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Stupid Pilot TricksBy lex, on March 17th, 2010
47 comments to Stupid Pilot Tricks |
Targets of Opportunityblog advertising is good for you Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Amazon AssociateFor the Effort!Winnar! Subscribe CategoriesPagesTagsacademy
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That last one was pretty cool!
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a 135 that low and at speed. Somewhere floating around the web is the late Bud Holland’s BUFF just barely clearing a ridge at the Yakima range. Those on the scene claimed he only had about three feet to spare. Of course, the odds caught up with Holland the day the dirt intruded into the cockpit, as Lex so eloquently describes such events.
Yeah, there are certain limits to ‘having fun’.
Kewl video.
You Tube used to have the vid of him augering in–don’t know if it’s still around…was part of an entire series of posts on the accident investigation, interviews, etc. with comments on him pro & com. He had a looooong history of being an “untouchable” in the Wing due to his experience, etc., while the repts, interviews, etc., revealed a high level of concern by many of his fellow pilots–some refused to fly with him. I’d bestir myself to root around and look it up, but the sun’s already over the yard-arm..too
much like work.
It is still there Virgil. Just Google “Bud Holland
and before you finish typing the last name Google will offer up “bud holland b 52 crash”
There is even a Wikipedia entry!
A few years back I read a case study published by Kern, available at:
http://www.crm-devel.org/resources/paper/darkblue/darkblue.htm
Co-pilot Mark McGeehan had earlier stated fears that Holland would kill them all and had tried to get Holland grounded.
The last fraction of second of his life is shown at http://rob.com/pix/B52_crash/B52CRSH2
Truly a disaster that should have been averted by those in command.
Ok, Of course the low sneak pass by the Blues wins… rightfully so… but i kinda think this one too should have been in the running. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4KLXlE9ZU4 (at the 0:47 time stamp.)
Didja notice the gull that was knocked into the sea on that last #1 pass? Wonder what his halo would’ve looked like with the mach 1+ bird-in-engine maneuver!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3272592043334558474#
What did he say?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmDMRSLZqNU
Sorry to be a comment hog, but this one too equals “Stupid Pilot Tricks” for sure. The gouge has it that pilot lost his wings over this one. (can’t confirm but someone in the comments claims it was from VFA-136 at a TCU game). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLPC-4Mj3N8
Lex, you being a Bug driver would prolly know better than we…
Which brings up a question, did you ever do a Game Day Fly-By?
Not me. I was “stealth” before it got popular
# 6 and # 1 are my favourites. Just cuz they’re so purty.
But # 5 – I don’t think ducking was going to make much difference.
And #3, that was just freaky. I think I was impressed by the guy on the ground not flinching than I was by the pilot.
Yeah, you gotta go for the style points if you’re gonna do that.
REAL style would have been holding up a strike anywhere match and lighting on the belly of the aircraft.
#1 I think was the 2009 Fleet Week in San Francisco. WHY the Navy keeps doing that, given the anti-military politics of that city I have no idea.
I’d bet that the Navy does it BECAUSE so many of the San Fransickos are so anti military. Not all of ‘em, but far too many.
By the way: If there is something that The Blues do that might qualify for “stupid” I’d offer that flying solo fairly close to the ground pales by comparison to flying formation within feet or inches of 3 or more other jets is by far “dumber” . . . after all, the ground doesn’t move into your space to cause contact…other pilots just might. Then again, I think that The Blues get a waiver on “stupid” while in that billet, no?
I, too, liked the character who bet his head and just stood there just to look good.
Joe, it wasn’t 2009 because in 2009 the weather was gray and threatening rain, which pushed the show to a later start time.
But the same pass was made under the bridge as shown in #1, much to the delight of the tourists gathered on the wharf and the residents watching from their condos.
My dad was stationed at Fort Bliss from ’82 to ’86. There would be an air show at Biggs Army Air Field every year (Dad’s office was over there, behind the gate by the airstrip). One year, I don’t know if the pilots were just practicing, or if they were actually performing (it would run the whole weekend), I was standing outside between our quarters and the one next door, and one of the Thunderbirds made a low pass over me (right-side up). As a young teenaged girl, I thought that was pretty cool.
For a time, in my youth, I lived within blast radius of Offutt OFB. One year, probably around 1974, the RAF had a Vulcan at the show. Its routine was to overfly the crowd at a height seemingly low enough to reach up and touch, then once safely over the tarmac it would go to full power and pitch up into a steep climb. Which, at that height, sent a nice shock wave of jet exhaust and noise you could see coming rolling over the tarmac into the crowd.
I never got enough of that.
A few years later, the same vision of a delta-winged aluminum overcast greeted me in a movie, the opening scene of Star Wars.
– Max
Max/
When stationed at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge I saw a Vulcan do the low pass number down the Bentwaters runway a couple of local mini-airshows’ worth. But the best was when An RAF English Electric Lightning P.1 did a hi-speed, low pass down the Woodbridge runway while doing aileron rolls..
#3 – He DIDN’T FLINCH.
He’s stone deaf.
Except he was facing the oncoming jet…
Not entirely convinced about #3 as genuine. Wouldn’t wake turbulence have an effect on the guy standing? The camera moved all over the place but the guy standing did not. As well, the base MP’s would stop this before it started.
Not sure if qualifies for a low pass, but several yr ago while driving in Scotland a pair of Harriers came up the valley, below us (we were looking down on the planes), twisting and turning through the narrow valley.
