How low can you go?

Now that's a pretty low flypast, no wonder the presenter's crapping himself.
http://www.airshows.tv/vids/ohmygod.wmv

--
James...
http://www.jameshart.co.uk/

In article ,
James Hart wrote:
Now that's a pretty low flypast, no wonder the presenter's crapping himself.
http://www.airshows.tv/vids/ohmygod.wmv

Rather famously (at least locally) a Polish pilot took a Spitfire under
the left-hand girder span of Barmouth Bridge in 1943 or so. The size of
the gap is visible in:

http://www.ipcvision.com/page01/page14/bridg-01.htm

He may have done it at low water, but you never know.

There's also the rather spectacular pass made by the world's first jet
airliner - the Vickers Nene Viking - on its debut, where it's reputed to
have mad a fast pass down the runway at the Farnborough show at an
altitude of something like 10'. There's a very good photograph of this
exploit which turned up in Aeroplane MOnthly a while back, but there
doesn't seem to be a locatable electronic copy (still (c), I guess).

Can't comment about the video as it appears to be in some wierd
proprietary format (something windows, probably..)

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
Feng Shui: an ancient oriental art for extracting
money from the gullible (Martin Sinclair)

"ANDREW ROBERT BREEN" wrote in message
...
In article ,
James Hart wrote:
Now that's a pretty low flypast, no wonder the presenter's crapping
himself.
http://www.airshows.tv/vids/ohmygod.wmv

Rather famously (at least locally) a Polish pilot took a Spitfire under
the left-hand girder span of Barmouth Bridge in 1943 or so. The size of
the gap is visible in:

http://www.ipcvision.com/page01/page14/bridg-01.htm

He may have done it at low water, but you never know.

There's also the rather spectacular pass made by the world's first jet
airliner - the Vickers Nene Viking - on its debut, where it's reputed to
have mad a fast pass down the runway at the Farnborough show at an
altitude of something like 10'. There's a very good photograph of this
exploit which turned up in Aeroplane MOnthly a while back, but there
doesn't seem to be a locatable electronic copy (still (c), I guess).

Can't comment about the video as it appears to be in some wierd
proprietary format (something windows, probably..)

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
Feng Shui: an ancient oriental art for extracting
money from the gullible (Martin Sinclair)

This reminded me of a story I heard as a lad in the late 1950s/early 1960s
involving a Hawker Hunter flying between the upper and lower spans of Tower
Bridge in London. I have always thought the story must be apocryphal, but
having seen the Spitfire clip, now I'm not so sure....

Martin D

In article ,
Martin D wrote:

http://www.ipcvision.com/page01/page14/bridg-01.htm

This reminded me of a story I heard as a lad in the late 1950s/early 1960s
involving a Hawker Hunter flying between the upper and lower spans of Tower
Bridge in London. I have always thought the story must be apocryphal, but
having seen the Spitfire clip, now I'm not so sure....


It wouldn't suprise me in the slightest - there were some deeply silly
things done in those days (a friend of my father's - a guy I met in his
older, more sensible days - got posted out to the far east after flying a
Sea Gladiator *underneath* the balcony of the admiral's house in IIRC
Durban - the house *was* on a cliff and I think the "underneath" was the
admiral looking down on the top wing, but still..).

One of the regular training exercises for 617 squadron (the dambusters) in
tha last big mistake was flying under the Menai Bridges: The road bridge,
being single span I can see, the Britannia is two-span, and that would
seem awful tight for a Lancaster - which I suppose was the point.

There are also sundry tales of Lightnings being taken under the Forth
Bridges at unlikely speeds - I suspect these are not good things to ask
about!

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
Feng Shui: an ancient oriental art for extracting
money from the gullible (Martin Sinclair)

"Martin D" wrote in message
...



This reminded me of a story I heard as a lad in the late 1950s/early 1960s
involving a Hawker Hunter flying between the upper and lower spans of
Tower
Bridge in London. I have always thought the story must be apocryphal, but
having seen the Spitfire clip, now I'm not so sure....

Martin D

I heard that, too. I seem to remember the pilot being court-marshaled or
something. IIRC again, it had something to do with the disbandment of some
squadrons, or closing of bases, or.... At any rate, it was related as a
gesture on the part of a senior pilot.

Don H.

Should mention the report in my last post was from a website. Some
time ago now and I can't recall the url.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regards
LesB

"Martin D" wrote in message
...



This reminded me of a story I heard as a lad in the late 1950s/early 1960s
involving a Hawker Hunter flying between the upper and lower spans of
Tower
Bridge in London. I have always thought the story must be apocryphal, but
having seen the Spitfire clip, now I'm not so sure....


Its quite true, the pilot was Flt Lt Alan Pollock and he made the flight on
5th April 1968 as a protest against the run down of the RAF, it was
covered in Flypast some years ago.

Keith

Don Harstad wrote:
"Martin D" wrote in message
...



This reminded me of a story I heard as a lad in the late 1950s/early
1960s involving a Hawker Hunter flying between the upper and lower
spans of Tower Bridge in London. I have always thought the story
must be apocryphal, but having seen the Spitfire clip, now I'm not
so sure....

Martin D

I heard that, too. I seem to remember the pilot being court-
marshaled or something. IIRC again, it had something to do with the
disbandment of some squadrons, or closing of bases, or.... At any
rate, it was related as a gesture on the part of a senior pilot.

http://www.see.ipms.btinternet.co.uk...s/funnies3.htm
Another story along the same lines.

--
James...
http://www.jameshart.co.uk/

"Walt BJ" wrote

I witnessed a KC135 make a 'low pass' at Homestead AFB around 1965. We
were on 5 minute alert and sitting outside enjoying decent weather and
idly watching the tanker come in lower and lower. It got down to about
10 feet between the runway and the engine pods when the IP realized -
oops - no gear! One of us had already run to the radio but he wouldn't
have got the word to the crew quick enough. SAC dodged a bullet that
day.

It's pretty noisy in a 707/135 with the nose gear down, so I can't understand
missing that step in the check-list and not having maximum feedback that things
are really screwed-up and getting silently worse :-)

Subject: How low can you go?
From: "S. Sampson"
Date: 7/28/03 7:42 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

"Walt BJ" wrote

I witnessed a KC135 make a 'low pass' at Homestead AFB around 1965. We
were on 5 minute alert and sitting outside enjoying decent weather and
idly watching the tanker come in lower and lower. It got down to about
10 feet between the runway and the engine pods when the IP realized -
oops - no gear! One of us had already run to the radio but he wouldn't
have got the word to the crew quick enough. SAC dodged a bullet that
day.

It's pretty noisy in a 707/135 with the nose gear down, so I can't understand
missing that step in the check-list and not having maximum feedback that
things
are really screwed-up and getting silently worse :-)



We had a guy in the 344th flying out of Florennes Belgium in 1944 who used tot
get a kick out out of giving everyone nervous fits on take off. What he would
do was wait until he barely was airborne, he would then hold it inches off the
runway and yank up the gear. To onlookers it looked as though he was still
on the ground when he pulled up the gear giving everyone fits. The CO
(Col.Vance) chewed him out every time he did it. But he just kept doing it,
Pretty soon we would all show up when he was on the mission just to watch him
pull his little trick,. Well one day his luck ran out,.. He yanked up the gear
just a moment too soon and mushed right down into the runway, bending the
props and throwing up clouds of sparks. And this was a fully loaded Marauder
with 4,000 lbs of bombs and the gas tanks topped off. Well he didn't explode
and nobody was badly injured. But the never did it again because he was gone
right after this happened.. We never saw him again.


Arthur Kramer
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer