Posted on 09/15/2003 6:15:16 AM PDT by bedolido
The Thunderbirds are the main attraction at the Gunfighter Skies Air Show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base.
Their 30-minute program was set to begin about ten minutes before 3:00 Sunday afternoon. That performance was cut drastically short because of tragedy just after takeoff.
“He was doing a max climb with a Split-S Curve,” said Thunderbirds Commander Lt. Col. Richard McSpadden
Before the fighter pilot of Thunderbird jet 6 could come out of the curve, he ejected from the cockpit, seconds before his F-16 hit the ground and erupted into flames. A shocked and silent crowd watched and waited.
“You could look out in the field and you could see him standing up in a red suit and he was waving,” said spectator Tom Buuck
Captain Stricklin's rescue was the first priority. With him safe, the focus is the investigation into why his Fighting Falcon went down.
“We're going to go in and continue to preserve the site so that we can, in a very detailed and forensic way analyze the material about the incident,” explained Col. Blair Hansen, 366th Fighter Wing Commander.
“It's paramount to us that we look and find the cause of the accident. From there we can determine an appropriate action before we continue doing demonstrations. It's wait-and-see at this point,” added Lt. Col. Richard McSpadden.
The Commander would not say if the accident was mechanical or pilot-caused.
The debris is still on the ground and will be used to reconstruct what happened.
The pilot of jet 6, Cpt. Stricklin walked out of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center at about 8:30pm Sunday. He spent Sunday night in Mountain Home and is said to be doing fine.
About four hours before every flight, maintenance crews look over all of the F-16s. Some spectators said they watched jet 6 taken off the runway before the Air Show performance. The Commander said Cpt. Strickin’s jet was taken back into the hangar for some sort of maintenance before the show.
JP Jordon Thousands witness the crash and explosion. He assured NewsChannel 7 if there concerns about the safety of the jet, it never would have flown Sunday. He said there are several backup aircraft available, if needed.
http://www.bcast.co.jp/cgi-bin/yahoo/news.asx?cid=20030915-00000024-nnn-int-movie-000&media=wm300k
And another one at 56k, slower speed:
http://www.bcast.co.jp/cgi-bin/yahoo/news.asx?cid=20030915-00000024-nnn-int-movie-000&media=wm56k
Get ready for the hue and cry about "expense and necessity" regarding military flight demonstration teams. This is network and liberal "canned" response to such incidents.
The way I see it, we can build more planes, pilots are harder to replace.
What about residential areas close by the shows? The reason I am asking is because the Navy's Blue Angels were just performing in an air show outside of Indianapolis. Although most of the area around there is farmland, they were doing many maneuvers over residential areas. For four days - 2 days before the 2 day show this weekend - they were flying as low as about 300 - 400 ft over our neighborhood and directly over our house. Not just single planes, but sometimes in tight formations of 4 or 6. It was more frequent, longer, more maneuvers and lower on the practice days. Sometimes they were up above 1000 ft, but most of the time, they were very low. (and very loud - lots of little babies couldn't take their nap). From the airport where the show was, there must be about 5 miles of solid residential/school areas. This is all to the west of the airport but south and east is almost all farmland.
Anyway... although it was cool to watch (several of our neighbors were out watching the "show"), it sure seemed like it wouldn't be quite legal or something. I was suprised that they did that. Does anyone know why they are allowed to do that?
Before the teams consider an area or airport they submit a flight envelope for the venue sponsors to survey. If the survey doesn't meet standards then the show is refused. When the T-birds or the Blue Angels arrive, they brief with the local and FAA authorities on approaches and overflight areas. The advance team (usually the narrator) also selects landmarks and loiter areas when he does and aeriel survey. Where possible they are routed over industrial or less densely populated areas. They are given clearances and waivers to perform the shows based on the airport layout.
It is an exceptionally safe program as the pilots and aircraft do not do "stunts" they are just demonstrating the normal flying profiles and skills learned in pilot training.
Before the teams consider an area or airport they submit a flight envelope for the venue sponsors to survey. If the survey doesn't meet standards then the show is refused. When the T-birds or the Blue Angels arrive, they brief with the local and FAA authorities on approaches and overflight areas. The advance team (usually the narrator) also selects landmarks and loiter areas when he does an aeriel survey. Where possible they are routed over industrial or less densely populated areas. They are given clearances and waivers to perform the shows based on the airport layout.
It is an exceptionally safe program as the pilots and aircraft do not do "stunts" they are just demonstrating the normal flying profiles and skills learned in pilot training.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.