The Flying Bulls
The Flying Bulls is an Austrian privately owned bussiness, which is located in Salzburg, Austria. The billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz – the co-founder and -owner of RedBull – collects, refurbishes and operates tradinional but also modern aircraft. They appear on public events, participate in air-shows and invite people to fly with them in the DC-6. You can’t buy a ticket for such a flight! So, in the end money does not play any role in this case, which I find really nice. This makes a flight with the DC–6 something very special. Something which can’t be bought with money…
The fleet consists of many beautiful, rare and historical aircraft and helicopter:
- Douglas DC-6B
- North American B-25J “Mitchell”
- Lockheed P.38 “Lightning”
- Vought F4U-4 “Corsair”
- Alpha Jet
- PT-17 Stearman
- Fairchild PT-19
- Bell Cobra TAH-1F
- Eurocopter EC-135
- AS 350 Ecureuil
- Cessna CE 208 Amphibian “Caravan”
- Pilatus Porter PC-6
- Cessna 337 Skymaster
- Aviat Husky
- Beech T-34 Mentor
- Sukhoi SU-29
- Extra 399L
- BO-105C
- Bristol 171 Sycamore
- Bell 47G
The whole fleet is kept in very special buildings located on the airport Salzburg. These buildings are called Hangar 7 and Hangar 8 and can be visited by the public during opening hours. Walking through there feels like being in a very impressive museum, in which all items are kept in a condition comparable to being completely new or even better. Besides the aircraft one can also discover all the Formula 1 cars of the past which have been sponsored by RedBull. Overall, the visit alone there is really worth it! Especially for aviation enthusiasts it will be an unforgettable event!
Flying with the historical DC-6
My girlfriend won a flight in the DC-6 owned by the Flying Bulls back in 2019, but due to COVID-19 no flights have been possible since then. But in late Juli this year we had the opportunity to be part of the very first flight of the DC-6 with passengers after the Corona crisis. The whole team was very excited as it was also a very special moment for them. We arrived early in Salzburg and took an extended walk through the Hangar 7 while enjoying the polished aircraft and helicopters. Later in the afternoon the crew of the DC-6 boarded us and about 20 minutes later we took off from Salzburg. We flew south from Salzburg, around the “Dachstein” and down the “Ennstal” until reaching the “Grimming”, a very famous mountain in Styria. From there we flew over scenery which is very well known for it’s beautiful lakes and after a bit more than one hour we returned back to Salzburg where our gorgeous journey ended.
The complexity of such an historical aircraft is just simply amazing. Today, modern aircraft are designed with the support of CAD systems and the virtual validation with state of the art simulation tools. But back in the late 40’s or early 50’s the egineers had just blueprints and drawings on real paper. Hundreds of engineers had to work precisely together. No email, no cell-phone, no computer. Nothing.
It’s just an incredible machine. The smell when you enter the aircraft, the haptics, the noise levels and the big engines shaking the whole aircraft give one at least a bit of an impression what aviation must have been like back in the early days. However, this flight was really something to remember!
The DC-6 in the virtual world
Believe it or not, but the DC-6 is also existing in the virtual world of the Microsoft Flightsimulator 2020. A company named PMDG is since many years well known for high quality add ons for all the relevant flightsimulators out on the market. In this case, they decided to virtually replicate the DC-6 for the FS2020. Not only that the 3D model is just simply fantastic, but also the system representation and technological depth of the virtual DC6 is just amazing. Originally, the aircraft was operated by three people. Two of them where flying the aircraft and the technical engineer was managing the big engines. Within the simulation, the engineer is replaced by an AI, which supports the (mostly single operation) pilot and takes control over the engines. Very cool.
Below you can see a comparison between the real life aircraft on the left side and the virtual model on the rigtht side. Amazing, isn’t it?
