I believe its a 1945. What an awesome plane. He scares the crap out of me sometimes though.
Hummmm, we had both the Beaver & the Otter in the ARMY in the 60’s…
The B-52 isn’t a current contender but it may very well win the prize in a few decades. It was envisioned in the 1940’s, designed and built in the 1950’s, and the last of the current generation were built in the early 1960’s yet it is not scheduled to be retired from the Air Force until at least 2040 when the planes themselves will be almost 80 years old and the design even older. The B-52 isn’t doing light duty either. It is still the best nuclear capable, long-range strategic bomber in the world. The Air Force has tried to come up with a way to replace it several times and no one could produce a design that is better suited for the role.
I miss the B-58. They would fly over my Grandfather’s farm with a pod and return without it.
Scared the snot out of me when I was in grade school.