Fighter planes
Bubba Jr.
Member Posts: 8,303 ✭✭✭✭
Last night I was on the computer and I heard a multi-engine plane flying close by. I looked outside and saw 4 WW2-era fighter planes in formation. I told the wife about it and we went outside to get a better look. They must have seen us because they make 4 large loops over our house and the immediate area before they flew off. I took a picture of them knowing that it was going to be crap because my phone doesn't have a telephoto lens. Then I sent the picture to my email address so I could post it with this story, but I didn't receive the email until this morning. (thank you for your prompt service hughes net)
So anyway here is the tiny picture. They were up maybe 8-10 thousand feet, so I couldn't see much in the way of detail, but they looked like they were painted in dull green, and they were flying with their landing lights on.
Comments
I can assure you that they did not see you. Nor that they'd perform four circles for an audience of two.
In close four-ship formation, only Lead is looking out ahead. The other three are staring intently at Lead and nowhere else while they maintain position. Lead is far too busy looking for other traffic, navigating, and flying smoothly to spend time looking for admirers on the ground.
Didn't you spend a lot of your flight time looking for 'admirers', Rocky?
That was a bit different, my friend. I was always alone - and trolling for attention in the form of tracer rounds. Or signs of "campers and hikers" who were smart enough to not advertise with tracers.
But when flying formation stateside, no. WAY too busy just keeping position.
That usually means they are practicing for an airshow somewhere in the area.
...Lots of great WWII war planes fly over when the Confederate Air Force is putting on a show in the town just over from me...the sight of those old birds, and the sound of those old prop engines is fantastic!...love those old planes...
I knew that Rocky, I was just being my silly self. 😁
Joe
Old warbirds!
I forgot to mention, while they were in formation each one of them took turns letting the smoke out of their planes. I assume they have an oil canister that will inject oil into the cylinders, or something similar.
Joe
Yup. Smoke oil, and it's injected into the exhaust manifold. For jets, it is sprayed into the exhaust at the nozzle.
Don't tell AOC. She'll charge that we're screwing up the planet faster with our damn military show offs.🤑
Look like maybe AT-6s
AT models of anything are unusual. It stands for Attack Trainer; they are designed to train attack pilots, and have dual controls for an instructor. Pure Trainers have no armament, and pure Attack models have only one cockpit.
I was lucky enough to fly AT-33s, which were a hybrid of the T-33 trainer and the F-80 fighter. My three months and 60-some hours in it got me the real but very temporary rating of Ground Attack Fighter Pilot - but never flew as one. At the time, you had to be a rated fighter pilot to be a FAC (the MUCH harder job) so they came up with an "Instant Fighter Pilot" program for new FACs.
around a year ago about dusk i heard some odd sound and stepped out on the deck to look.....just over treetop level two military helicopters with NO lights roared by about 400' away ...still light enuff to see the crew member on the right side..that was a hoot....guess they were playing games........figured they were out of the base in Wichita