hedgehog

I spend some part of my life fishing remote Scottish lochs and there is nothing more impressive than standing out there for 6 hours in peace and quiet and then having a Tornado explode over your head at low level and then vanish over the horizon at high speed.

Last year I watched one come up a little valley and over the "bump" that my loch was on. I'd say he didn't have much more than 50 feet on the loch though more than that up the valley obviously, standing on the bank (perhaps 10 feet tall at most) I was looking into the cockpit rather than up at the plane. It must be said that his speed wasn't so very high, though I know nothing about these things but am basing this on the fact that I've seen them go past much, much faster.

I had another heart stopping experience about 6-7 years ago when a Tornado came from behind me at extremely high speed. I had no notice at all of the arrival of this thing until the wall of sound hit me. Nearly fell into the loch!! I'm an audio engineer and should know all there is to know about dynamic range but I've never heard anything on this. Took about 10 minutes to get my hands stopped shaking, but it was fantastic and an experience I will never forget. He went over a little hill on the other side of the loch, say 400 yards away, and nearly hit another Tornado coming the opposite way over the hill, my life flashed before my eyes as I could see me being found in the wreckage. Was the near miss planned? I don't believe it was as they didn't miss by many feet, I'd say they had 100 feet on the hill and 20 feet on each other.

Say what you like about it but you couldn't pay for that sort of entertainment.

carl

Well for a start, the Jaguar's top (air)speed may be 990mph but certainly not at sea level, nor at 54 ft.

Alan C

I suppose you would.

Scooby96

Plus another 2 million gone to waste on his training if he's sacked!

ozzy

LOL @ hedgehog

The pilot was probably trying to get you to fall in the Loch. That's what I'd do

I had a pair of them doing some low-level runs in Glen Coe last year. An awesome sight watching them below you. There was already an element of exposure on the ridge I was on and to look down on a pair of jets made it even worse.

The noise echoing through the Glen was awesome. Wish those lads could give a fly-by everytime I'm on the mountains

Stefan

Jerome

I've twice had fast jets zoom past below me in Scotland. The first time it was 2 Phantoms (showing my age) and the second time 2 Tornados. Utterly awesome.

I reckon the RAF pilot in question will (hopefully) just get "coffee without biscuits". The stick he's getting in the mess is probably punishment enough. Considering what didn't happen to the trigger happy septic pilot who killed 4 Canadians in Afghanistan, anything more would be a travesty.

CrisPDuk

But Americans don't get court marshalled unless they kill OTHER AMERICANS, and even then they only get a slap on the wrist generally. IIRC the knobjock that cut the Italian cable car down was never handed over!

Geezer

Maybe, but you still were wrong about it being supersonic!

Geezer

Leslie

It was quite normal to do a bit of a "beat up" as was said, I have done quite a few and at Akrotiri too! It was his mistake for not seeing the lamp post as he did it. Trouble is that fixed his height pretty accurately for the court martial.

If you had to go to war doing low level attacks, that is the sort of height you would be forced to fly down to to escape missiles and guns trying to get you. We all used to practice very low level, even in the Vulcan.

The problem with QFE and QNH is very real, you need to be "switched on" to avoid that error. I remember a Vulcan crash at a display in Chicago(fatal of course) caused by having QNH set rather than the air base QFE.

The most exciting thing I ever did in Cyprus was to make an approach and low overshoot with a Canberra on the deck of the Forrestal when it was moored at Limassol. The deck looked smaller than a postage stamp. I have full admiration for the Navy landing on the deck!

Les

Sbradley

You want to see what happens when the pilot gets the QFE and QNH wrong then watch this movie

Good news is that it wasn't fatal and the pilot, a member of the USAF Thunderbirds display team, remained professional enough to turn away from the crowd line while he could...

Full story is that the team had ovenighted at Nellis (I believe) which is about 4' above sea level before flying in to this airbase (don't know which) at around 1000' ASL. So when our hero went into a loop he pulled through at the top around 1000' lower than he thought.

He is still in the service but not in a flying role...

SB

millband

You should get yourself to Bruntingthorpe on Sept. 5th. Went last Sunday to watch Lightnings go down the runway on full burner from about, ooh, 50ft away. Most people had ear defenders on - for the first run I had loo roll in my ears and nearly fell over when the plane passed me, and only one burner had lit Later they ran both their Lightnings down together, but I couldn't stay long enough to see that - luckily for my ears! They go by close enough for you to get a face full of very hot air and grit, all part of the experience!

Steve

See - http://www.lightnings.org.uk

A couple of my pics and a short vid - http://www.giveitfish.co.uk/Misc/040...rpe/index.html

Brit_in_Japan

The two pilots were picked up by a truck. According to popular legend the first thing the "innocent" pilot did on being reunited with other was to lean across the back seat and punch him in the jaw. Not a single word was said between them, they just sat in silence for the drive back to the flight ops room.

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall at the de-brief...

Brit_in_Japan

Good footage of an ejection. Ejections put serious loads on the spine. Sometimes the only thing pilots are fit to fly after an ejection is a desk! I think that the RAF has a 3 ejection limit for aircrew, but I'm not sure if that is because of medical or financial concern...

CrisPDuk

If a pilot has needed to eject 3 times in peacetime, you wouldn't lend him your motor would you?

Sbradley

The USAF have the same limit for ejections because of the physical damage it does to the pilot.

But they have a 'one strike and you're out' policy for pilots who eject because they have carried the ****-up fairy as an unauthorised passenger...

No prizes for guessing which category this one falls into...

SB