Too Bad about t-bird pilot....

[rwflyboy]

It is too bad for Chris. Mistakes happen and sometimes we are lucky enough to walk away from them.....I included the link about the Thunderbird Crash in Idaho a couple of days after Reno.

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_news_article968.html

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Too Bad about t-bird pilot....

Originally posted by rwflyboy
It is too bad for Chris. Mistakes happen and sometimes we are lucky enough to walk away from them.....I included the link about the Thunderbird Crash in Idaho a couple of days after Reno.

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_news_article968.html

I suspect something like this would be SOP for the Birds..

Mistake or not, the guy has to have either the best timing ever, or he's one lucky SOB!

Have you viewed the cockpit vid? He's out and the vid stops at first impact and there's literally almost no time between..

However it happened, I'm sure, in the F-16 community, the very likely common thread is "screwed the pooch" ....

Not a pilot, always hate to "armchair quarterback" but if you look at the video, he initiates that manuver AWFULLY close to the deck!

The "what was he thinking" thing comes to mind viewing it..

Given how close it was, I suspect, he's maybe grateful for the chaining to the desk session he seems to have been "sentenced" to..

"It could have been a lot worse" comes to mind here.. and I think the T-Birds are pretty unforgiving of mistakes, they are supposed to be perfect (of course, nobody is) keeping him in would be completely out of character for them.

I've got shots of the "Birds" taken at a press session in their hangar at Nellis last year. I've never seen a bunch of guys hold a pose for so long!

I'd wager they practice their public "face" nearly as often/long as they do their flying.. these guys are PERFECT!

Wayne