Alright, I’m sitting in my office, when all of a sudden, 6 low-flying jets roar across the roof of my office. Needless to say, I throw on a helmet and duck under the desk. After a few seconds and I don’t hear a warbling siren, I run to the window: It’s the goddamn US Air Force Thunderbirds.
Someone please tell these fools to either quiet down and take it elsewhere, or land for Jesus sake. Their damn noise is making it impossible for me to get any work done.
Yeah, we’ve got an airshow this weekend. I don’t care if you like them. I could care less if their “high-soaring” act thrills the breath out of you. I don’t give a flying fuck (no pun intended) if their “spectacle of flight” sends your spirit soaring. I have work to do goddammit, and I just can’t quite seem to make out what the person in Virginia is saying over the phone while their damned afterburners are roaring in my left ear.
Not that I hate the Thunderbirds: Hell, I think any military airplane kicks ass! But this is sorta akin to having your neighbors get the landscapers working at 6:AM. Dammit, land your fuckin’ airplane and let me get back to work.
Tripler
Or else I pull out the Stinger, and go to another kind of work. . .
Aim for the fuel cells… maybe I won’t have to work any Air Show details in the hundred degree weather helping red-necks park and answering questions like:
“Where them thar planes gonna be at?”
“The flight line is that direction, sir.”
Simetra
“No really, walk on out there. The cop is there to keep the pilots in.”
And here I’m sitting in my office with nothing much to do, wishing there were planes were I am… and you have the Thunderbirds. Distinctly unfair. You never hear the “sound of freedom” around Durham, NC.
You know, that’s what they told me once. I was too smart for 'em. But I wasn’t smart enough to realize yer not really supposed to take pictures of secret airplanes when they get diverted to yer airfield. Oh, I didn’t eat pavement, but being detained for 45 minutes sure put a crimp in my day . . .
Rossarian, just send me the airport code of the nearest airfield, and I’ll forward it up to Ops. You can have 6 loud obnoxious lawn dart leafblowers today . . .
Tripler Sim, just pass me a few more boxes of ammo, too . . .
NAS Jax - birthplace of the Blue Angels. Some years back, before our little corner of the engineering bldg was remodeled, I had a desk by the window, facing the general direction of the flight line. Not a lot of work got done on the 2 days preceeding air shows - I loved watching all the planes practice - especially the little aerobats.
Last fall, we decided to watch the airshow from our boat - anchored in the little cove just north of the main runway. At one point, we looked straight up to see one of the Blues heading straight down at us! What a rush!! There’s going to be another airshow in November - we’re gonna be at anchor in the same cove. Can’t wait…
Hey, Trip, just invite me to the airshow. I was at Paris '88, Ramstein '88, Paris '89, and Aerospace America ‘90. All four included some rather spectacular crashes (Italians take out the crowd, Airbus bellyflop, the lawndartskiy, and Tom Jones’ mid-air heart failure). My luck hasn’t held since '90, as I have attended AA '91-00 without witnessing a single incident but maybe I’m due;).[sub]For the humor-impaired, that was a joke, that was only a joke. I am not a ghoul but only tell tasteless jokes like one on TV[/sub]
Seriously, I sympathize. I used to live 1/4 mile west and 2 miles north of the end of Runway 18 at Tinker AFB. I could handle all the (K)C-135 and KC-10s coming in for service but a B-52G taking off at 3am 1/4 mile in front of your bedroom window is not the most pleasant thing to experience.
On a related note, my aunt and her sister-in-law used to live about a mile apart, both directly under the TAFB approach. When they would talk on the phone and a jet would pass overhead, they’d just pause their conversation until it passed one house, talk for about five seconds, and pause again until it passed the other house, all without skipping a beat. Sometimes you just adapt.
I’ll take the Thunderbirds off your hand. I live near an Air Force base (okay - it’s been reclassified as an air reserve base) and they used to come to airshows about 15 years ago but the area has grown so much in population that they don’t allow the stunt teams (Blue Angels or Thunderbirds) to fly around here anymore (or they voluntarily don’t - I’m really not sure which).
We still do have air shows occassionally and the private stunt planes attend and put on nice shows, but it’s just not the same as the F16’s.
When I was stationed in SoFlo I dated an AF guy who was picked to haul and take care of the JATO bottles for Fat Albert, the cargo plane for the Blue Angels. As I was hanging around the flight crew 'way back on the ass-end of the flight line the FE gave me a wink and said, “Wanna go for a ride?”
So they strapped the JATO bottles on the plane, decked me out in coveralls about 8 sizes to big, and up I went for a rollercoaster ride.
