re: Story behind a famous Navy flyby

Here's a couple low and close passes of a B-52 followed by a low B-52 pass near a beach. All from the '80's. Anybody attempting this kind of stuff now days would be crucified.

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a low B-52 pass near a beach.

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used to do this leaving Cancun in a 757, a few feet higher, but not much

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ever since the F-22 came out I struggle to look at anything else the same way. That is just an unbelievable, and unbelievably deadly pieces of machinery (technology?).

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I like the 22 also, not as much as the 15 or 14, but still do. I saw one perform at the same airshow that I took that picture of the P-51 at. Incredible, the things the pilot did with it. Very impressive, indeed.

frick all that mickey mouse shite... I saw a tomcat get a kill.......

Saw one catch a mouse, eh?

Didn't you fly F-4s out of Callendar Field in the Reserves? Those guys terrorized my toddler niece at the Hammond balloon festival one year in the mid/late 80s.

Unannounced to the crowd, four F-4s, in a very loose/staggered fingertip kind of formation came in from the southeast, screaming by at what seemed like treetop level. They didn't approach parallel to the runway, but more like 15 or 20 degrees from behind the crowd's left. It seemed like they all came in from a slightly different angle, so after the first passed, the next came by about 5 or 10 degrees off of him, and so on. They passed about maybe 8 or 10, maybe 15, seconds apart, at different approach angles and elevations. It was pretty crazy and it was VERY loud!

My niece was about 2 and didn't like loud noises. Her typical response was to cover her eyes. I guess she thought if she couldn't see it, she wouldn't be able to hear it. I don't know...
Her father had just flown in on a medical helicopter, so I kept her at a distance while the rest of the family watched from closer up. When the helo shut down, we started to walk over. It's between acts and pretty quiet. I saw the first F-4 out of the corner of my eye, but it was coming so fast I barely had time to warn my niece. We took about two more steps, and then came the second, third and fourth pass. She hit the deck with her hands over her eyes. I was trying to cover her ears, but also watching the jets and laughing my arse off at the same time. After the last had passed, she still refused to get off the ground.

Can't imagine what it must have been like to be on the receiving end of those noisy bastards raining death and destruction.

In the '80s, the local unit (159th?) upstaged one of the "pro" flight demonstration teams. I can't remember if it was the Thunderbirds or the Blues, but the reservists went balls out in their F-15 demonstrations and ruffled some feathers. The rumor I heard was that incident was that the "pro" team refused to ever come back if the local F-15s were also going to perform.

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The airmen working that day were floored to say the least.

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why was that?

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. I'm sure it wasn't common occurrence for an F-14 to fly in Alexandria of all places.

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England was a happening base in the day, you're liable to see just about anything out of anybody's inventory at any given base, fueling, cross country's, maintenance, etc. there's even a gas and go at a civilian airport by my house even though there's a military base just a couple of miles away, it's cool to see Hornets, Vipers, Eagles, T-38s, etc., buzzing around the neighborhood

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Why did you take the pic down?