This sort of thing is going to give jet pilots a bad worse name.
Racing at speeds of up to 350 mph, the Soviet-made military jet made several low-altitude passes at the Santa Monica Pier, seemingly keying on the popular Ferris wheel as frightened onlookers scattered, some screaming.
Emergency calls poured in to police as the aircraft flew about 50 feet off the ground, then spiraled skyward in a series of tight rolls, smoke trailing from its tail as if it were an aerobatic plane. The lifeguard in Tower 26 said the jet passed so close that she felt a wall of heat.
For a few minutes on that November day a year ago, it seemed the pier was under attack.
Instead, officials learned, the startling aerial display was a stunt arranged by a local pilot, convicted felon and production company executive to promote an unfinished movie about a maverick squadron of Americans and Russians on a secret mission to Iran.
To the broad distinction between old pilots and bold pilots, we may add the additional category of rash middle-aged pilots with their tickets pulled.
(Video with 911 telephone commentary here.)
By those standards half the guys in our Wing in the UK back in the 60s/70s would have gone to jail. “Sunbathers” (a problematic designation in the UK) on the beach–another problematic designation if one disputes whether water smoothed gravel can truely be considered a beach–were buzzed from Lowestoft down thru Southwold (away from the prying
eyes of the big kids at Bentwaters) Either they were tolerant as hell or all near-sighted, because no one ever called in a tail number to complain. LOL.
Dufus McDumbPh**k just begging for all sorts of the wrong kind of attention, and he had to drag Skip Holm into this. Expletives deletives to follow…
{sigh} As if the warbird community doesn’t have enough on its plate already.
Well you’re right about that, Mongo.
Different times, different places. And the pier at Santa Monica in 2008 ain’t exactly an isolated strip of beach in rural coastal Suffolk in the UK in 1969. The old “a time and a place” judgment call certainly holds true here. Hard to plead “plausible deniability” in this case.
Agreed – a mite kooky, but all-in-all, a nice air show! Glad to see an another name as the perp-pilot and a bird other than a mighty War-Varga.
I’d have enjoyed a seat on the ferris wheel, however. A little like the movie “1941″.
Happy Birthday, Lex!
Yeah. I’d have paid real money to watch that.
I’m just reminded about something Lex once said on here.
About how you can’t beat the low altitude record. All you can do is tie it.
I guess they did not learn a lesson from the White House/ Air Force One Photo Op fiasco over New York City.
CG,
this happened a year ago, so it pre-dates AF1
OT, but speaking of “SPOOKY” I noticed that the guy “ItsAllVerbatim” who blogged under that title and recently gave some good inside skinny on the troop level debates going on in the tank no longer exists–or at least his blog doesn’t anymore. Looks like Team Obama got to him real quick…
Off to the re-education camp I’d guess……
VX: the blog is not gone, just a new name and URL – http://takenforaction.blogspot.com/
There’s some new info there, check it out.
Thanks, jpr. Good “sleuthing.” You sure you’re not the great, great, grandson of the guy who invented the board game?
I wish. I could use the royalties right about now…
At least he wasn’t getting a hummer while flying…..
Kevin/
Is that the same guy as our subject today!?–it was in a helicopter, IIRC, wasn’t it? Lex posted about it back then as I also recall.
Different guy, different offense, same result (Losing license)
[Holm] described Duran’s strategy [of blaming Holm] as an “insane defense.”
Yep, that’d do it. Says Riggs, via his attorney, “I vas only followink orderzz”.
WRT to itsallverbatim, I was wondering how long that was gonna last. Good gouge, but felt at times like TMI on an open channel. ahhh, whadooIknow?
I wish they had taken a picture of him flying low. Any tweet pilot can fly “near”.
He spent a fortune on his type rating and just threw it away.
Sometimes stupid is expensive.
Guess who’s jet I took a couple flights in?
I’m sure glad he was not the pilot……..