We live under the approach to the Sarasota airport so we get a lot of planes going over during the day. Was going for a walk with my wife after church this morning and heard a “different” engine noise that got my attention. Looked up to see a flight of four A-10’s at about 1500 ft heading north to south. Too cool. Makes me want to dig through my stash to find that Monogram A-10 that’s buried somewhere.
Mark
nice. The only time I see an A-10 is at an airshow.
I had a close call with a pair, a few years ago. I had just leveled off after a climbing left turn. They were RIGHT THERE!!!, maybe 200 yards off my right wing, slightly ahead, same heading. Talk about stopping your heart for a second!
Grew up on the north side of Tucson, AZ and always stopped what ever I was doing to watch the Hogs starting the final approach into Davis Monthan AFB. My dad would also take me down to the base and walk me and my little brother to fence right below the ruway to watch them land, really cool ! If you ever get the chance to visit Tucson you can see the AFB, Aramark, and the Pima air and space museum all in one day !
The Salinas, CA airshow, making a low level gun pass (Simulated with pyroteknics).
I live in Central Kansas. There is a ANG practice bombing range about 15 miles away. Every other year they host an open house to the general public. Not an airshow per se but a flying display of the different aircraft that use the range. And I’m not talking just fly-bys. There are actual bombing runs using 1000lb concrete bombs, 2.5in rockets with inert warheads and 20lb flash-bangs. After expending their ordanance, the aircraft make multiple strafing runs using their internal guns. All of this takes place about a half mile from the crowd.
The highlight is always the Hogs. You can watch all the video you want of that 30mm being fired but there is nothing like watching, hearing and FEELING that gun go off right in front of you. In fact, the sound of the rounds hitting the target is greater than the gun firing.
Other planes include B-1’s, B-2s and B-52s making 1500ft drops using 500lb parachute-retarded bombs, F-16s making strafing runs, KC-135 tanker flybys and C-130s flybys while expending their full compliment of IR flares. Also, the Army usually has static displays of ground equipment and choppers.
All of this is open to the public, free of charge and lasts about 3 hours. Unlike a for-profit airshow where something is always going on, the breaks between demonstrations can be up to 30 minutes but overall it is a very well run.
There’ve been a few places that I’ve been where they were around us all the time… Weren’t no airshow, neither…[;)]
A-10s use the White Mountains of New Hampshire which are just north of me for a training site. Many years ago I was traveling south through one of the training areas in the western part of the mountains when I met an A-10 flying so low it was below the tops of the trees. almost ran off the road because it startled me to see it so low.
Not much military traffic where I am in southern NB. CFB Gagetown is about 100km northwest of me. Every so often in the summer & fall I see some F/A18s making the run up there for gunnery exercises.
I live in Little Egg Harbor, NJ…20 miles north of Atlantic City Int. Airport…where the 177th FIW are stationed (F-16s) and 17 miles east of Warren Grove gunnery/bomb range.A-10s visit A.C. Int and use the bombing range. They come so low over the road it seems you could reach up and touch `em. My friends father-in-law is the NCOIC at the range and lets us up there sometimes. When the Warthog pilots get bored of shooting banner targets held up by telephone poles they walk their rounds up the poles and turn them into toothpicks!
Not sure if you guys ever heard of a F-16 pilot had a “malfunction” with his cannon and put a few rounds through our elementary school`s roof? Thank God it was 11pm and not depleted uranium shells…1 practice round tore up a classroom pretty bad! Not to mention 2 of my 3 kids attended that school at the time.
I remember as a kid we’d go down to Myrtle Beach, SC and the AF base there had a squadron of A-10s that you’d constantly see flying over. With the end of the Cold War the base was shut down and the squadron moved, oh well…
Last year we had an F-15E ‘Mudhen’ do about an impromptu half hour of practice runs at my college. Luckily they had no malfunctions.
As you can see from the pic, it was a thick and low overcast. It was eerie to hear the noise and then see the sinister dark shape appear through the clouds like a vengeful demon. It was an impressive show and sure made me think about what it might be like to try and get away from one of those things.
Got buzzed by an A-10 at Ft. Hood as I was going north on West Range Road. I was in my M-151 going to Bde Trains location. An AAA middle finger greeted the A-10’s strafing run.
Good times. Just didn’t realize it at the time.
Funny I almost had a mid air with a flight of A-10’s over Norfolk England in the late 80’s. ATC was calling them out to me but between the separated by a common language thing and the lizard scheme I did not see them until almost too late. Luckily my IP was British and could understand ATC a little better than I could.
I love seeing the warthogs flying around and I think they have a great silhouette when they make a break turn. When I was at Davis Monthan last month I sat at the exchange and watched them doing pattern work.
Just this past weekend was “Luke Days” at Luke AFB, and they had an A-10 perform. He did the whole simulated pyrotechnics anbd everything.
That’s too cool! Love the A-10 so much.
We don’t really get anything cool here in Austin. A few Blackhawks, maybe the occasional C-130, but over the weekend we saw a pair of twin-tailed somethings flying north at pretty low altitude. I think they were F/A-18s, maybe F-15s. They were silhouetted and from the angle I couldn’t quite be sure.
My best non-airshow encounter came in 1998 in Britain. Family and I were driving through the lake district when we got buzzed by two Jaguars and two Tornados. The owner of the inn we stayed at mentioned something about the RAF using road traffic to practice convoy attacks. Not sure if that’s true or not, but those four were moving low and fast.
The U.K. is a great place to get buzzed by low flying A/C. They fly all over the place especially the north and over by Wales. Scotland gets their fair share too, I guess being a fairly small nation with a very active Air Force helps with the spotting.
Last week I was visiting the Hurtgen Forest (long story), looked up through the trees and saw a hog flying over at low level. Wondered if the pilot was aware of the old battlefield he was flying over. Anyway thought it was a neat meeting of the old and the new. I wondered about it’s Thunderbolt forebears struggling against the weather, tree obscuration, and 5 foot thick bunkers, unable to give the grunts the hitting power they needed to get out of that hell hole.
If anyone gets a chance, highly recommend visiting Hurtgen. The forests are wall to wall foxholes and I found lots of shrapnel, arty/mortar fuses, shell casings, etc. Also found several live rifle rounds. Some AF guys from Ramstein I happened to run into found a live 81mm round as well as some type of ripped aircraft aluminum…maybe from an ill-fated P-47?
Ditto. Seen birds from MD, AR, Spang, & the Flying Tigers were there when I left just after Thanksgiving.
Live in Jersey Channel Isles. Every September we have the Battle of Britain display. A mile, always exceeded, of pennies dotted with pound coins in the Royal Square. This is collected for the RAF needy.
As a thanks we have a 2.5 hour display of military aircraft from all over the world & includes acrobatics, parachute, Harrier landing on the sand (providing the tide is out. All finished with a 15 minute Red Arrow display. Memorial flight of the Spitfire Hurricane & Lancaster some sight.
This is all over a 2 mile bay 75% land surrounded with an island & castle on the extremeties. Imagine a Avro Vulcan with its delta wing configuration two years ago refurbished suddenly appearing over the land into the bay it was so slow & an incredible sight. It traveled around the bay a number of times bomb doors then came in for a final run bomb doors closed applied full power & disappeared at a rate with engines crackling & enormous thundering. Best experience of any aircraft ever seen.
Laurie
Some years a go I was offered the chance to go on board the Lancaster & film the fly past in side the cockpit. I produce video films & what a chance. What an idiot I turned it down. Crackers.