Dave Shutter
Registered User
Just went to another air show, fortunately this one was a hell of a lot closer than Andrews AFB. It was at McQuire, right in my own state and only a forty minute drive up the highway. The list of static displays was lean, less than twenty, all Air Force birds, mostly cargo and transport. After having just seen almost everything in the DOD inventory (and I mean everything) at Andrews a few weeks ago I wouldn't even have bothered, but the T-birds were going to perform, the weather was good (unlike Andrews) and it was so close, and of course it's free, and I have never seen them before.
Now at Andrews, the Blue Angels flew despite the weather. But after a few minutes in the air Cdr. Driscoll made the call and grounded the performance after a few passes due to the weather, and the T-Birds didn't even fly. (Navair buffs feel free to snicker) Planes took off and literaly disapeared into the low overcast after a few hundred feet. I'm still upset because of the potential of that day, very rarely are all those planes and performers assembled in one place. The Blues and T-Birds only get together less then half a dozen times a year. Seeing them fly one team after the other would have just been fantastic. Sigh...
Anyway, having seen a full Blue Angels performance a year ago at Dover, (perfect weather) I noticed a much different style to the T-Bird performance. I can not imagine more perfect conditions for a perfomance. It was warm and sunny as hell (I'm sunburt bigtime!) with some patchy white clouds around five to ten thousand feet. The clouds went from horizon to horizon but there was a huge opening of blue right over center field when they took off, it was pretty amazing!
I thought that the Blue Angel stlye was a lot more aggressive, raw, and in your face. It looked to me like they flew closer, lower and a hell of a lot faster! The teams do a lot of simialiar maneuvers but I thought the Blues did head on passing maneuvers a lot closer! A good portion of the T-Bird performance seemed repetitive, a lot of the same stuff over and over. Besides going vertical in AB, they didn't really seem to stress the abilities of the aircraft wheras the Blues did everything from full AB vertical, to very slow flight followed by acceleration, to full dirty formation rolls. When a solo does the standard high-G, tight turn, allowing a plane to sneak up on the crowd in afterburner, (Blue Angels was a solo, T-Bird was a pair) The T-birds were up at about 500 to 700, and the Blue couldn't have been more than 200, it was really low! I may be wrong about these numbers but the two F-16's weren't half as loud as that single Hornet that flew overhead, the shrieking noise it made was undescribable. The T-Birds did the "bomb split" when the formation goes vertical, splits into different ditections and them comes down at center field criss-crossing, T-Birds did it with five ships. Blue Angles: all six. T-Birds use music, Blues don't need it. T-Birds had a lot of lag time in-between passes, Blue's had virtually none. I also wanted to see the in-line loop, where all planes line up even and loop. I've seen pictures of the T-Birds doing it and expected it as the conditions were so good but they didn't. The Blues did it at Dover and it looked perfect! I thought the Blues seemed to be more into the razor sharp, stunt flying aspect of performance wheras the T-birds focus more on looking graceful and smooth. T-birds land in a line with a short spread, Blues land in a six ship diamond. Another thing, the T-Bird narrator told you exactly what was going to happen on every single pass, it was still cool to watch, but on about half the Blue Angel passes the narrator didn't say a word leaving you to wonder what was about to happen, and when they passed, you were like: Holy sh*t!!
And don't forget Fat Albert!
Now I'm not cutting up on the T-Birds, not at all, actually I was very impressed. Their team is a lot of dedicated men and women who bust their asses and lay it on the line for their country and their branch and I would never dis' that. The capabilities of the F-16's and their pilots was very impressive. I'm just noticing a difference in their styles. Maybe it's an attitude thing stemming from how they land, but who knows. If anyone out there is a real fan of the teams and has a reply I'd appreciate any info, my knowledge here is only from seeing them perform once a piece.
These air shows I've gone to recently have actually given me a much bigger appreciation of the AF. As an Army tanker in a rapid deployment unit in Germany I knew that a C-5 could carry a tank anywhere in the world, or two at short range, (combat loaded M1-A1/A2: 70 tons) but I never knew about all the other suppost missions the AF carried out. Those missions are a very large part of their branch and you don't really realize that until you drive through an AF base and see how much space and equipment goes into a mobility wing, the size and number of their hangars and support equipment is just amazing. To think about the ammount of work needed to keep that machine working is mind-boggling! Growing up i've always thought of Navy/AF rivalry as being between the yuppie-pretty boy F-15 pilots and the hardcore, nail-chewing, F-14 carrier pilots. But I've never really known that much about all the different support roles the AF carries out on a daily basis that don't get a fraction of the attention of the fighter jocks get. Everybody at the air show walks through the C-5, but practically nobody stops and talks to the pilot, wheras the F-14 fighter guy can't even go the bathroom because of the crowd around him.
One thing that was funny at Andrews though: An F-15E (beautiful plane; AF pilot age limit:30, very tempting) and a Major were surrounded by people, I was looking at the row of bomb racks under the air intakes (Wow that plane can carry a lot of sh*t!) and kept hearing people ask the Major if this was the plane that Tom Cruise flew in that movie , or if this was the plane that landed on the ship . All the Major could do was sigh and point over at the Navy section were the color schemed Black Ace 101 from VF-41 was parked next to the Super Hornet. (the identical Tomcat flown in the MSNBC special last week on carrier aviation, by the way.)
