Aircraft pics

[mockingbird812]

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The story I heard on this one was that the pilot had set his altimeter for Nellis AFB, the Thunderbirds' home base, instead of Mountain Home AFB, ID, where this crash occurred. The difference in airfield elevation between Nellis and Mountain Home is significant and by the time the pilot realized his error he was about to hit the ground. He was performing the back-half of a low-altitude loop (basically) and he rolled-over and pulled toward the ground at too low an altitude. He realized he did not have sufficient altitude to complete the loop and correctly ejected about two seconds before the jet hit the ground. The photo shows the jet with its nose "up" but it's actually "mushing" toward the ground in a near-stalled condition. The pilot tried to pull hard enough to avoid impact but saw that it was hopeless. I have the cockpit video and I'll try to attach it--it's pretty spectacular. Oh, and his 'chute deployed just before he hit the ground and he jumped up and made a "touchdown" gesture to the crowd, who all cheered at his survival. Needless to say, he was removed from the Thunderbirds and put on ground duty at the Pentagon--I think I had heard he was a general's son but I'm not sure. As British pilots would say in the old days: bad show!

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"Thunderbirds Knock It Off!"

[427TJ]

That's it, thanks Sam. (I forgot about YouTube--duh!)

[427TJ]

Forget the wrecked 737--look at those gas prices!!!



I think this was about 5 years ago.

[427TJ]

Sunrise, December 1944, somewhere in England. Crews look eastward at the contrails from the bomber stream and its escort fighters as they head east to bomb Germany. Try to imagine what all those piston engines sounded like up high heading for Germany. Few of those boys were older than 25. That's a P-51D Mustang.

[427TJ]

Here's what some 23 year-olds were doing in 1945. That's Major Pierce McKennon warming up his P-51D "Ridge Runner" at Debden air base in England, March 1945. McKennon was KIA soon after this photo was taken. Mirrors atop windscreen were "borrowed" from an RAF Spitfire.

[427TJ]

Back in the 1969-70 period this P-51D used to buzz the east bay (San Francisco) hills where I grew up. We called it the "maroon and gold" Mustang. My dad's buddy took these photos at the 1970 Watsonville (California) airshow. The airplane was owned by George Perez and I think he still has it.

[427TJ]

Another common site in the SF east bay in the 1960s and early 70s were fire supression airplanes like this Grumman F7F Tigercat. Summer always brought with it the sound of rumbling radial engines and the F7F was the hottest hot rod in the air tanker fleet. I would blow the screen door off its hinges when a Tigercat went over the house. They were based at Santa Rosa and a few other bases in California. One of the surviving F7Fs participates at the Reno Air Races and it's a real crowd pleaser.

[SS427]

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We called it the "maroon and gold" Mustang. My dad's buddy took these photos at the 1970 Watsonville (California) airshow. The airplane was owned by George Perez and I think he still has it.


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Here is another photo of George's P-51 serial #44-74483
Rick