Credit where it’s due, those fellers would get down into the weeds – which, incidentally, helped any number of them share Saddam’s hospitality back during the 1991 scrape.
(Link goes to a YouTube vid).
Update: Jetpack wars. Which is kind of like Lichtenstein declaring war on Myanmar, but never mind.
Makes me think of a prize-fighter.
Seems to me that flying that low, if you even sneezed it would be all over but the funeral.
Jim C
JimC, it’s a memorial service. There ain’t enough left for a funeral.
In the old days, there used to be an exchange program between the Buccaneer (RAF and RN) and Intruder communities. The exchange B/N I flew with in the West Coast A-6 RAG was superb, and exceedingly funny as only an Englishman can be. During one memorable flight in the El Centro area, the last molecule of plastic covering the trim “coolie hat” on the stick eroded away. Every time I trimmed up the jet, my hand was getting a very healthy dose of DC juice and it would convulse involuntarily. He laughed hysterically at my situation, even though he was largely baggage in Dash 2 of a section hop. I couldn’t hold a pen for about an hour after I got on deck. He had some stories about flying the Buccaneer that were quite impressive to us FRPs.
The Buccaneer was a first rate operational shipping attack aircraft when I was stationed in England 68-71. Due to it’s internal bomb-bay it was actually faster on the deck (and far more stable–Blackburn-Botha was the British equivalent of the Grumman Iron Works) than many of its’ “faster” brethern like the Tornado, British Electric P.1 Lightning and F-4K if they were loaded out with max ordinance–hell, anything outboard at all….
(of course the ONLY time you ever saw a Lightning on the deck was when slick during high-speed passes at airshows–or in the pattern.)
Had the opportunity to escort a group of Buccs during a Red Flag back in the early 70s. We were at 50′ AGL and looking down on them the entire way. They couldn’t have been more that 25′ AGL. Loved watching them crest a ridge and roll inverted to pull positive Gs on the way back down to the deck. Crews were lots of fun in the O’Club after the debrief too.
Shortly before the first Gulf War I was at a Green Flag where the Brits refused to fly any medium altitude missions. They didn’t have the memory our senior people had of Viet Nam.
My memory is that Buccaneer was not initially invited to participate in Desert Storm, but were rushed into theater after the Tornados, which at that time had no medium altitude capability at all, were having a really tough time.
The Buccaneers had (IIRC) Pave Spike pods and could therefore perform accurate medium altitude bombing..
Cool vid, man they’re low. Some of it looks like REALLY fast taxiing.
We conducted some exercises with them back in the late 80’s around Roosevelt Roads, P.R. – they came in so low we thought they were going to hit the mast of the ship (an FFG).
I had a classmate from the Fortress of Learning who did an exchange tour with the Buccaneers. Like most PEP tours, it did not help his career, but he would not have traded that time for anything in the world. He had a blast!
Lucky bastard.
Saw a Buc’ on approach to Jax, a couple months ago. TINS.
Sorry about being late to this thread – techical query if I may be permitted: the gear retraction is very very soon after weight comes off the wheels. Are they that fast on the gear up selection, or did the Buc have auto gear retract (WOW switch senses no more Weight On Wheels, so stuff’em in the wells)? Is the max gear down speed so low that the gear HAS to come up that soon after T/O ??
Would feel strange – having to climb to pattern altitude for the approach …. or having to climb for a turn – what is the wingspan? would hate to plow a field with a wingtip.
Freakin ballsy flying! How wide is that line between gutsy and crazy …??