4 years ago, during the Dubai Air Show, the Big E (USS Enterprise) was tied up somewhere in the UAE, so she was invited to send a Tomcat to the show. To the USN’s great credit, they jo-ed a couple of squadron jocks from the Fighting Checkmates, VF211, to come and perform in their 30-year-old aircraft amongst all the shiny new stuff flying at the show. Each of the five days, the guys laid on a really good show, with lots of noise and excitement. In the middle of their sequence, as their script said:
The F14 is now accelerating to near the speed of sound. As it passes, the Tomcat will be traveling at over 650 miles per hour or 960 feet per second; a mere one third of its maximum speed capability.
On the third day, it was humid, and as they approached at this speed, I clearly saw a fully developed triangular shock wave mid-fuselage, top and bottom. They must have realised just in time (before they broke all the windows in the frightfully plush show site) and throttled back.
Afterwards, the crew was required to present themselves in front of the chairman of the Flying Control Committee (and bring their own carpet). The first charge was that they were way too low (evidence adduced from ‘height-and-flight’ cameras in support). Their answer? Well, we realised we were getting some compressibility problems, and,as you know, Sir, pressure instruments don’t work well under those conditions. Yeah, riiiiight. So why were they getting compressibility problems? Didn’t realise it was so humid Sir.
The rest of the pilots in the show thought that wasn’t a bad effort as an excuse - but when the pair arrived in the pilots’ lounge the next day, there was a chorus, started by Boeing test pilots, of ‘Bad boys, bad boys.....’
Anyway, no harm was done, and they remained a favourite part of the show, and did the reputation of the USN no end of good.
airsound