Greetings:
Back in the early ’80s, I was working as a civilian printer for the Navy in Newport, RI, but lived in nearby Middletown which was the highest point on Naragansett island. One summer’s eve, my sweetheart, my neighbors, and I were having a few beers in the apartment complex parking lot. The Blue Angels were in town for the weekend and I think they were flying F-4s back then. Well, one of them came roaring over the top of the hill so low that my surprised sweetheart ran around in a circle like a dog chasing its tail and then directly into some large shrubs. After I carefully extracted her from that aspect of her misery, she asked me why I didn’t run too. I couldn’t resist an opening of that size and replied, “If you run, you just die tired.”
Dumb question – if a Navy flyer were as undisciplined as what’s his name in Top Gun, would he be allowed to stay in?
A couple more comments on that TopGun clip: Yeah, it’s dumb and unlikely and whatever…..but it’s very cool in a cinematic way, and funny, and it should be like that even if it isn’t or can’t be. On the other hand, the DADT locker room scenes, the DADT volleyball game, and general DADT nature of other stuff in the movie could be done without…but the music was cool, too. Life should come with a soundtrack. Mistakes and all I loved the movie.
Proof of why REAL men ride horses. Ground impact velocities and all.
[...] My favourite is number 2 – the KC135. Wow! Don’t try this at home, kids. (Hat tip: Neptunus Lex.) Share and [...]
I cannot, of course, see the video, as I am on dial-up, and in further course, have flash blocker installed.
I am reminded of the chapter in “Stick and Rudder” in which Diving on Girls’ Houses is deprecated. I think it may even have had equations.
P.s. There is of course the very famous video of an arrogant bastard banking a B-52 at something like 80 degrees while about 100 feet up, with the inevitable result. He had some innocent victims in the airplane with him, which really sucked.
The pic on the Wikipedia article shows the bomber in a 90 degree bank, with the low wingtip about 40 feet up. Just before the crunch. Ow.
OwowowowOWowow!
Not for the squeamish… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E21byPXR1ek . Always remembering that good men lost their lives in the name of “Showmanship”… and Stupidity.
At time 1:10 the effect of control reversal is clearly demonstrated. Past stall angle of attack, the aileron inputs the pilot was using attempting to right the ship had the opposite effect, as drag increases more rapidly than lift.
I think that model of B-52 had no ailerons, only spoilers. Made it even worse, of course. I think I read that the early Short seaplanes were just the opposite; their ailerons were not “closed-circuit”, but went only down, not up. They were often flying very close to the water with a long wingspan and had no altitude nor power to waste. I reckon their pilots developed Herculean rudder muscles.
Check out this Turkey at 00:34
Nellis 2004
Sorry! Too early in the morning for HTML…
Beavis, pretty sure this is the one you meant… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXyihqsNEUI
More coffee huh?
That’s it, John! Thanks! +1
Not sure what I was doing wrong (twice!!).
VR Beavis
I hereby categorically and unequivocally deny that I ever, ever did anything remotely like that. Ever. It wasn’t us. It wasn’t our side number. We didn’t do it, nobody saw us do it, there’s no video, you can’t prove anything. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Which makes me wonder if you’re the guy at Whidbey that made the low, inverted pass down the active back in ’68. I was working on one of our P2′s on the ramp when I caught a glimpse of an A6 starting a really low pass at full grunt. He rolled inverted, went the entire length of the runway, righted it and climbed to pattern altitude and landed. I always thought it was someone’s last flight prior to getting out. Probably worked out that way, either way…
Flug, I may be old, but I’m not THAT old! (cough, cough, Boss, cough)
But I am old enough to have been accosted in the Oceana O’ Club at the beginning of this century with the exclamation “Comjam! I heard you were dead!”
And “Wild Bill Barnes” didn’t make high speed (that’s a relative term)fly bys in a Whale below flight deck level back in 67 on USS America then pull up, turn wing dumps on and do a roll, which was a forbidden maneuver. It sure was fun.
And they threw my buddy Jack out of flight training for flying the helo through the hangar! Some of those 3 war aviators had no sense of humor.
He told me all about it when he looked me up on a duty night in Pearl.
Do you know how embarassing it is to be a DH wearing tracks and fish when ol buddy shows up with a totally permanent monorail as a asst div officer on an AO going to the IO? Not much I could say except “How do you like the oiler?”
Kind of lost track of him since he got out (early). Great guy, nice wife, baby. I think the wife was fine with him going back to grad school.
“We don’t use a 100-million-dollar-a-copy fighter jet to dig holes in the ground, son. Spades are $12.95 at Ace. Which is apropos, since that’s likely to be your next employer.”
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fd8_1220577383
In the “olden days” (how I’m beginning to hate that) we could get the altimeter to read below sea level in Death Valley (Phantom).
Or even oldener (!) we used to level off at what ever, clean up and see if we could get the flag wavers (read Commie pinkos) at Itazuke AB, to drop their flags at the departure end (Deuce). There is nothing wrong with flying near the edge of the air, be sure that you don’t try to fly in the edge of the ground, however.
My old man (LTC D, naviguesser and EW of legend) once told me of performing a B-36 flyover at the dedication of the Air Force Academy. According to lore, the lead aircraft lost an engine on pullup. With the resultant loss of several gallons of oil. Atomized in the propblast. And dispersed over a couple hundred cadets standing at attention.