Tippis says:

List is incomplete. This guy isn’t on it: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/200806413155273

Esih says:

What stupid bravado! And a waste of money to boot.

Rufus Rafus says:

nah nah nah..whaa..whaa..whaa..whaaa. I think, therefore I bitch. I am a super bitch. I just wait until I see something of interest, or really cool, then attempt to destroy the original intent of author, just because I can. Look at me, I am a dork

SimonZerafa says:

Hi,

While no doubt very cool; some of those stunts were unbelievably dangerous and I cannot believe many of them were officially sanctioned.

To be honest I am surprised that any pilot would even attempt them when they are not necessary (e.g. in combat and in a life threatening situation).

I guess they can be as stupid as the rest of us!

Lets forget the possible loss of life on the ground for one moment; what about the cost in terms of the pilot and crew and the aircraft involved?

How much does it cost to train a pilot and build the aircraft? Those are your taxes at work! And who foots the bill when it goes wrong?

Now where is the video of those low level attempts that went horribly wrong with the costs of each accident next to the reckless flying.

Regards

Simon

NelsonOH says:

Of course by third video I meant #3.

pcsmith says:

The most impressive one I’ve witnessed was a C-5 flyby during a retirement ceremony.

The plane picked up speed as it approach us, cut its engines about a quarter mile away. As it passed before us at about 200 ft, it dipped a wing then throttled up its engines pulled up and away.

BTW, the C-5 is the largest plane in the Air Force inventory. It can hold two greyhound buses inside it.

RBG says:

And then there was me years back landing a 152 at YVR… and forcing a 747 to do a last minute go-round. Hey, there was this massive head wind. I’m sorry, ok?

RBG

bobbo, international pastry chef and Van Helsing Assistant says:

RBG==they really mixed light and heavy like that?

Amusing.

springfield_tom says:

George AFB, CA, 1970. F4’s. I’m ground crew. My good friend, pilot Jim Simon (later to be a member of the Thunderbirds) related how the fighter jockeys would compare their negative number altimeter readings during “training” excercises at Death Valley.

He also told of this: The SoCa upper desert is laced with two track dirt roads that are straight as an arrow, however they traverse hill and gulley. So Jim or his backseater would spy, from ahigh, Ma & Pa’s Camper in a gulley along one of these roads, perhaps sitting ’round a morning fire, breakfast & coffee in hand. Jim would make a sweep around, come in low unseen and pop up over the hill to “wake them up”. Did they really need that coffee? More low-level training.

gesundheit says:

I wonder what they teach these pilots about sneezing , other then DON’T!

RBG says:

Gene Cernan has a good story (in his “The Last Man on the Moon”) about making a practice low (atomic) bombing run on a target – and clipping it.

RBG

Urotsukidoji says:

I was lucky enough to be doing some maintenance on an aircraft arresting cable during the USAF’s Thunderbirds practice (Indian Springs, NV). For some reason, the tower cleared a T-Bird to do a high-speed low approach while I was still dead center of the runway with my back to the approach end. I had my headset and earplugs in and didn’t hear the bird roaring towards me. With no warning from the tower, I turned around just in time to get a pretty good scare.

Mark T. says:

There is an old pilot saying: You can only tie the record for the lowest flyby.

Rover7289 says:

This flyby is great.

Winston says:

“Hot rodding” can get you (and others) killed. Save that along with your multi-million dollar aircraft for the enemy du jour.