I wish my other car had wings ...
Thanks to Claes for starting this thread!
I'm also too young (b. 1949) to have direct experience with WW-II warbirds, but I have been around aviation all my life. My father was a well-known aeronautical engineer, and his father was in the RAF in both World Wars. Since I am working in commercial aviation, I suppose it must be in the blood or something. But having various vision problems keeps me firmly out of the cockpit.
Aaah, the smell of jet fuel in the morning ...
I would be hard-pressed to name a "favorite" aircraft. I could narrow it down to ten or so, and most would be fighters. (I grew up hearing stories about Johnnie Johnson and Douglas Bader, and my grandfather was a fighter pilot. My father used to work for Dick Frost, who earlier was project manger of the X-1 project and sometimes flew chase on Chuck Yeager.) But my favorite warbird overall is, I believe, the F-111. In spite of all it's troubles caused by being forced to carry everybodys "wish lists" it has done a marvelous job over time.
There are others, of course. But I also have noticed a lot of humorous things, especially in film. My all-time favorite is in the movie "Dam Busters". In one scene an Avro Lancaster (accurate) is shot down. On the way to the ground, it transforms into at least four other aircraft types!. I don't remember them all right now, but in one shot it has magically become a B-17 ... maybe they thought nobody would notice?
SR-71 ... when I was stationed in Okinawa in 19XX the official position was that the Blackbird was not stationed there and did not fly recon missions over Southeast Asia from there. The fact that they very noisily left a couple of times a day and headed off that-a-way was just collective imagination. Same place the B-52's weren't going to ...
Based on sheer massive tactical ground-support armament on an airplane, my second-place vote goes to the AC-130 Spectre. "A" as in Attack. "C" as in Cargo. The airframe is a basic C-130 Hercules. Then you add a 20-mm Vulcan chain gun, a pair of dual Oerlikons, a 120-mm howitzer, and now the ability to control those Predator drones ... I would much rather have that on my side than be up against it!
So much for that now -- got to listen to my "oldies" music for a while.
Graeme
That wouldn't happened to have been Kadena would it? I wasn't there in 198X either ... and never saw the Habu ... 
