Simviation Forums

The day's Heritage flight was very special, and I got to see it evolve, as the flight circled the field several times, trying to form up properly. this is not as easy as it may look, despite any amount of planning.
While the previous act was underway, the Mustang and Sabre took off from one of the other runways, and soon had a little formation going .

     



Then the F15 eased in alongside...

     



At one point the Sabre fell outsdie and behind... not sure what the trouble was, but it took another circuit to get it together again.

     


As the F16 dropped in, it was time for the first pass, across the showline.

     



Pretty good, but how about another?

     



No problem... they seem to be in the groove now...

     



A nice breakaway maneuver this time... sweet!

     





Time to focus now on the superstar of the Century-series American fighters. This is the only airworthy F104 Starfighter in the world (at the moment), one of three owned and operated by the Starfighters airshow demonstration team.
She's a two-seat model with a brutish 9,000-hp Orenda engine... this important Cold War interceptor design was called "the missile with a man in it", and rightly so...it's a supersonic, 30,000-lb. GTW aircraft with a 21-foot wingspan.  It doesn't like to fly slowly, but man, does it like to fly fast!!
This was the first fighter capable of sustained flight at Mach 2.
Nothing looks or sounds like it... a very special airplane. Sexy.

     



Pilot Rick Svetkoff kept the 104 pretty high and pretty far from the crowd for most of the display, except for a few low 600-mph passes which were a bit hard to catch with my camera . But I got some decent shots... here the air brakes are deployed before a turn.

     



An inverted pass...

     



A peek at the fiery fury of the Orenda...

     



I managed to make good use of the one really good photo pass... note the flaps; she was dawdling at about 200 mph or so.

     


Next: the Blue Angels!

SWEET!! 8-)

Always love the Heritage flight!!

That Starfighter is great.

One of the guys on the Fighter-Ops forums is part of the Starfighters team and from what understand, he rides backseat quite often, lucky SOB. 8-)

Nice shots, the heritage really makes you realize how big the F-15 actually is!  I've seen heritage flights with the F-15, F-4, and P-47, and an unofficial one with a B-25, Corsair, Hellcat, and Sino Swearingen

Some real classics there. How about those two North American beauties. 8-)

That F-104 is a beast. I once saw a formation display by four of them. The noise was incredible & they were out of sight longer than they were in view. Not the most suitable type for that sort of thing.

PS. My memory must be playing tricks. I thought it was a four-ship but maybe it was only two. I think it must have been the German Navy's Vikings or the Belgian Air Force 'Slivers'. The latter were reputed to be complete nutters.

How I wish I could see the F-104 fly again!

Listen to the howl of those engines: 8-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIvv1PAmesM

The F-104 is a relic from times when aircraft still had some character, sheer power and were born from great ideas in the design stage. Sadly, most of them were followed by charmeless, computer designed flying computers.


Honestly, all the F-14s/15s/16s in the world can't make up for one single F-104 or F-4. Same applies for the russian designs.

I love those F-104's  :D Always have, always will.

Excellent shots  ;)