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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jun 4, 2016 8:48:42 GMT -7
Kind of ironic that 2 demonstration planes crashed, and that both were the same planes in the slot, being #6 The Thunderbird pilot ejected safely, unfortunately the Blues pilot Capt. Jeff Kuss, rode it in to avoid the plane hitting buildings. A true hero of self sacrifice.  |
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Post by HiTemp on Jun 7, 2016 21:02:09 GMT -7
Yeah that was a crazy coincidental set of accidents. This really hits the community here very hard. Just before I moved down here there was a Blues USAF pilot that rode it in to prevent the plane going into an apartment complex. The plane hit a house just shy of a open area near power lines. That house lot is still vacant today. There are signs up all over Pensacola in front of businesses expressing condolences for this latest loss. Very tough on all the whole team.
The day before Memorial day the wife and I were driving in the north end of town and the 6 of them flew overhead, smoke on. They don't normally fly over this part of town, but I suspect because it was Memorial Day the next day, they might have been flying around the whole city as they sometimes do on special occasions OR they were doing a low pass over near the airport which they also do every once in a while. Sunday is the day they normally come back into town after being at some air show since the previous Thursday, but I expect the holiday was a busy week for them. I know they were just in Nashville because they did a low pass over Broadway last week that was on YouTube, and that's the same pass/formation I saw them in the day before Memorial Day. Might have been practicing for Nashville, who knows?
Here they are a couple days prior to the crash as they did a flyover of Nashville's Broadway. In the south of Pensacola, we see this every Mon-Wed morning as they practice their shows.
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Post by HiTemp on Jun 8, 2016 6:38:26 GMT -7
UPDATE: Don't know wth I was thinking last night when I posted that but the pilot I mentioned who rode it in was NOT a Blues pilot, it was a USAF pilot stationed over at Eglin AFB about 30 min east of us.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jun 8, 2016 13:43:55 GMT -7
There was back in Cheyenne one of the Thunderbirds that also rode it in, actually tried to aim for the rodeo arena to avoid campers. These stories are sadly heroic and tragic every time. A lot of people are still bothered by that when they talk of it.
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Post by HiTemp on Jun 10, 2016 6:05:56 GMT -7
Now some liberal puke San Francisco politician (City Supervisor John Avalos) wants to ban Blue Angel flyovers of the city and limit their flying airspace to "over the bay" only. Reason: These loud "killing machines" are "strafing neighborhoods" and frightening people. He also is afraid one of them will hit a building.
Guess it's going to come as quite a surprise to him if his ordnance passes and they fly anyway, given the FAA has sole authority on who uses what airspace.
If it does pass, the feds ought to pull every single dime of government money out of that area and let them be completely government free, that way nothing else can scare them. Then, if an F/A-18 is too loud, then every single Airbus product and most of the Boeing lineup will also have to be banned from flying over SF too. Trump will have to use his chopper if he wants to campaign there.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jun 10, 2016 15:15:44 GMT -7
F'n retards. I wish the automatic response is when people come up with stuff like that, you find them, wrap them up with about 40 yards of bubble wrap, maybe enough room to breath, and say there ya go, all nice and 'safe' now.
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Post by HiTemp on Jun 10, 2016 18:34:23 GMT -7
Ha! Bubble wrap and duct tape... the tar and feathers of the 21st century.
They had the memorial service for Capt. Kuss over at the NAS today. There is a bridge in front of the main entrance to the base, it goes over Bayou Chico, part of the inland waterway. The bridge is about 1/4 mile long. All the light poles both sides, from one end to the other, were decorated with flags above a huge blue and gold ribbon. Flags all over the city were at half staff, and it seemed like every business with a changeable sign out front had some words of condolence or support for the Bllues.
Someone started a GoFundMe thing for his kids and I heard they raised $300K for the kids' college fund which is awesome.
I haven't heard how long they are grounded for. I expect this coming week they will be working another pilot into the six slot. The solo pilot slots are 3-year tours. They do the first year as the narrator, the #7 pilot, then a year as opposing solo #6, then a year as lead solo #5. So I'm not sure if the current #7 will move up, will they bring back a former solo pilot to finish the season, or what.
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Post by Grug - American Neanderthal on Jun 11, 2016 5:52:59 GMT -7
Yeah, I bet thats kind of tough to find someone who can step in mid season like that. I saw on the news last night the thunderbirds put his name and rank on the their plane to honor him, I thought that was pretty classy. But I bet a death on any of these teams cuts pretty close to home.  |
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Post by HiTemp on Jun 11, 2016 6:22:29 GMT -7
That is extremely classy. The BA pilot I knew very well once told me that the guys on both teams are actually pretty good friends. They give each other the standard different-services business and all, but they are in the same line of work and understand the amount of work that goes into fielding one of these flight demo teams. I suppose in some ways they feel more of bond to each others squadron than to the rest of the service's aviation squadrons being their jobs are alike. Seeing things like this make me think there might be hope for the US Air Force.   |
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