Boy, those New Zealanders sure have good taste about flying and restoring old Birds! (I realize that most were probably new builds, but ... you know!) I didn't realize that ANY Fokker D-8s were flying!
Awesome!
As to what my favorite era was, I would have to limit it to the 1903-present time frame!
Yes, those old kite-fliers had nerve of steel, and I don't consider myself any braver than the next guy stuck in my foxhole, but I'd take a flight in one of those planes in a heartbeat!!!!! And if that was my time to go, I'd thank the Good Lord for it.
"High Flight" Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
This is probably known to all of us regulars on this forum, but if not, it was written by the late John Gillespie Magee, Jr. an American who was raised in China & Britain and who flew Spitfires during the Battle Of Britain era. He died at age 19 in a mid-air collision before he actually saw combat, but this poem speaks to me personally and to many pilots. You can read more about him in this Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee,_Jr.