Thank you John for this very informative response to my post.
Your point about the ‘Cobra’ is accepted. My mistake – I was confusing it with the tailslide. If I’d known it was going to be such a good program I’d have taped it and would then be able to view it at a more leisurely pace, re-winding where necessary.
We used to get the Mig 29s at the Woodford Show in the 90s, just down the road from me. Quite breathtaking. As well as the usual ‘party tricks’ (I’m not denigrating the pilot’s skill – I can only imagine the levels of training and practice not to mention pure skill that go into such a display), I remember one year when the weather was awful; 8 octas at 500 feet in drizzle. Most acts cancelled. Not the Migs. They did a superb ultra low level ‘flat’ display – I particularly remember one Mig flying a sustained and very noisy 360 between the crowd line and the flight sheds on the far side. I could see a nose and two bright orange afterburner trails emanating from a rapidly moving cloud of the aeroplane’s own making.
I saw in ‘Pilot’ that Alexandre (of lighting the fag fame at Fairford) was killed in the crash of a twin turboprop he was testing last month. Ironic that he flew these demanding military fast jets to the limit yet died in a prosaic turboprop twin. But I suppose it’s true that all aeroplanes bite, and test flying (of which, of course, you have a great deal of experience) is something with dangers beyond even displaying demanding but developed aeroplanes at the edges of their performance envelope.
Your very informative response to my post, John, and other contributions of yours I’ve seen on PPRuNe and on TV, together with your ability to communicate complex stuff to those of us who haven’t sat in those delta wing test aircraft or the Harrier or the many others, makes me hope you have a book on the way. You have a vast knowledge of things aeronautical, and tremendous experience of many aspects of aviation. Much of it is of great historic interest, and I’m sure all of it of of great interest to ‘Total Aviation Persons’ like what I am.
I’ll be first in the bookshop queue when you publish!
Very best regards
SSD