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USAF Thunderbird - Austin/San Antonio Flyover

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By atomheartbevo
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Steamboat1874

Steamboat1874 4049

Posted
Posted

That flight path the governor put out was bullshit.

They should have flown right over my office just east of 130 on 79 and I was out there 5 minutes early and waited 30 minutes.

I caught a glimpse of 1 plane southwest of where I was, which would have it just south of Dell Diamond. 

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Guest Lobo

Guest Lobo

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Posted
31 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

is there always a chase plane?  what's its purpose? 

 

 

To keep up international relations.  Duh.  

Guy on top of our parking garage was blaring Top Gun soundtrack the whole time.  We had a good chuckle with him not knowing this was USAF, but yeah---not a lot of homoerotic films coming out of Hollywood about anything but the Navy.  I had to help him jumpstart his car (no homo) and the kids had a great time.  Fun afternoon in an otherwise shitastic month.  

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StruggleBus

StruggleBus 3922

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8 minutes ago, Lobo said:

To keep up international relations.  Duh.  

Guy on top of our parking garage was blaring Top Gun soundtrack the whole time.  We had a good chuckle with him not knowing this was USAF, but yeah---not a lot of homoerotic films coming out of Hollywood about anything but the Navy.  I had to help him jumpstart his car (no homo) and the kids had a great time.  Fun afternoon in an otherwise shitastic month.  

Yeah, but that's still pretty fucking awesome. 

I got to see them up close in San Antonio. Very, very cool. 

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SKA the boss

SKA the boss 729

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Posted
That flight path the governor put out was bullshit.
They should have flown right over my office just east of 130 on 79 and I was out there 5 minutes early and waited 30 minutes.
I caught a glimpse of 1 plane southwest of where I was, which would have it just south of Dell Diamond. 

This.
What a ripoff. They were supposed to loop over Lakeline Mall according to the plan.
All we saw was grackles.
“Good show, Dad.”
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Texas_Rocks

Texas_Rocks 346

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Walked out by the pool and informed the wife that “we’ll likely not see them”. A few seconds later came the sound, then five of them flat hatted it right over the top of us with the solo and chase plane arriving about 1/2 second later. Air Force all the way in this family and have seen the teams perform several times over the years and I still get a rush from seeing them for 2.5 seconds.

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 105077

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53 minutes ago, Texas_Rocks said:

Walked out by the pool and informed the wife that “we’ll likely not see them”. A few seconds later came the sound, then five of them flat hatted it right over the top of us with the solo and chase plane arriving about 1/2 second later. Air Force all the way in this family and have seen the teams perform several times over the years and I still get a rush from seeing them for 2.5 seconds.

Your wife surely shares your love of the 2.5 second long thrill.

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Your Mom

Your Mom 4805

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Posted

That was badass.  I parked my truck just in time to get out and see them right overhead.  

When I got hired at my current job we had a former Thunderbird guy in my class.  He's exactly the guy you'd think he'd be.  Smart, humble, funny, jacked, gets drunk as fuck at the bar every night and the next day in class he's verbally dissecting aircraft systems like he built thing, then planning the next happy hour when the rest of us are just trying our hardest to keep up.  

My 15 year old, who has grown up around airplanes, first words after they went over today were, "I wanna do that."  Spoiler alert... he's colorblind, it ain't gonna happen.  

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DallasGatr

DallasGatr 216

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That was badass.  I parked my truck just in time to get out and see them right overhead.  
When I got hired at my current job we had a former Thunderbird guy in my class.  He's exactly the guy you'd think he'd be.  Smart, humble, funny, jacked, gets drunk as fuck at the bar every night and the next day in class he's verbally dissecting aircraft systems like he built thing, then planning the next happy hour when the rest of us are just trying our hardest to keep up.  
My 15 year old, who has grown up around airplanes, first words after they went over today were, "I wanna do that."  Spoiler alert... he's colorblind, it ain't gonna happen.  

