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Wave To The Pilot :-)

by Thomas
14 replies
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  • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
    Photoshop? :confused:

    Somehow the scale does not look right...
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    • Profile picture of the author tkalamba
      Its just perspective. That plane is awfully close to the building. It was taken during some boat race I believe, was reading about it on Jalopnik yesterday.
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  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    The guy on the balcony looks pretty calm about it all. That would have been enough to send me to the clothes laundry.
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  • Profile picture of the author tkalamba
    considering how close that is ya, I would be anything but calm. Ive seen on several occasions a trio of F-18's do flybys while spending time in Greece, and although they were much higher they were quite loud and not exactly discreet. Now imagine being waken up by that plane.
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    • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
      How old is this pix? I am trying to figure out what sort of craft this is. Obviously a two-seater. Maybe air to air? Does not look like a F-18. This baby being at a boat race is rather peculiar.
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      • Profile picture of the author tkalamba
        F/A-18 Fighter Jet Buzzes Detroit Apartment Building

        By Matt Hardigree, 5:45 PM on Mon Jul 13 2009, 28,816 views

        This weekend's APBA Gold Cup speedboat race in Detroit may have been exciting, but it was slightly overshadowed, both literally and figuratively, by the orifice-exploding sight of a freaking F/A-18 Hornet buzzing downtown. Normally, jets aren't allowed to fly so low. In Detroit, however, there's no real risk of it hitting a populated area.

        from Jalopnik. I would have just posted the link, but I dont think I have that ability yet

        edit* May I also add that the photo was likely taken with a long lens, making the scale of the plane slightly larger than it really is.
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  • Profile picture of the author derekwong28


    We used to have scenes like that many times a day at our old "Kai Tak" airport.

    Not only could the pilots see the television sets in the appartments below. They could swear they recognize the programs that the people were watching. Needless to say, it was quite a scary experience for passengers next to a window seat, especially since the aircraft had to make a sharp turn just before landing.

    Kai Tak airport was deemed the second most dangerous airport in the world but no major accident had happened there. It could be because pilots and airlines took it very seriously. Looking back, we were very lucky indeed.

    Derek
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  • Profile picture of the author dave830
    I'm pretty sure this was Maverick, buzzing the tower again.

    Also, as photoshop'd as this pic below seems, I honeymooned in St. Martin, and the runway is really this close to a beach. Crazy.

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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Motley
    the guy on the balcony probably didnt have time to be anything but cool about it.

    That jet was probably hundreds of miles away by the time something registered that a jet just buzzed him and something was running down his leg
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    • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
      Oh my! I never thought this was a F-18 Hornet. I have seen them at air shows. I don't remember them being two-seaters but I guess they are.

      Now about Princess Juliana Airport and Maho Beach/St Maarten, it is one of the plane spotters world favourite places. Some tourists like to stand on the beach waiting to get blown off by jet engines. This is one place I really like. It is so unique.

      There are lots of videos on Youtube about jets takeoffs and landings at Maho Beach.

      For example this


      You may want a bit of jet blast


      It's quite freaky.

      I used to be a regular at Kai Tak by day and by night. I used to fly out of HKG for the day just for the landings. I have done quite a bit of plane spotting there.

      Crosswinds approaches by big heavies were always most spectacular.


      Over the buildings


      I was even there the last day when they closed the airport. I miss Kai Tak.
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    On the F18, it has a wingspan of about 37-40 feet. With the scale of that picture(based on standard housing practices, and confirmed by a human's average height, and the person out there, the wings look to be 30-31 feet! That plane is VERY close! Further, it looks like it is moving AWAY from the building, so it was CLOSER!

    That 747 picture, by contrast, is no where NEAR that F18. 747s are HUGE! From the bottom of the picture, I figure the 747 is probably about 200+ feet in the air. The building on the near left is probably 50-60 feet tall. The buildings off in the distance are obviously quite large. The entire 747 is about 231 feet long. Though I doubt the road in the center is that wide, I ALSO doubt the buildings in the far off distance are 38 feet wide. So the plane isn't all that close.

    And I've been close to a military jet on the ground starting to take off.(The air national guard takes off from a runway used by an airport I use) I SWEAR the building shook. I don't think I would have been comfortable on a balcony like that. YIKES!

    Steve
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Motley
    go look out on youtube. There are some insanely low fly overs on film. There are a couple from the middle east where f16's blow over a ridge that an army squad is patrolling. You can see the f16 enter the valley a the base of the ridge then he disappears and seconds later he comes over top of the ridge where the soldiers are and he's so close to the ground that the wind from him passing over blows dust and one soldier's unsecured helmet off.

    I dont know if he did it on purpose or not, thats pretty damn close even for a fighter. He probably had a pucker factor of about 10 on that pass
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  • Profile picture of the author tkalamba
    That crosswind landing, I would have to admit, was the coolest plane landing Ive ever seen.
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    • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
      A Kai Tak approach was never an easy thing. I remember once at landing there was an object on the runway. I was on a Cathay Pacific flight. I think we came from London that time.

      We touched down with the back wheels and went off in the air straight away. They call it "touch and go" during test flights. It is one procedure the pilots have to be good at. There can be objects on the runway unknowingly without the Air Traffic Controllers even knowing about it.

      Strangely enough this same thing happened to me another time at landing at Sydney Airport after a TransPacific on a United 747-400. I can't remember if it was from LAX or San Francisco. We touched down and then were off one second later.

      Objects on runways can be extremely dangerous and cause crashes.

      Another uneasy airport is Mahe in the Seychelles Islands. The mountains are right at you when you are landing. There is no question of missing or you will hit.

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