Personally it was either the, Air greenland A330, A C-32 in AF1 colors, or the Vulkan Air AN26 I saw.
What is yours?
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Concorde when I was working at Sydney Airport. Got to watch it take off, billowing orange smoke and needing only about half the runway length.
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Another vote for Concorde.
A Farnborough air show in the 1970s when it finished its display with a low level pass over the runway and then turned on the re-heat and climbed vertically like a fighter aircraft straight up to 50000ft.
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I saw at an airshow in Hampton, VA, USA (Langley AFB), a Lockheed F-117 (Nighthawk). We couldn’t go closer than 10 meters of it, as opposed to F-14, F-18, F-22 jets that we could touch.
I couldn’t find the pics that took at that show, but I have ones from another, Oceana Naval Base, Virginia Beach, VA.
PS: Those are my pictures.
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That is tough question since i have been around Aircraft since my time in service and even now aircraft are an everyday thing.My favorite is F-117A and AC-130J.I tell people it is like an airshow around here everyday.Always a variety and never boring.
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I only go planespotting once a year-ish, so I have not seen too many awesome planes, but I have seen a Las Vegas Sands private jet and an F-14. I’ve never been to an airshow, so I’m lucky to have seen those.
I don’t do much spotting, but about 25 years ago a B-2 did a flyover at an airshow in Portsmouth, NH. I wasn’t at the show, but it slowly flew over my college at what seemed like 3-5Kfeet and banked left towards the show. I didn’t know about the airshow and wasn’t expecting it so it I was totally taken aback by this thing overhead. It was totally silent.
I have seen many cool aircraft such as the F-14, EA-18G, SR-71, ETC. However, The coolest Aircraft I have ever seen is the EA-6B Prowler. It is a twin engine, mid wing, Electronic warfare aircraft derived from the A6E Intruder. The aircraft was retired from the USMC in 2017 and the NAVY in 2018. My dad was stationed at MCAS Cherry Point at MALS-14 working on the ALQ-99 Radar Jamming equipment. So I got to witness the aircrafts flying overhead everyday.
In Summer of 1972. A hijacked National Airlines 727 doing a 60 degree bank turn while deploying flaps and landing gear to land on a 5000 ft run way. That guy was one hell of pilot. He was the co-pilot originally.
When I was at school in the late 50’s or early 60’s an RAF Avro Vulcan Bomber visited Melbourne and did a fly-over of the city.
It was over my school when it did a fairly steep left hand turn.
That huge delta wing was absolutely awesome and possibly a bit scarey for school kids during the cold war even though we were in Australia. You may have read Neville Schute’s novel or seen the movie On the Beach which gives some insight.
The plane was also used in the James Bond Movie Thunderball.
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I’d have to say it was a tie between:
(1) Concorde coming/going at ATL - I want to say 1984 but I may be off on that.
(2) My first live 727, at CSG, 1970, an equipment substitution for the usual D9S. I was 12 years old and giddy af!
I had a chance to go inside Fifi, one of the two B29’s a few years ago. That was fun.
Actually Fifi is my profile picture here
I saw the B-29 “Enola Gay” at the Smithsonian one day.