Interesting CroAF PC-9 low level video
 

After "Cockpit alone" video, seemingly we got another example of Croats, flying and video cameras mixing bad. Certain paraglider rider got hold of low level cockpit footage and posted it on his FB, slightly miffed that Hrvoje Biggles flew straight over his favourite landing zone, at a rate of knots and with quite reduced vertical separation between his PC-9 and the local flora. Now it's out on Croatian Index portal and Youtube too. Being Sunday, no official word from CroMoD was to be heard.

In any serious Airforce that would get you fired and in jail before you can say the words "Low level"...

The first 15 seconds I was thinking,

"that's pretty low, if I'm being generous I could give him 100' MSD, then he went below the trees!"

Just as an aside, how low and how fast was some of that?


50ft? 300knots?

Down to less then 10' and 200-220kts at time maybe 250.

Croatian OLF? :eek:

The aeronautical equivalent of a free-climber. He/she has some skill but there is a better than average chance he/she will wind up dead soon.

BV

But if in wartime.....................After all, what is an Air Force for? Think Buccaneer.

Remember talking to an old Cold war FR pilot at a funeral, who told me one day he was so low, as he zoomed over an irate German farmer, he picked up a shovel and threw it at him.


It hit the leading edge of his wing.


When I asked him if maybe he'd been a little low, he said that it was at the height of the Cold War, and they were training for the real thing, which could have happened any day.

If you are able to prove he/she was on an operational work up I will retract my post. Otherwise my opinion remains unchanged.

We can all fly that low if we need to. For me it's a case of risk vs reward. In war the risk would be worth it. In peacetime it's not.

I realise that makes me sound like a Boy Scout but c'est la vie.

BV

Well, he's clearly determined to get a military funeral that's for sure. This is depressingly familiar, and I've been to a few funerals following this type of stupidity. As mentioned, the risk versus reward is so stacked against you it's just plain stupidity. His wingtip clearance in those turns must be negligible (it's very common to forget you've got bits on the side when you get low-level tunnel fixation), OK, if it's Croatia the wire plot might be well known, but anyone can, and does, string up a wire without notice. He's also assumed all of those trees are a uniform height and there isn't a lone pine out there waiting to pluck him from the sky, masked by the rising ground in the distance. Chances of a birdstrike are massively increased and as for the bridge, well even in a helicopter the procedure requires you to check it out at a hover taxi before venturing forth.

Ultimately, this type of flying will result in a 200 yard grease stain and the accompanying smoking hole long before you've gained any tactical advantage by being 25 feet lower than you need to be. Still, the never ending accident reports demonstrate that someone out there will have been impressed by this blatant disregard of all aspects of professionalism. Forgive me for not attending your funeral.

Even if it could be argued that this was some sort of operational workup it has very limited value. He's constantly changing bank angle so the wing flashing would give him away for anyone above. No big, not clever and not even tactically sound.

Our last full on war.

Who wouldn't buzz these poor farmers? :O

and Harriers over the Falklands in 82.

At about 0:30 to 0:40 he appears to be below the level of the road!

If he was properly hardcore, he'd have gone under both bridges at 3:17.

I wonder if the footbridge under the main span gave him the same fright it gave me?

We used to fly routinely at that height. But in a Sioux at 70 knots!

Flying low level around Croatia / Bosnia et al in the 90s/00s I would not trust the wires map for a moment; they would chuck wires up in minutes. Flying at 50ft/130 knots we still had wire strikes and several near misses. If this guy has not flown the route progressively lower, looking for wires, then he's inevitably going to end up equalling the record for low flying.....and not in a good way....