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[Viper2000]

It's all fun & games until somebody gets killed.

There are quite a few pilots who are both old & bold - they merely represent a statistical minority. For the same reason, there are quite a lot of people who smoke and don't get lung cancer; increased risk is not the same is certainty.

However, straight & level flight at very low level is actually pretty safe provided that you're higher than the height of your landing gear because you can get an idea of the picture from the cockpit whilst you're still safely on the ground.

In this case, the first aeroplane flies by at roughly gear height - compare with the picture on its Wikipedia page.

The foolish part of this video is how close he's decided to take the aeroplane to the spectators, rather than the height itself. People are unpredictable, the pilot has no real idea what his downwash and jet blast are doing, and of course showing off for the camera is tantamount to testifying for the prosecution. Given that everybody and his dog has a cameraphone these days, showing off within sight of people equates to showing off for the camera, so even if he didn't know that people would be filming, he should have guessed...

In the absence of "innocent" bystanders, it gets "interesting" when people start flying lower than gear height, at high alpha, or with bank on, because there is no real scope for safe rehearsal.

Originally Posted by Viper2000

It's all fun & games until somebody gets killed.

There are quite a few pilots who are both old & bold - they merely represent a statistical minority. For the same reason, there are quite a lot of people who smoke and don't get lung cancer; increased risk is not the same is certainty.

However, straight & level flight at very low level is actually pretty safe provided that you're higher than the height of your landing gear because you can get an idea of the picture from the cockpit whilst you're still safely on the ground.

In this case, the first aeroplane flies by at roughly gear height - compare with the picture on its Wikipedia page.

The foolish part of this video is how close he's decided to take the aeroplane to the spectators, rather than the height itself. People are unpredictable, the pilot has no real idea what his downwash and jet blast are doing, and of course showing off for the camera is tantamount to testifying for the prosecution. Given that everybody and his dog has a cameraphone these days, showing off within sight of people equates to showing off for the camera, so even if he didn't know that people would be filming, he should have guessed...

In the absence of "innocent" bystanders, it gets "interesting" when people start flying lower than gear height, at high alpha, or with bank on, because there is no real scope for safe rehearsal.

come on, so much rhetoric for an innocent joke... if you guys ever served in the Army/Air Force/Navy you should know that this happens constantly, the only difference, as you said, it's that nowadays it's more likely it's gonna get videod/pictured etc.. Never seen the French Army helos in Chad or the Mirages flying low?

He was floating on pure ground effect, a skilled pilot can do that (and this one is sitting on a huge pair of balls if you ask me..) and yes, I would have avoided to fly that close to people, but it's normally them who ask the pilots two be buzzed, not viceversa..

As you said it's all fun til someone loses an eye, then it's hilarious

[Fjordmonkey]

I've seen some pretty wild things during my time with 331/334 sqn RNoAF, but that's utterly insane, ground-effect or not.

Dumb, real dumb hope he gets kicked out in shame!

[raaaid]

no words but pretty fun

[Viking]

Some years ago a Swedish pilot decided to impress his girlfriend and her family who where watching his takeoff at the end of the runway and did a low flyover at full blast. They were badly burned and he was as I recall kicked out.

Fly safe! But you can’t put old heads on young bodies, can you.

[White Owl]

Originally Posted by Formula88

No pilot will sacrifice his aircraft or his life to put on a show...

I wish that were true. Certainly they never plan to sacrifice...

I liked the lingering dust trail on the ground. Cool video.

I found the cockpit video by the way..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDDxU5sB-SI

oh and.. I once visited the red arrows at scampton.. they did the manouver that that display team did, (you know the one where the italians collided and killed all of those people.. that is now banned at airshows.. champagne charlie or something i think its called) though it was very risky.. if i died it wouldn't matter because i was on base property or something like that.. spose the same applies here..