PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Blue Angels stood down / grounded?
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Old 26th May 2011, 06:56
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caligula
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
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Darwinism / Navy_Adversary

I've done a fair bit of this sort of stuff. To be honest, it's difficult to comment with much more confidence than anyone else viewing, however it all looks reactive at the bottom there. The fact that the 2 wingmen exit the formation asymmetrically crowd front, the guy in the stem turns his smoke off and the leader leaves his on tends to suggest that they had an OMG moment.

I would guess that the 2 wingmen escaped. Depending on their experience in that position, they may have had pretty low awareness that it was going to be lower than normal until very late indeed. In your peripheral vision, a 500' pull out is not going to look much different to a 50' pull out until very late. Given the aircraft excess performance available, it's surprising that the leader didn't rescue it a bit more aggressively - should have been clues in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Hope that helps
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