Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 (edited) Hello all, I started out living the first 8 years of my life in San Diego Calif. So I got to see a lot of the Blue Angels growing up, since my father was an aeronautical engineer for Convair there in San Diego. Early on in the 1960's & 70's the Blue Angels did many firsts in their flight performances. I came across a couple of videos, that do demonstrate these are some of the best pilots in the world, highly trained talented but very disciplined pilots. Their precision has always impressed me since I was a small child. Edited February 11, 2016 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cylawyer~SPARTA~ Posted February 13, 2016 Share Posted February 13, 2016 These guys aren't bad either: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted February 13, 2016 Author Share Posted February 13, 2016 (edited) yes they have also been around, and can be spectacular. these military teams do perform fairly dangerous maneuvers on almost a daily basis. The fatality rates are roughly 10% which is pretty good considering all of these teams push both aircraft and pilot to their respective limits. In the video below demonstrates that any error can be pretty catastrophic. I have to admit, I am perplexed, at how a pilot who has achieved this level of training could make the mistake made in 2003. Using the wrong altitude for the airport your at is pretty basic...... However, because of their training and careful placement of stunts to avoid spectators, nobody was hurt in this accident. Even the pilot only received minor injuries. But it proves, that any time your pushing things to the limit, you better make damn sure your spot on with flight envelope calculations. This guy was off by 500 feet... and it almost cost him his life. It did cost us a very expensive aircraft. in case you miss it, he ejected 0.8 seconds before impact. Edited February 13, 2016 by Zathrus~SPARTA~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cylawyer~SPARTA~ Posted February 16, 2016 Share Posted February 16, 2016 And it was his last flight as a Thunderbird member from my understanding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zathrus~SPARTA~ Posted February 16, 2016 Author Share Posted February 16, 2016 Yes he was drummed out right then and there. He made two errors on one day... with the 2nd error destroying a 36 million dollar aircraft.... that is unacceptable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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