Posted on 10/16/2018 3:25:03 PM PDT by PROCON
Link only.
Ping :(
Very sorry. Another American pilot died in Ukraine training as well. prayers for their families.
Regular pilots wear a ‘G’ suit to help minimize the effects of high Gs. The Thunderbird pilots do not wear G suits because they fly so close to each other they are afraid if the suit suddenly inflated it might push them into another aircraft.
Takes amazingly fit people to sustain such high Gs without a suit. Sometimes it is a little too much even for them.
RIP.
Accident was last April. Report released today.
Woke up with one second to go and tried to correct. Awful. Longest second of your life.
Prayers for his family and friends. Such amazing people they are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbr8KL90aa8
Almost any pilot with or without a G suits will start showing the effects of G-LOC at 8+ Gs in a very short time. Survival of that type of maneuvering relies as much on muscle memory and rote action as much as ground clearance and precision of maneuvering.
I know I will probably get flamed for this but does the navy and Air Force really gain that from the loss of equipment and life supporting these types of shows!!!
“does the navy and Air Force really gain that from the loss of equipment and life supporting these types of shows!!!”
Perhaps the best recruiting tool they have.
One would think that these days there could be some kind of last ditch autopilot override function that could take over in case loss of consciousness is detected...
When my instructor at NAS Pensacola gave me my first demonstration of a loop, he pulled 5-3/4 G in the pullout. This was in the old T-34B, sitting upright with no G-suit.
After we were straight & level he asked if I’d had any problems.
“I got tunnel vision, Sir. All I could see was the G-meter, in spite of doing the M-1 maneuver.”
He replied, “Well, I blacked out!”
:-)
Dayum..
Around 1986 my Daughter and I attended the air show in Tulsa.
After a while I got tired and we went to the edge of the crowd and sat down on some broken concrete sections. We were only around 20 feet from a hot dog stand.
While we were there several Thunderbird cars pulled up to the stand and the Thunderbird pilots got out and bought hot dogs.
Not more than 10 minutes later, they drove back to the F-16s and got into the cockpits. Yes they ate hot dogs just before performing. They were not wearing G suits, just nice T-bird overalls.
The video I referenced clearly shows the pilots donning their G Suits just before boarding their planes.
Given you hot dog story you can appreciate why they call their flight suits "fart sacks".
Maybe, bud maybe not. I suspect movies like "Top Gun" reach a far greater audience and have a more positive effect upon recruiting. Same with some of the recent war movies.
Hollywood was the best recruiter during WWII.
I didn’t think of that but they could have. Actually I guess they could have been under the coveralls. A local car dealer lent them the T-birds.
I got lots of photos of them, some really close ups with the zoom lens. I was just looking at one of them performing and the planes were absolutely perfectly spaced. In the photo you cannot see any variance from perfection.
I’ve been watching McHale’s Navy reruns. The Navy didn’t want to help the show in any way at first. Then they saw their recruiting numbers go up, and the kids said it was because of the show! So they helped out - said it was their best recruiting tool at the time!
Ping.
That makes them the best recruiting tool the USAF has. I have talked with recruiters at airshows and they can make a two month quota by the end of a weekend when the Thunderbirds perform.
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