By the way, I don't neccesarily disagree - just poking my usual pointed sticks :p

I'm not entirely sure what to think of the assumption that the public needs to be protected from this; part of me wants to say the equally politically-incorrect counter - that if people go to these things and don't for a second stop to respect the laws of physics (that incidentally govern large flying flammable objects), then they have themselves to blame as much as anyone. Still, it's true that there's no intelligence test involved for getting into an air show.


I've never been to an airshow like that (I've seen quite a few from a distance, though), though it's not that I'm afraid of going to one. I occasionally see our CF-18s over my house here, and I'm none the worse for it.

Also, I know that there have been security measures other than banning displays like that at airshows since Rammstein. I think a better, safer organization of these things in strictly non-residential areas may be a better way to go about it. It's sort of like zoos; zoos haven't been banned yet, though mauling accidents still occasionally happen. Is that a better parallel? :hmm:

On that point, let's close down any zoo that isn't involved in conservation or research. Seriously.

Polar Bears do not belong in London

Actually I disagree with Skybird when he says they are maximum risk maneauvers. If you look at any disply team the patterns they make are generally large radius low G turns, they don't pull that much compared to combat flying 5G maybe tops. The Red Arrows have the synchro pair and they do some higher G stuff but it is all preplanned. I think some of the solo displays by mil jets with bog standard military pilots in them more extreme. Look at the Typhoon being shown off or the Sukhoi. Much closer to on the edge maneauvers. Sounds to me like this was bad luck, hit something at the end of teh display while doing a turn.

As for running off the road while trying to watch them,. Driver Ed 101, ignore airplanes and keep your eys on the road.

The last blue angels air show I went to was in San Diego at Miramar in 1990 with over 200,000 people in attendance.

I was hot and saw a B-52 on exhibt with several people standing underneath the wings.

I edged my way over to the crowd under the wings as the Blue Angels did their show. I would come out and take a look then duck back under the wing for shade.

They did a split and came right at each other over the runway ... let me tell you those wings on the B-52 started vibrating and I could feel the vibs down deep in my soul.

I always wanted to be a pilot, but life dealt another card for me ... Those guys are great, I love them ...

It was sad to lose a buddy, but I know they'll make adjustments and be back up again.

The last accident the Blue Angels had was when they were practicing in Georgia back in 1999. Nobody who loves planes wants to see another accident.

They represent the best ... that's what I love about the US Navy Blue Angels.

Its funny to watch you Skybird. The way you talk, we should all stay home and lock the door because its unsafe to go outside. Oh wait! How do we stop housefires and such? Maybe it isn't safe at home! What ever are you going to do??!!! :D

-S

PS. I know what war is, and if you give me the keys to a $40 Mil fighter and tell me I get to fly it any time I want, but the only hitch is I have to defend my country with it when called - I'm there today!!!! No need to twist my arm. Besides, I love my country and I won't hesiteate to defend it and my home thank you very much. Nothing dishonest in any of it I say.

Guess we better ban all spectator sports and other recreational activities since it doesn't meet Skybird's approval.

Accident database-

http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/v....cgi?year=2007


Sky, you actually have video on your computer of the Flugtag '88 disaster? Why? :hmm:


Yours, Mike

Ramstein, '88-'92

there are patterns that include two formations heading each other and passing through each other at accumulated speeds of over 500 kn (both planes doing let's say minimum 250 kn each to maintain precise steering control). at such a speed both formation pass through each other, at 90° or 180° angles, and then wingtips and main bodies just meters away from each other.

Preplanned: I am sure pilots of cashed planes in the past also had preplanned manouveurs on their mind. but man is not 100% perfect, and doing such things reduces the error margin to extremely low values - or is unforgiving to any mistake at all, even a smallest deviation. that's why many good pilots got killed in the past, even under less stressing situation.

Nobody would recommend to zig-zag a sub at 50ft with 38 kn in a harbour area, fog and with heavy taffic everywhere and oil tankers in close vicinity. Nobody recommends to practice with tanks in urban area and hot ammunition, always precisely aiming beside the civilians. But for fighterplanes even more dangerous stunts are considered to be acceptable. This contradiction I do not get.


Play pool...!


Subman,

you again distort what I say as best as you can. Life includes risk, we all know that. What I condemn is to provoke ridiculously high risks for the actors as well as the audience and that are not needed at all. And my concerns are about the audience. If a pilot decides to try to challenge the devil, let him go, but let him try it in a way where he does not pose a risk to others. Else it would not make sense to prohibit driving on the wrong side of the autobahn, too.


Mike,

the page I linked - I googled only. I wanted to give some photo images on what ammount of distruction the impact did on the ground. Several hundred squaremeters on the ground turned into a killing ground. I doubt that the impact of a MK-84 has a similiar effect on the surface. The fire carpet crashed right into the visitor's area, at high speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWugZJS7oR4

Watch this video and then anybody tell me:
is such nonsens really needed...??? I say this disaster was only this: provoked.

I'm in full agreement that these daredevil teams, paid for by taxpayers no less, should become history.

People want to sell their stuntmaking for profit? OK but the military doesn't need to have such expensive and risky extravaganzas just to show off.

RIP, Cmdr. Kevin Davis.

You are the king of distortion, so don't even get me started on that. When you don't like what an author has to say for example, you start to dig up dirt on the author instead of looking at his point of view and coming back with a valid argument.

