haltonapp wrote:
I think it was at a party for participants at Dayton Air Show in the 80’s that a Thunderbird pilot introduced himself to a group of 101 Sqn aircrew as “hi I’m Thunderbird 6” to which a Scottish Flt Lt pilot replied “hi I’m obnoxious 2”!
Wasn't it actually a polite Blue Angels pilot at a room party? But it was indeed rather a well-oiled Scottish Flt Lt VC10K pilot, who replied "An' I'm obnoxious two, so f**k o*f!". To his credit, the Blue Angel laughed it off and they had another drink together, to bury the hatchet.
Anyway, notwithstanding water pooling on the windscreen obscuring the HUD (which reportedly suffers from vibration effects in such conditions), how much HUD-out instrument flying do regular F-16 pilots practice, let alone the rather more specialised Thunderbirds pilots?
Heavy Welsh rain and the flat windscreen of the Hunter FGA9 didn't make manual GCAs much fun at Brawdy, as I recall. Absolutely NO forward visibility, but at least there was enough peripheral vision to let you know when you were over RW rather than grass.
The mishap report is somewhat harsh, in my opinion.