Low level flying
Low level flying
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"Mildly" Eccentric Stardriver
To quote an old Flight Commander: "If you don't hit your wheels on the ground every hundred yards, you are not low flying". Admittedly, Wessex; down and welded.
Lowest ever REAL low flying I have done was on 1st May 82, when the HUD camera recorded the radalt flicking between 5 and 15 ft at 480 kts on the run-in to deliver CBUs on Stanley. Seemed safer down there somehow with all the flak flying around!
Swing the lamp!
Mog
Salute!
Love those stories from the Mog.
I never flew real low in combat or even the other coupla thousand of hours back home. Maybe 100 feet, but I liked about 200 and it worked well in real life and one particular time at Red Flag when being tracked by a SA-6 and the video was used by the staff at the mission debrief.
Unlike Mog's experience with Argie gunners way south, the Vee up North were the most experienced AAA folks in the world. Especially trying to nail we Yankee Air Pirates. They had 7 years of practice before we ended that debacle. I only saw the supreme expression of their integrated AAA and SAM deal a few times in December of 1972. I was impressed.
The Brits and the folks they trained always had a easy time flying low when I flew with them. That includes a foreign group or two. But lowest I ever saw was a single Cunnuck in an F-5E evading outta the tgt at Red Flag. We were up at 200 or so feet but our doppler 'dar grabbed him a mile or two ahead and he was low! Flying that low precludes a good check six scan or other things, but ...... So we calmly joined about a thousand feet or so each side and escorted him out. He was so low that he was weaving a bit left and right to avoid the tall cactii. When he finally realized we were there and friendly he waggled and pressed on a bit higher.
Lowest I ever got was as a stoopid nugget in a VooDoo. Setting up for a buzz job on the Gulf Coast and got down where the airflow actually tried to lift the nose. That was a long plane, so we were maybe 30 or 40 feet and 400 kt . Never did that again after thinking about it. Also had "advice" from my RIO behind me.
Good stuff.
Gums sends....
Love those stories from the Mog.
I never flew real low in combat or even the other coupla thousand of hours back home. Maybe 100 feet, but I liked about 200 and it worked well in real life and one particular time at Red Flag when being tracked by a SA-6 and the video was used by the staff at the mission debrief.
Unlike Mog's experience with Argie gunners way south, the Vee up North were the most experienced AAA folks in the world. Especially trying to nail we Yankee Air Pirates. They had 7 years of practice before we ended that debacle. I only saw the supreme expression of their integrated AAA and SAM deal a few times in December of 1972. I was impressed.
The Brits and the folks they trained always had a easy time flying low when I flew with them. That includes a foreign group or two. But lowest I ever saw was a single Cunnuck in an F-5E evading outta the tgt at Red Flag. We were up at 200 or so feet but our doppler 'dar grabbed him a mile or two ahead and he was low! Flying that low precludes a good check six scan or other things, but ...... So we calmly joined about a thousand feet or so each side and escorted him out. He was so low that he was weaving a bit left and right to avoid the tall cactii. When he finally realized we were there and friendly he waggled and pressed on a bit higher.
Lowest I ever got was as a stoopid nugget in a VooDoo. Setting up for a buzz job on the Gulf Coast and got down where the airflow actually tried to lift the nose. That was a long plane, so we were maybe 30 or 40 feet and 400 kt . Never did that again after thinking about it. Also had "advice" from my RIO behind me.
Good stuff.
Gums sends....
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Flying that low precludes a good check six scan or other things, but ...... So we calmly joined about a thousand feet or so each side and escorted him out. He was so low that he was weaving a bit left and right to avoid the tall cactii. When he finally realized we were there and friendly he waggled and pressed on a bit higher.
Yeah, there's not a lot of multi-tasking capability available below 100'.I recall in the late 70s, the USMC had some interest in adapting the ANG FWS low altitude training approach for their needs. I was in an A-7D chasing a USMC WTI IP in an A-4 at around 500k thru some of our profiles east of Yuma. When it came time for him to descend from 'comfort level' to the absolute minimum altitude he felt could fly, he pulled the power back slightly.
Starting to move relatively forward from a comfortable low altitude 'safety' (hah) chase position, I put out the speedbrake, a monstrous size piece of metal consisting pretty much of the entire bottom of the aircraft. At 500k the decel literally thru you forward in the cockpit, and with a hand on the stick, it went in the same direction.....down below 100'.
Never did that again. (Marines did adopt the program.)
Avoid imitations
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"Mildly" Eccentric Stardriver
Not down and welded,down and locked[ 7 1/2 years as Wessex HC 2 ground crew
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5 foot.... go ask the Swedes 
Swedish NH90 CFIT: Pilot Experience and Skating on Frozen Lake - Aerossurance
seriously, didn’t they operate between 30 and 60 ft?
Swedish NH90 CFIT: Pilot Experience and Skating on Frozen Lake - Aerossurance
seriously, didn’t they operate between 30 and 60 ft?
A life after the Mil: 50ft probably doesn't sound much, but it was in a JetRanger filming a Ferrari down LaTrobe Street in Melbourne 
I couldn't go lower as the street lamps and tram wires were in the way...
Shot from the recce run, too busy during the actual filming.
I couldn't go lower as the street lamps and tram wires were in the way...Shot from the recce run, too busy during the actual filming.
Salute!
Good poop, Okie
Didn't know you flew the Sluf before the Viper ( same as me). Seems rest here are all blokes, tho we had a great RAF exchange pilot in the 356th Green Demons. The Queen wouldn't let him deploy with us to Thailand, but he was there when we got back after our 6 month rotation.
Was one of the 354th TFW that got to submit our recommendations to TAC in 1974 about realistic low level training and tactics. We had just returned from Korat and got to know the Sandy and Knife escort stuff (as Hobo).
Gums sends...
Good poop, Okie
Didn't know you flew the Sluf before the Viper ( same as me). Seems rest here are all blokes, tho we had a great RAF exchange pilot in the 356th Green Demons. The Queen wouldn't let him deploy with us to Thailand, but he was there when we got back after our 6 month rotation.
Was one of the 354th TFW that got to submit our recommendations to TAC in 1974 about realistic low level training and tactics. We had just returned from Korat and got to know the Sandy and Knife escort stuff (as Hobo).
Gums sends...
Last edited by gums; 19th Oct 2020 at 02:53. Reason: typos
That picture of L Trobe Street reminds reminds me of China. There Air Traffic is paramount and on their sayso rules are overthrown.
Doing an airborne video job for Wenzhao TV ATC authorised us down to ground level so I and the film crew had a great time.
Doing an airborne video job for Wenzhao TV ATC authorised us down to ground level so I and the film crew had a great time.
Pah!
I managed to fly at mere inches off the deck.
Immediately before touchdown and immediately after take off...
I managed to fly at mere inches off the deck.
Immediately before touchdown and immediately after take off...
AAFCE TLP, Florennes, Belgium, July '91: Spent a month flying in a Belgian army Alouette 11 all over Europe. There was hardly a day when we didn't have to pick corn from the skids on our return... Flying under the power cables with skids clipping the crops - happy days!
A refuelling stop.
Belgium.
Crop skimming.
Buzzing a Dutch barge.
A refuelling stop.
Belgium.
Crop skimming.
Buzzing a Dutch barge.