For the Blue Angels, they are doing absolutely nothing unsafe if you study the manuvers. This guy that crashed however was inexperienced - that was the issue.

Have you actually seen their head to head passes from the side with them going over you? The spacing is not a few meters apart as you suggest. Try hundreds of feet. From the front of the airshow, this is hard to gather because of the speed involved.

Basically, what I write above is spot on as they say. You might as well not ever come out of your house.

-S

It is recruitment and public support, as well as public awareness on the professionalism of its military. It would be stupid to pull the plug on shows such as this, and it is hardly daredevil - they are doign nothing to endanger themselves at all, nor the public. That is why they have been doing it for over 50 years with only a couple incidents - all of them due to inexperienced pilots.

-S

Revealing. No more comment needed. :dead:

Life is full of chances and risks. We can't live in fear and try to hide from everything that might hurt us. If the air shows are a good recruiting tool then I feel my tax dollars are being well spent, IMO. And anybody that signs up thinking that he is immune from getting into harms way is very naive and not too bright to say the least. :know:

They do not abusing the aircraft and doing nothing more than a motor sports type display may do. It is a ton more dangerous to watch F1, or worse, rally races in person than to watch these guys do graceful manuvers in the sky. So get over it already.

If you don't like it, go home and lock the door.

-S

PS. ANd by the way, I take comfort in the fact that you are in charge of nothing in this world since your ideas are a little skewed in my opinion.

The pilots poor family. It was his first show as a pilot, so I'm sure they were all there watching.

Thats what I said - it was due to inexperience. It is terribly sad.

-S

Turn your swords into plowshares.

I'll keep my sword and make you do my plowing.:arrgh!:

If I was a weapons officer in the cockpit of a F-4 Phantom jet in the Vietnam war with a russian made/chinese transported/vietnam fired missile coming after me ... I sure would want a Blue Angel trained pilot in the front seat and that ain't no lie. :yep:

"Sigh." :roll:

Subman,

I once knew a guy, a young Belgian, doing his first oversea tour as sound technician for the joint correspondents teams for which I worked also back then, it was a British-Belgian collaboration. He was even several years younger than I was back then. He was very hot about seeing his first "adventures", he was eager to experience something "exciting", and he said that there will be a time when his professional skills (that were beyond doubt) would be really tested the first time - when they would be required to function while being under stress. Boy, he was a small kid in the body of a young man, and his big mouth was nerve-killing, all day long.

One day we passed through a little village in southeastern Anatolia, southeast of Erzurum, a mountaineous and isolated region, and it happened to have been hit by a massive artillery strike just one day before. It was one of these events the Turkish military usually referred to as "minor skirmishes with bandits" only. Not one family without dead ones, the place was shattered, all huts were ruins or heavily damaged, still smoking. Parts of a mountai had come down, blocking the road, well, what is called a road in these regions. A couple of children had lost both parents. Maybe 30 people survived, were mouring, and still under shock, sitting beside the graves that did not hold all victims, for they told us that not all bodies had been found.

It was a terrible and miserable scene. We (5 TV guys, 2 Kurdish drivers, me and three others for scouting and security) all felt depressive.

Strong-mouthed good-hearted boy from Belgium looked into some empty eyes too much on that day, he finally got a pale face, then sat down where he was and cried for hours, not doing one recording on interviews that day - his British counterpart was doing it.

The video was excluded from the longterm-docu that we were working on, instead it was sent to London and then internationally distributed for the daily news. That was in mid-96, and it was shown in Germany, and as I was told, UK, Belgium, Austria and Holland as well. Probably also other countries, I don't know.

My point is: some people will not switch on their brain and stop babble nonsens before life itself has slapped them in the face, and with force so. Lots of tough talking from you, Subman, and often so. I think you are just a fool. And I hope life will hit you in the face before you die - to teach you the difference between illusions and reality, what we wish the world to be and what it really is. Else your life would have been in vain, and you will never have been alive.

And if "go home and lock the door" is the brightest reply you can give to something, well, then you may be old in years, but still haven't grown up yet.

I thought you would already know the answer to this being a phyc major and all. Life has already slapped me in the face and that is why I have become stronger from it. From what you write, it sounds more like you are writing about yourself and that you need to be the one slapped in the face with life. As they say, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger, and I have already had my fair share of near death experiences thank you very much. I understand I do not like certain things in life, but I also understand that other people may very well like them. Hunting comes to mind - I do not care to hunt, but in no way do I think my view on hunting should stop other people from doing what it is they love. That is the true mark of someone grown up incase you didn't notice. Life comes at you fast, and to stop something like you describe is complete senseless nonsense. That is the sign of someone who is far from grown up. Look in the mirror please because you describe yourself, not me.

*sigh* :roll:

-S

No, not me is the point - it is YOU. Simply you. Not me, not anybody else, not the man in the moon, and not any other entity you choose as a target for simply deflecting anything being told to you. You can dance and irritate and turn it around and deceive as much as you want. It's YOU, teflon-man.

Really, your constant habit of simply recording everything somebody tells you and then exchange your name in it with his and send it all back to sender is nervekilling, tells me that you have no answers yourself, and illustrate a desperate determination of never, never letting anything getting through to you.

And I have lost completely any interest in why you are how you are. Maybe others are interested, but I am not, I have seen this dancing too often now, and it's always the same scheme. If there is a problem hiding under that, than it is your problem. Not mine, not ours, not somebody else's - YOUR problem exclusively.

Anyway, bye.