Special Ops is never over 1000 feet when in goes over my house. That’s not a lot of time to recover, even in aircraft that slow. You run out of flight space a lot faster in the F aircraft.
I hope they can recover the data recorders to find out what happened.
]]>I’m often buzzed by the F-18 jockeys from China Lake and various makes and models of jet fighters from Edwards AFB when I’m out in the desert in my Jeep. You’re just driving along, and suddenly “WHAM!” and it’s like, “wha? what just happened? Did all my tires just explode at once because one of them environmentalist nutcases put nail strips across the road again?!” Then you notice the jet fighter in front of you and realize that you just got buzzed by a fighter jock practicing taking out vehicles in the desert, and that if this were real, you’d be dead before you knew you were dead :-). (the WHAM is his sound catching up with him!).
Those guys (and occasional gal) have the best job in the world. Birds are envious of them. Alas, when you have a bird that high-strung things can go wrong *fast*, especially at the low altitudes and high speeds that pilots are training at over the desert… it’s a wonder that more pilots don’t end up splattered across the mountainsides, they drop in through one slot, and waggle out through another one after they’ve made their run “killing” everything on the road through the valley. Training and superb maintenance of their birds, that’s the ticket. But obviously that wasn’t enough in this case :-(.
]]>You accept that it is a dangerous occupation, but it still comes as a shock when things go South.
]]>Condolences to the family.
Rest in Peace.
]]>Thoughts and prayers to the family.
]]>This must be out in the middle of nothing, because they normally report pilot status a lot sooner. There hasn’t been an update since the initial report.
]]>Badtux´s last blog post..VAT taxes and financial crack
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