The most impressive demonstration of U.S. technology and American skill that I ever witnessed was at the hands of Navy Captain flying a flight demo in an F-14 at an airshow in 1987. The awesome power of the machine, coupled with precise skill of the pilot left the entire crowd at NAS JAX open mouthed and speechless. The finale was the aircraft flying into an open area between the two runways. He came in dirty with flaps, gear, and arrester down and wings extended. He then banked and began flying a low slow circle. After a couple of revolutions the gear came up, on the next pass the tailhook was up, the next pass flaps up, the next pass the wings began to sweep. Now this guy was completely perpendicular to the ground at about 100 feet agl spinning in cirle with full afterburners gaining speed with every pass. After about a half dozen revolutions, as he passed outbound from the crowd, he straightened up and yanked back on the stick, went completely verticle and was a gray speck against the blue sky in about 5 seconds time. He then just disappeared.
At the time I was attached to P3 squadron, and many in the crowd were active duty Navy as well and you could sense the pride in everyone around. Everyone was just looking around in total disbelief at what they just witnessed. It remains today the most impressive thing I have ever seen a machine do and that includes being witness to a few dozen Shuttle launches.
At the time I was attached to P3 squadron, and many in the crowd were active duty Navy as well and you could sense the pride in everyone around. Everyone was just looking around in total disbelief at what they just witnessed. It remains today the most impressive thing I have ever seen a machine do and that includes being witness to a few dozen Shuttle launches.
I got the chills while reading this story! Who was the pilot, was this stunning demonstration preserved on film or in photographs, and what would it take to get that F-14 crew connected to FreeRepublic.com?
Here's what I don't understand: America's enemies, the ones with military air power, watch the U.S. airshow performances, right? Our enemies can see that U.S. fighter/bomber pilots are highly trained and are almost fused with the aircraft they are handling to the point that the aircraft is extension of their own bodies, or I am assumming too much? And they know that the shock-and-awe skills, techniques, precision seen during the airshow apply to the battlefield also, don't they? Then why did the two Libyan pilots risk their lives in 1989 after they saw (a) what happened in 1981 when two F-14 Tomcats pilots destroyed two Libyan Sukhoi SU-22s that provoked the F-14 pilots to a fight (see post #1 for the account) and (b) that in 1985 terrorists had enough sense to realize that although the F-14 Tomcat is smaller than an 737 airliner this was one battle the terrorists weren't going to win (again see post #1 for more details)???