September 15, 2003

Air Shows

Fellow Munuvian Stevie went to an airshow yesterday and had a great time.

We've recently been hearing about the annual Oshkosh Airshow up in Wisconsin. Some rocket buddies of mine live up in that area and get to see it every year. It sounds great. My favorites are the biplane originally built in 1937 and modified to fly with a Lear-jet engine slung underneath, and the grand finale - the Wall of Fire. Basically, they simulate a bomb drop by overflying warbirds. The wall is ¼ mile long and reaches the height of a three story building. Neat (if you like smoke and fire – and I do)!

Not all the Airshow news was good though:

Thunderbird Jet crashes at Idaho Airshow
Mountain Home Air Force Base - 85-THOUSAND PEOPLE WATCH AS AN AIR FORCE THUNDERBIRD CRASHES INTO A FIERY BALL OF FLAMES IN MOUNTAIN HOME AND THE PILOT WALKS AWAY.
A F-16-C AIRCRAFT PLUNGES TO THE GROUND SUNDAY AFTERNOON JUST AFTER 3 PM.
THE CRASH HAPPENED AT MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE'S "GUNFIGHTER SKIES 2003" AIRSHOW.
PILOT CAPTAIN CHRIS STRICKLIN DID EJECT SAFELY, HE REPORTEDLY STOOD UP AND WAVED TO THE CROWD, BUT AIR FORCE OFFICIALS WON'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT HIS CONDITION.
WITNESSES SAY THE JET WAS THE LAST OF THE SIX TO TAKE OFF, IT CLIMBED IN THE SKY, STRICKLIN EXECUTED A BARREL ROLL, BUT WHILE UPSIDE DOWN THE JET STARTED TO DIVE.
IT APPARENTLY HAD ENGINE FAILURE.

The amazing part of that story is that the pilot stood up and waved to the crowd, because you can't imagine how violent an airplane ejection can be. If nothing else, today he feels like the entire NFL used him for tackle dummy practice.

I saw the video of the crash, and he did a fine job keeping the aircraft under control. Something you may have noticed is that the crash happened parallel to the crowd.

I believe that it's a requirement of U.S. airshows (at least) that the aircraft do not fly over the crowd. It's been that way since the Flugtag Airshow disaster in 1988. Three Italian aircraft clipped each other during their performance and one crashed into the watching spectators. We were stationed at Ramstein AB at the time, and some of my people were on the ground near where the plane impacted. My kids and I weren't there, because we had watched the practice the day before, and went to a carnival instead. My son's teacher was severely burned, and we had neighbors who were killed. My kids had nightmares for years about that, and to this day we haven't gone to another airshow.

Airshows are cool, but the danger is there, and when things go wrong they can go spectacularly wrong in a hurry.

Posted by: Ted at 07:58 PM | category: Flugtag '88
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