Originally Posted by
172_driver
I don't know much about airshow management, other than what I have learnt from this thread and watching the Youtube videos. At no time did I hear any altitude separation being applied by the Airboss. The ADS-B data shows quite arbitrary altitudes being achieved during the course reversal (dog bone leg?). So how can you conclude there should've been an altitude separation between the fighters and bombers as they crossed path?
Simply: The math, trigonometry.
As such, my suggestion to use paper, scissors and glue to create the flight paths of each the bombers and the fighters as a paper object and put these in 3D, to visualize that the fighter path is above the bomber path, at the 1000ft display line. Then, you can literally see, that the fighter path is not conflicting with the bombers path.
When the fighters do come in from a much higher altitude AND are expected to reach the 500ft altitude, at 500ft closer to the public, they will be higher than 500ft at the 1000ft display line (my estimate > 200ft). So, in 4D, there is no conflict between the bombers and the fighters.
The safety of this separation mechanism is unfortunately very sensitive to pilot mistakes, which happened in this 2022 Dallas situation.