Yep, Had a buddy that was color blind that somehow slipped thru a bunch of Navy flight physicals. Finally caught up to him in an ugly crash. Of course the causal factor was his “color blindness”. Time to steer your boy to another profession.
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The Dog

The Dog 44019

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They flew directly over St. Davids on 620. We are in Brushy Creek and standing on our street I caught a brief glimpse of the chase plane.
 

We neighbors bro. That’s all we saw too. Got some friends in Oaklands and they flew right over their house.
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Your Mom

Your Mom 4805

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, DallasGatr said:


Yep, Had a buddy that was color blind that somehow slipped thru a bunch of Navy flight physicals. Finally caught up to him in an ugly crash. Of course the causal factor was his “color blindness”. Time to steer your boy to another profession.

A career in the sky is still wide open to him, just not in the military.  Colorblindness is very common among civilian pilots.  I don't see how color vision would be a factor unless it was on a crazy bad level.  Not saying you're wrong, just seems odd.

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Gourmand

Gourmand 7774

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Posted
3 hours ago, Steamboat1874 said:

That flight path the governor put out was bullshit.

They should have flown right over my office just east of 130 on 79 and I was out there 5 minutes early and waited 30 minutes.

I caught a glimpse of 1 plane southwest of where I was, which would have it just south of Dell Diamond. 

I'm in Old Settlers just north of 79 and Redbud and could hear them but couldn't see them. Bummer. 

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Cajun

Cajun 11705

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, gsoda3 said:

is there always a chase plane?  what's its purpose? 

 

 

He's the guy who says, "You can run Maverick, but you can't hide."

Oh, and there's another guy who says, "Damn, this kid's good!" and/or "Get your butts back to base!"

That's pretty much it.

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BillyGoatHill

BillyGoatHill 4312

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1 hour ago, Your Mom said:

That was badass.  I parked my truck just in time to get out and see them right overhead.  

When I got hired at my current job we had a former Thunderbird guy in my class.  He's exactly the guy you'd think he'd be.  Smart, humble, funny, jacked, gets drunk as fuck at the bar every night and the next day in class he's verbally dissecting aircraft systems like he built thing, then planning the next happy hour when the rest of us are just trying our hardest to keep up.  

My 15 year old, who has grown up around airplanes, first words after they went over today were, "I wanna do that."  Spoiler alert... he's colorblind, it ain't gonna happen.  

Dont squash his dreams just yet........look into it a little more. Also, talk to your T-Bird classmate.

http://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/topic/22194-change-to-air-force-color-vision-policy/

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gsoda3

gsoda3 3248

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1 hour ago, Gourmand said:

I'm in Old Settlers just north of 79 and Redbud and could hear them but couldn't see them. Bummer. 

we have friends who live on redbud about a half mile south of the heb on 79.  they have a 30 second clip of the tbirds making a 290 turn right over them.  looks like they turned just short of 79. 

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Your Mom

Your Mom 4805

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Posted
1 hour ago, BillyGoatHill said:

Dont squash his dreams just yet........look into it a little more. Also, talk to your T-Bird classmate.

http://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/topic/22194-change-to-air-force-color-vision-policy/

Hmm.  Over the years I've probably talked about this with 100+ USAF pilots, Academy grads, guys trying to get pilots slots for their kids, etc... I have never been given any message other than, "No waivers for colorblindness."  I'm really surprised I've never heard about this but thanks for posting.  I've got some research to do.  

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19189

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11 hours ago, Your Mom said:

A career in the sky is still wide open to him, just not in the military.  Colorblindness is very common among civilian pilots.  I don't see how color vision would be a factor unless it was on a crazy bad level.  Not saying you're wrong, just seems odd.

 

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hornian

hornian 5210

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38 minutes ago, Iceman said:

Tomorrow, Amarillo and Lubbock are getting B1-B flyovers from Dyess in Abilene.  Routes pass over  hospitals and the schedules have been pretty well publicized.

