Posted on 07/28/2025 9:04:26 AM PDT by Red Badger
As a pilot I think he might have hit some wake turbulence which continued his roll and went with it all the way around. Happened to the In and Out CEO’s plane on final into John Wayne Airport except they nose dived into the ground. Wake turbulence is a nasty thing for pilots at times.
He spotted ‘chicks’...................
At least the F18 pilot kept his head and knew how to fly inverted.
Agreed. Some rather unorthodox positioning...
“PULL UP. PULL UP. PULL UP.”
Not if you’re upside down!..............
I think he was going to do a low altitude barrel roll, and as he did it, realized he wasn’t going to maintain the needed altitude and would have plowed in and...he bailed out of the maneuver.
As a pilot performs that maneuver at low altitude, unless it is flown correctly (and deliberate flight surface inputs from the pilot to prevent losing altitude are absolutely needed) the aircraft will lose altitude in in the middle of the maneuver and will hit the ground.
I don’t think it is more complicated than that.
At least he didn’t auger in.
ridiculous
sounds correct
except aileron roll not barrel roll
Not sure-if it were an aileron roll, it seemed kind of a sloppy one. And who wants to be that sloppy that close to the ground at that speed?
If I understand it, a barrel roll is a corkscrewing motion in the x-y-z plane, where an aileron roll appears to be strictly on one axis and the wings rotate around that single axis.
But I am not a pilot, so I admit I could be off-base on this.
“Teniente Domínguez, venga a los aposentos del Capitán!”
Yes, it’s door number two )
Anyway, glad he didn’t plow in. I’ll bet he wished he were wearing his brown pants, though!
Ok mr pilot
I saw a Canadian F-18 do a dirty barrel roll gear down flaps down, right after takeoff. Super slow full afterburner. Nearest thing I ever seen at an airshow. F-18s have some major power.
It has been a great design, especially the F-18 E/F. Excellent. A classic airframe.
Aviation enthusiasts have a saying: “If it looks good, it will fly good.” I tend to agree with that, but it is also true that “fly by wire” and software can make up for a lot of that.
At least until you take bullet or shrapnel through a CPU!
I think not. I would have loved to hear the debriefing. I would suspect it went like this, "do not blow smoke up my ass captain, but it was a hell of a recovery."
“I’m not happy that our f-18 hornets will all too soon be in the hands of Muslims who will run Spain.”
They’ll be scrap metal in less than a month.
L
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