Saturday
I have just got back from an air show, and one of the stars of the show was this beauty, the F-16. My ears are still ringing with the sound of its engine. Awesome. This video conveys some sense of what these aircraft can do. I suppose these kind of things bring out my inner schoolkid.
The F-16 I saw was in the Dutch airforce and painted a bright orange. I'd love one of these fellas to fly the thing fast and low, repeatedly, over Polly Toynbee's Tuscan villa while the witch is in residence with her broomstick.
A sidewinder might get firing solution on Toynbee on her broomstick if she was speaking (hot air)... but why risk it? Yet another reason all fighter aircraft need a cannon for those tricky close-in targets.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at September 26, 2009 08:19 PM
Very nice. The hesitation rolls were a little ragged but the slow flight was impressive.
Of course, you realise that fighter pilots dissolve into quivering goo if required to fly straight and level for more that 75 seconds at one go, which is why only adults are allowed to drive bombers....
Posted by PersonFromPorlock at September 26, 2009 09:05 PM
It's nice to see an F-16 thrown around a bit for a change. All the USAF displays I've seen have been boring as hell .. just a series of formation passes.
The US Navy, on the other hand, does a great job of showing off what the F/A-18 can do, as do the Aussies.
Looking at this video, I'd have to guess that the 18 does in fact have a bit of an edge in agility over the 16. But then it's got the well-known problem of less range.
Funny that we're still getting excited over 1970's planes!
Posted by Bruce Hoult at September 27, 2009 04:45 AM
Bruce,
It's because they ain't built anything cooler since. Consider the SR-71 and when that was built.
Posted by Nick M at September 27, 2009 12:57 PM
Perry is mistaken - a cannon is not needed to deal with Polly Toynbee, a bucket of water would do the job.
"I am melting! I am melting!"
Posted by Paul Marks at September 28, 2009 12:47 PM
"I'd love one of these fellas to fly the thing fast and low, repeatedly, over Polly Toynbee's Tuscan villa while the witch is in residence with her broomstick."
Not repeatedly; a single pass, with some ordnance delivery (think: daisycutter) should do the trick.
Posted by Kim du Toit at September 29, 2009 01:33 PM
Loved that video all the way through whilst checking out which new laptop to buy yesterday. I went to an airshow earlier this year in Tainan, south Taiwan (where I live), but they only put on show the IDF ("Indigenous Defence Fighter aka "I Don't Fly") and not their F-16s - which left me with a bit of a pet lip.
"Funny that we're still getting excited over 1970's planes!"
That's both the most accurate and most inaccurate thing I've read since Shakespeare. The fact is both seriously cool and utterly tragic at the same time.
Posted by mike at October 1, 2009 02:03 PM