I was at a Tech game in 2001 (I think it was against OU, because if tech beat them we would have backdoored our way into the CCG, little did I know OkState would do us a solid a week or two later) when a B-1 did a flyover. It was by far the loudest flyover ever. The pilot put on the afterburners right before they got to the stadium and was probably lower than they were supposed to be. I remember reading something a few days later that the pilots were reprimanded for that, but was by far the coolest flyover I’ve personally witnessed. 

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Homercles

Homercles 10205

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1 hour ago, hornian said:

I was at a Tech game in 2001 (I think it was against OU, because if tech beat them we would have backdoored our way into the CCG, little did I know OkState would do us a solid a week or two later) when a B-1 did a flyover. It was by far the loudest flyover ever. The pilot put on the afterburners right before they got to the stadium and was probably lower than they were supposed to be. I remember reading something a few days later that the pilots were reprimanded for that, but was by far the coolest flyover I’ve personally witnessed. 

The Bone is an absolute monster and just about favorite bird in the inventory.  They’ve been beat to hell in the WoT and crews are being stripped of low level training (which it was redesigned for after the A model), which makes me sad...they’re broken almost as much as C5s

 

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torre

torre 1285

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Chase aircraft does photography primarily.   Link also has bio's of pilots.

The photo-chase aircraft will maneuver as required to achieve the desired photographic position relative to the diamond, solos, or delta. The same rules and regulations which govern the 6-ship within the TFR and aerobatic box also apply to the seventh aircraft. The photo chase aircraft will never fly during an official demonstration.

https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/airshow/media/military/Thunderbirds_Maneuvers_Package.pdf

 

 

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Your Mom

Your Mom 4805

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

 

Sorry for the thread creep, I’d be happy if someone wants to continue the discussion over in the airplane fanatic thread...  I’m very familiar with that accident and the chain of errors that led to it was vast but I don’t believe that one guys color blindness led to all three of them allowing that airplane to get so low.  Full disclosure, I am colorblind pilot and I’ve been doing this for 20 years.  You don’t just get a color blind waiver on your FAA medical by asking for one. You have to go to the FAA office and demonstrate that you can actually see the different colors of the lights. The actual lights, not just a picture of them on paper or something random on a computer screen or colored bubbles in a booklet. Today the waiver process is even more thorough, you have to go in the air with a Fed and point out all kinds of different lights and signs and markings and what color they are. I am without a doubt colorblind, based on the Ishihara test in a doctors office but I was able to get through that waiver process with no problems and have always been able to see what lights are which colors on airports. They probably don’t look the same to me as they do to you but I can differentiate them easily to see what is what   It’s even easier to see those at night.  On airports, PAPIs and VASIs aren’t  even required.  We land on runways all the time, day and night, that don’t even have them installed.  If they are installed but are broken the approach minimums remain unchanged.  There are many tools and visual cues to let you know if an airplane is low or high on approach, the PAPI/VASI is just one of many. The primary causal factor of that accident was fatigue. The NTSB did list the FO’s color deficiency as a contributing factor but it was last on a list of many others, including fatigue of both pilots and failure to adhere to company procedures by all 3 crew members.  The captain had 3 1/2 hours of sleep prior to that duty period and the FO had about an hour and a half. they made some bad decisions together as a crew, regardless of the color vision of one of them. 

On the military side, I’ve looked into this many times over the years.  It looks like Billygoat Hill is right in that the military has relaxed it’s color vision policy some. It’s not so much a waiver that allows you to fly in the military if you are colorblind, but a waiver that allows you to take a different CCT color vision test rather than the normal Ishihara plate test (the numbers in the bubbles).  If you fail the alternate test you are still prohibited from flying in the military and no waiver will be given. I found a simulation of the CCT test online and passed it with no problems last night. There’s nothing official about that of course, I’m sure my computer monitor is not calibrated the same way the actual test would be. But I have failed every single Ishihara plate test that has ever been put in front of my eyes. 

Back on topic.  I’ve really been delinquent on getting my kids to some air shows. Got to get on that. 

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