Down Memory Lane…

This video is from 1988, a friend of mine was flying the bird during this flight demo at the airshow.  The high speed pass is right at 400 kts, and the low speed pass is 120 kts, and the opening climb is at 6000 feet per minute!  FUN!!!

Sadly they cut off the end of the tape where the P-3 turned in, bowed to the crowd, then backed into it’s parking space…  Let’s see one of the hot shot fighter pilots do THAT! 🙂


Oh yeah, the powers that be only let him shut down 2 engines, they’d actually practiced shutting down three for that one pass…

Comments

Down Memory Lane… — 18 Comments

  1. Well, considering there was just another one off the East coast, it WOULD come in handy… 🙂

  2. Reminds me of our ASW days when those birds off the USS Hornet would come at us at mast high and then gently rise and fly over us and drop back down to the surface. Love that sound.

  3. WHOA!! Talk about a walk down memory lane! I was a lowly non-rated airman in VP-48 working as a gopher during that airshow! We had a ball that weekend. It was one of those rare times in your life when you can say, “I’m getting paid for this?”

    If I remember correctly, we had the Thunderbirds that year, and the Blue Angels the next.

    Wow, thanks for posting this video! You made my day!

  4. CP- Not that we ‘ever’ did that… 🙂

    Navy91- Yep, and the Blues were MUCH easier to deal with! I was on CPWP staff at the time… sigh

    WSF- Yep overpowered by a factor of 2!!!

    LL- And still going strong 50 years on!

  5. Man I live there! I miss the P-3’s overhead… The 129th Air Rescue Wing flys C-130’s and they’re ok but it’s just not the same. They train ’em on rifle-shooting down by our 200-yard range at Metcalf in San Jose.

  6. NC- NOW you tell me… I was just out there last month for a meeting (well at Ames)

    Rev- Yep!

  7. Worked on the other side of the runway – that was a great airshow. I didn’t realize just how special at the time…

    Q

  8. They installed the engines upside-down, so when it flies inverted, the engines are right-side-up!

    An old EC-130E Flight Engineer…

  9. Coffeypot, I loved the flying but the sound I really liked was number 1 and number 4 engines going from 100 to 70 percent as we turned off the active runway.

    Thanks, Old NFO.

  10. NC- That we can do! 🙂

    Q- Yep, lots of fun!

    AZ- Yeah, yeah… 😛

    Rick- Good sound, and yeah been there too!

    drjim- Most of the time in the Vietnam area we did…