Now that's what I call a fly-past: US Navy F18 streaks past apartment block

About ten years ago I was in San Francisco during the angels show during fleet week.
OMG, that was a show, I rode my mtb to a hill in golden gate park to watch, and on one pass they came right over the top of me only about 200' up.
One went under the golden gate bridge and looped back over the top and on another pass two planes flew down a street at roof top level(4-5 story buildings) for several blocks.
It was the most spectacular displays of flying ive ever seen, at times they were flying so low across the bay they were kicking up a spray.

I love it when the AF does this!

everybody should get to see a fighter plane doing it's thing in real life just to feel the aircrafts power. When those things turn away from you and you can see the flames lighting the exhaust up bright orange and you can feel the heat, and every molecule in your body vibrates it's like watching the power of god or something. it is seriously powerful. hard to comprehend until you experience it.

As for the B1. good memories you brought up by mentioning it. Back when Edwards AFB was still doing their airshows they would do this thing every year where they would have the B1 do it's flight demonstration. but it would do this one thing every time to rile up the crowd. It would fly over the horizon away from the audience circle back behind them and do a mach.9 flyby at 500 feet or so right over the crowd. the crowd of course would still be looking the other way wondering where the B1 flew off to when it would surprise everybody with the really fast very low flyby from behind. For those who were going every year they knew this would happen ad they would all be standing around plugging their ears in anticipation. all the people whose first time it was would just look around at all the people and wonder why they were all plugging their ears up. they found out soon enough though. It was great. at mach.9 the B1 isn't really laud so much as it is earth shaking. it sounds like successive back fires from a car or like m80's going off in a stacatto manner. but each time it one of those burst could be heard it was like getting thumped in the chest. very,very powerful.

reply to post by RichardPrice


How close to the building do you think it is? Probably a few hundred feet at least?

[edit on 7/15/2009 by pteridine]

all I know is it's probably not 50 feet away like it appears n the picture. the over pressure or whatever would rupture that guys ears. notice he's calmly watching the thing as if it were farther away. I really doubt the average person would be so unexcited when an f18 buzzes their condo/apt 20 feet off their balcony.

reply to post by tristar


US & GB Air Force are great. Thats for sure. So are the French.

What the average civilian don't know is that Turkey next door has a habit of being insultive and have a policy of continuously breaching Greek Air Space trying to pick an episode and use that by means of reverse (fake) propaganda in order to escalate a situation into a major episode to use for them against Greece. They are constantly trying to gain ground... i.e Cyprus... Its a sad old and long going story.

All of this has brought Greek pilots to the highest standards, of being at least equivalent to the US & GB Air Forces. All these three nations are considered to be the best between each other at various times by those in the know. Pressure and practice along with ability makes the best.

After all, these nations use the same equipment. Americans of course along with the British have a larger up to date layout being larger nations. US besides having a great army are also the producers of most equipment. That gives the US substantial advantage besides having great men just as the British do. I have met many US and British fighter pilots having spent a part of my life in the Hellenic (Greek) Air Force albeit not a pilot myself ... They are all GREAT!

Anyway i stated the above so that people won't think i speak out of ego but rather out of knowledge and experience.

Hence the extremely low flybys you have seen by the Greek jets...
There are even more extreme flybys but you will rarely see those on tape whether they are US, GB, or Greek. Turkey is luckily nowhere near these stamdards despite having a lot of good equipment too.
I schould state that i was impressed by the French a few times too.
Alltogether you will not believe the amount of noise these fine machines produce when stressed by the pilots, especially if you are in an Air Base as i was seeing and hearing them daily. Its a hard daily job for personnel both in the air and on the ground.

I have never met anyone of the three nations i mostly spoke about to not be doing his service with great passion which is actually the big secret behind their success.

It was a nice break to see some Greek stuff in ATS... makes you feel proud and recall good times

To someone that mentioned that the show depicted in the opening of the thread is dangerous i would repeat like others that accidents do happen but it was nowhere near being dangerous or risky. This was simple routine practiced by the best under no pressure.
Anyone that thinks there were people put at risk does not understand how high the standards are set nor the amounts of money required to maintain operations and equipment. It was all within reason and certainly worth it. (That is according to the little data i have through this thread.) After all there were plenty of people to have a glimpse at this and be impressed standing in owe..
Way to go!

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
all I know is it's probably not 50 feet away like it appears n the picture. the over pressure or whatever would rupture that guys ears. notice he's calmly watching the thing as if it were farther away. I really doubt the average person would be so unexcited when an f18 buzzes their condo/apt 20 feet off their balcony.

If there is a picture in existence taken one or two seconds after that one it maybe a totally different story!! You gotta remember which end all the noise comes out of!

And notice how there is no one else in the picture?? I wonder if that guy some how got inside some sort of cordon??

Also once while on a mtb ride near mammoth lakes ca, we were blessed by two rich guys flying an F86 and mig 17 or 19 throught the high sierra canyons at tree top level having a friedly afternoon "dogfight".

The F86 was trying to shake the mig. it was quite the sight to have these two classic aircraft blast by just a couple hundred feet above the trees in the middle of the forest on a sunny saturday afternoon.

Also once while on a mtb ride near mammoth lakes ca, we were blessed by two rich guys flying an F86 and mig 17 or 19 throught the high sierra canyons at tree top level having a friedly afternoon "dogfight".

The F86 was trying to shake the mig. it was quite the sight to have these two classic aircraft blast by just a couple hundred feet above the trees in the middle of the forest on a sunny saturday afternoon.

Originally posted by punkinworks
Also once while on a mtb ride near mammoth lakes ca, we were blessed by two rich guys flying an F86 and mig 17 or 19 throught the high sierra canyons at tree top level having a friedly afternoon "dogfight".

The F86 was trying to shake the mig. it was quite the sight to have these two classic aircraft blast by just a couple hundred feet above the trees in the middle of the forest on a sunny saturday afternoon.

Oh, now that would have been a sight for sore eyes, obviously you enjoyed the show

Originally posted by MR BOB
funny how all the americans on here are like:
"*snip* Yeah! we have the BEST AIRFORCE AND ARMY IN THE WORLD!!!. YEAH!!"
--
Ive seen the americans abroad, when they shoot people and blow them up, its the same. "*snip* yeah you blew him to bits!!" and laughing, "I love this"

Thats why the english army has no respect for them, they dont do that. i have even talked to soldeirs about them and its alway the same, They dont like them, and they dont like working with them.

 

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[edit on Mon Jul 13 2009 by Jbird]

Add to that... the Americans might have perfected flying, but they didn't invent the jet, they actually blatantly stole it from the British, in a "you give us som, we give you some."
Unfortunately, the British gave first and the Americans forgot about the deal.

Originally posted by flice

Add to that... the Americans might have perfected flying, but they didn't invent the jet, they actually blatantly stole it from the British, in a "you give us som, we give you some."
Unfortunately, the British gave first and the Americans forgot about the deal.

Thats a harsh way of putting it - I'm sure there are plenty of things you use day-to-day which your countrymen never invented.

At the end of WW2, Britain gave jet engines to both the Soviet Union and America (and Canada et al) to even the issue out. Frank Whittle even went to General Electric in 1942 to help them with their jet engine program.

An interesting tidbit is that every jet powered aircraft in the Korean war was using an engine designed by Frank Whittle... Thats including the Soviet aircraft.

reply to post by RichardPrice


Westinghouse had a gas turbine in 1943. Germany had everyone beat.

The deal with the British wasn't one way and the US didn't forget. Much of the technology in the UK submarine fleet is US. During the Falklands war, the US provided intel that was critical to the British fleet.