My $.02
Fly Navy!
D
Now at Andrews, the Blue Angels flew despite the weather. But after a few minutes in the air Cdr. Driscoll made the call and grounded the performance after a few passes due to the weather, and the T-Birds didn't even fly. (Navair buffs feel free to snicker) Planes took off and literaly disapeared into the low overcast after a few hundred feet. I'm still upset because of the potential of that day, very rarely are all those planes and performers assembled in one place. The Blues and T-Birds only get together less then half a dozen times a year. Seeing them fly one team after the other would have just been fantastic. Sigh...
Anyway, having seen a full Blue Angels performance a year ago at Dover, (perfect weather) I noticed a much different style to the T-Bird performance. I can not imagine more perfect conditions for a perfomance. It was warm and sunny as hell (I'm sunburt bigtime!) with some patchy white clouds around five to ten thousand feet. The clouds went from horizon to horizon but there was a huge opening of blue right over center field when they took off, it was pretty amazing!
I thought that the Blue Angel stlye was a lot more aggressive, raw, and in your face. It looked to me like they flew closer, lower and a hell of a lot faster! The teams do a lot of simialiar maneuvers but I thought the Blues did head on passing maneuvers a lot closer! A good portion of the T-Bird performance seemed repetitive, a lot of the same stuff over and over. Besides going vertical in AB, they didn't really seem to stress the abilities of the aircraft wheras the Blues did everything from full AB vertical, to very slow flight followed by acceleration, to full dirty formation rolls. When a solo does the standard high-G, tight turn, allowing a plane to sneak up on the crowd in afterburner, (Blue Angels was a solo, T-Bird was a pair) The T-birds were up at about 500 to 700, and the Blue couldn't have been more than 200, it was really low! I may be wrong about these numbers but the two F-16's weren't half as loud as that single Hornet that flew overhead, the shrieking noise it made was undescribable. The T-Birds did the "bomb split" when the formation goes vertical, splits into different ditections and them comes down at center field criss-crossing, T-Birds did it with five ships. Blue Angles: all six. T-Birds use music, Blues don't need it. T-Birds had a lot of lag time in-between passes, Blue's had virtually none. I also wanted to see the in-line loop, where all planes line up even and loop. I've seen pictures of the T-Birds doing it and expected it as the conditions were so good but they didn't. The Blues did it at Dover and it looked perfect! I thought the Blues seemed to be more into the razor sharp, stunt flying aspect of performance wheras the T-birds focus more on looking graceful and smooth. T-birds land in a line with a short spread, Blues land in a six ship diamond. Another thing, the T-Bird narrator told you exactly what was going to happen on every single pass, it was still cool to watch, but on about half the Blue Angel passes the narrator didn't say a word leaving you to wonder what was about to happen, and when they passed, you were like: Holy sh*t!!
And don't forget Fat Albert!
Now I'm not cutting up on the T-Birds, not at all, actually I was very impressed. Their team is a lot of dedicated men and women who bust their asses and lay it on the line for their country and their branch and I would never dis' that. The capabilities of the F-16's and their pilots was very impressive. I'm just noticing a difference in their styles. Maybe it's an attitude thing stemming from how they land, but who knows. If anyone out there is a real fan of the teams and has a reply I'd appreciate any info, my knowledge here is only from seeing them perform once a piece.
These air shows I've gone to recently have actually given me a much bigger appreciation of the AF. As an Army tanker in a rapid deployment unit in Germany I knew that a C-5 could carry a tank anywhere in the world, or two at short range, (combat loaded M1-A1/A2: 70 tons) but I never knew about all the other suppost missions the AF carried out. Those missions are a very large part of their branch and you don't really realize that until you drive through an AF base and see how much space and equipment goes into a mobility wing, the size and number of their hangars and support equipment is just amazing. To think about the ammount of work needed to keep that machine working is mind-boggling! Growing up i've always thought of Navy/AF rivalry as being between the yuppie-pretty boy F-15 pilots and the hardcore, nail-chewing, F-14 carrier pilots. But I've never really known that much about all the different support roles the AF carries out on a daily basis that don't get a fraction of the attention of the fighter jocks get. Everybody at the air show walks through the C-5, but practically nobody stops and talks to the pilot, wheras the F-14 fighter guy can't even go the bathroom because of the crowd around him.
One thing that was funny at Andrews though: An F-15E (beautiful plane; AF pilot age limit:30, very tempting) and a Major were surrounded by people, I was looking at the row of bomb racks under the air intakes (Wow that plane can carry a lot of sh*t!) and kept hearing people ask the Major if this was the plane that Tom Cruise flew in that movie , or if this was the plane that landed on the ship . All the Major could do was sigh and point over at the Navy section were the color schemed Black Ace 101 from VF-41 was parked next to the Super Hornet. (the identical Tomcat flown in the MSNBC special last week on carrier aviation, by the way.)
My $.02
Fly Navy!
D