What is it like to fly a Jet Fighter?
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What is it like to fly a jet fighter
If you want a condensed answer FlareAngel, then just gaze at the image posted by Lightning_Mate.
Arguably it was in a class of its own.
There have been a fair number of jet fighters manufactured and very few of them were unmatched in their day. The Gnat, for example, not the trainer used by the RAF but the fighter used by the Indians; the sublime Hunter; the Viggen, all of them would make their pilots tingle, and people with their feet on the ground stop and stare.
The Lightning though somehow got in to your very bones and remained there.
What is it like to fly? It is like anything else that makes your heart dance, that makes your brain fizz, that makes your vocabulary obsolete, like anything else that sears itself into every morsel of you, that haunts you, that challenges you, that stretches you further than you thought you could stretch — and also hurls you, with a thumping twirling exhilarating explosion of power and technology into a dimension that for nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine people is a matter of seat spacing, in-flight videos and the risk of blood clots from not moving for hours.
I think the 'jet' is superfluous. If you attached sensors to the brain, the heart, the soul of a Sopwith Pup pilot, a Hawker Fury pilot, a Spitfire pilot, a Lightning pilot, a Viggen pilot, a Mig-21 pilot, a Rafale pilot, a Typhoon pilot I suspect you would find very similar reactions.
Because it is not the aircraft, it is being a fighter pilot that matters.
Arguably it was in a class of its own.
There have been a fair number of jet fighters manufactured and very few of them were unmatched in their day. The Gnat, for example, not the trainer used by the RAF but the fighter used by the Indians; the sublime Hunter; the Viggen, all of them would make their pilots tingle, and people with their feet on the ground stop and stare.
The Lightning though somehow got in to your very bones and remained there.
What is it like to fly? It is like anything else that makes your heart dance, that makes your brain fizz, that makes your vocabulary obsolete, like anything else that sears itself into every morsel of you, that haunts you, that challenges you, that stretches you further than you thought you could stretch — and also hurls you, with a thumping twirling exhilarating explosion of power and technology into a dimension that for nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine people is a matter of seat spacing, in-flight videos and the risk of blood clots from not moving for hours.
I think the 'jet' is superfluous. If you attached sensors to the brain, the heart, the soul of a Sopwith Pup pilot, a Hawker Fury pilot, a Spitfire pilot, a Lightning pilot, a Viggen pilot, a Mig-21 pilot, a Rafale pilot, a Typhoon pilot I suspect you would find very similar reactions.
Because it is not the aircraft, it is being a fighter pilot that matters.
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Trim stab
Quote:
Tourist I think you are well off the mark with your comments about previous generations of fighter pilots
Tourist is a failed FJ helicopter pilot so he doesn't know what he is talking about - just ignore him!
Now THAT is funny!
Does that mean we should all ignore your comments too
Remind me again which airline you intend to fly fighter jests with using a commercial licence
Quote:
Tourist I think you are well off the mark with your comments about previous generations of fighter pilots
Tourist is a failed FJ helicopter pilot so he doesn't know what he is talking about - just ignore him!
Now THAT is funny!
Does that mean we should all ignore your comments too
Remind me again which airline you intend to fly fighter jests with using a commercial licence
Lightning Mate, the Sixties had swung to conclusion by the time I started flying training - but Brawdy in 1975-6 on the Hunter was simply brilliant!
Perhaps those who have never flown a single seat fighter, even once, might care to **** off from inflicting background noise through bickering on this thread?
Perhaps those who have never flown a single seat fighter, even once, might care to **** off from inflicting background noise through bickering on this thread?
Ah Beags.
Rolling vertical scissors
A four-gun shoot in an FGA9 was something else wasn't it! Black sticky stores tape over the circuit breakers to stop everything popping out.
.....and that smell of cordite. All tremendous stuff.
Good to see you on CAP Newt.
Rolling vertical scissors
A four-gun shoot in an FGA9 was something else wasn't it! Black sticky stores tape over the circuit breakers to stop everything popping out.
.....and that smell of cordite. All tremendous stuff.
Good to see you on CAP Newt.
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Normally in the Vampire we only fired two, on the rare ocasion I fired four my bloody feet wouldnt stay put on the rudder pedals, vibrated like a jack hammer! a full load of FFAR at night from a CF100 was somthing else, made night into day, the poor sod towing the Radop always beat us to the bar, cant say as I blame him, having a few dozen of these things fired 3000ft behind you every day was not conducive to longevity, we stuck our USAF exchange type with the job whenever we could! On a more serious note, the tresure spent during the Cold War fairly boggles the mind, cant see any nation spending like that again.
Sorry, I had forgotten that one. I was thinking of the 2A.
Where were the other two guns?
How about the F6 ventral gun pack. Now there's a quaint piece of engineering that only the Brits could do - a fuel-cooled gun pack!!!!!!
Edit: found the other two.
Where were the other two guns?
How about the F6 ventral gun pack. Now there's a quaint piece of engineering that only the Brits could do - a fuel-cooled gun pack!!!!!!
Edit: found the other two.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
FlareAngel,
Here you go, by Plt. Off. John Gillespie Magee Jr. RCAF.
Killed 11 Dec 1941.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Here you go, by Plt. Off. John Gillespie Magee Jr. RCAF.
Killed 11 Dec 1941.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
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Too serious, anyone?
@ Lightning Mate, with all due respect to you super WIWOLLers - that "going upwards" shot isn't anywhere near as good as the original Charles Brown (I think) shot of a Meteor 8 just about absolutely vertical - the soul-stirring shot you show had to be tilted to get the aircraft "right".
But the spirit's there OK, and a good thing too.
@FlareAngel ... At the risk of confirming what one of my instructors at FTS said:"He's a very intense young man, this one" (and I've never in all these years worked out if it was a compliment) - to reach the time and place when you can fully enjoy the delights that fast jets offer, there's a long, long period of effort, concentration, doubt and sheer hard work involved. And that's after the selection process. And even if you do get to the point where those Wings can grace your left-of-chest "They" might still select you for 4-Prop work, or heliochopters ...
And another thing - once you've got those Wings, you'll find that you have to go on and on with the learning thing, otherwise you stop learning very fast, and for good.
N.B. I'd finished my stint even before BEagle started flying training, so waddo I know ???
Except that Yon Vampires, Venoms, Meteors and even a few delightful Hunter hours (plus more fun at low level on Canberras) made all the nail-biting and agonising worth while.
But the spirit's there OK, and a good thing too.
@FlareAngel ... At the risk of confirming what one of my instructors at FTS said:"He's a very intense young man, this one" (and I've never in all these years worked out if it was a compliment) - to reach the time and place when you can fully enjoy the delights that fast jets offer, there's a long, long period of effort, concentration, doubt and sheer hard work involved. And that's after the selection process. And even if you do get to the point where those Wings can grace your left-of-chest "They" might still select you for 4-Prop work, or heliochopters ...
And another thing - once you've got those Wings, you'll find that you have to go on and on with the learning thing, otherwise you stop learning very fast, and for good.
N.B. I'd finished my stint even before BEagle started flying training, so waddo I know ???
Except that Yon Vampires, Venoms, Meteors and even a few delightful Hunter hours (plus more fun at low level on Canberras) made all the nail-biting and agonising worth while.
JP,
It wasn't tilted. It was taken going up in a long lazy loop from a T4, and captured just past the vertical. Another pic was taken coming down, this time vertically. I'm happy to post it if you would like.
Do you have a pic of the Meteor - love to see it.
LM
the soul-stirring shot you show had to be tilted to get the aircraft "right".
Do you have a pic of the Meteor - love to see it.
LM