It’s going to become increasingly more difficult to justify the expense of using the Red Arrows for recruiting “fighter pilots” when there are precious few slots available and will probably be fewer every year going forward. Might be time to play up the “joy of flying” angle in order to recruit more fleet pilots that the RAF will need for cargo and transport and not give potential recruits the false hope that they could fly fast jets.

If their main purpose is to be a “goodwill ambassador” then that’s a different matter.

ZRX61,

I love that chest in post #87, did you figure out where it came from or who it belonged too?

Seeing that reminded me of one of the most beautiful tool chests I’ve ever seen. Henry Studley’s piano repair box.

Henry Studley’s Tool Chest

Henry Studley was an organ and piano maker, carpenter and mason who worked for the Smith Organ Co. at the turn of the 20th century. This tool chest was loaned to the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History for a time, and then sold to a private collector. Closed dimensions are aprox. 39 inches by 20 inches by 9 inches. It opens out to 40 by 40 inches.

And here is Norm Abram inspecting it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C9QaFTI2F9c

Israel has never released any video of the F-15 flying on one wing. There are photographs of it on the ground after landing, and at least one grainy picture of it just before landing but you can’t make out any detail. McDonnell Douglas sent a team to completely document and study the aircraft but I’ve never seen any of those photographs.

The video that originated on The History Channel is simply footage of a normal F-15 that has had the starboard wing removed by using an early version of a digital paint box to “paint out” the wing from the film. It was a frame-by-frame process. The recreation footage was intentionally somewhat blurry because they were using stock footage for all of the flying scenes. Add to that the fact that this particular clip is nearly 20 years old and was probably videotaped off the air to an analog VCR and then later re-digitized back a computer and uploaded to YouTube. The original broadcast on cable was pretty low quality, and this clip is 3 or 4 generations removed from that.

It’s a great story but there is no good footage. I had hoped that they would do an episode of “Dogfights” and do a complete CG recreation of it but that series only lasted 2 seasons. In the frame below, the 2 pictures on the right are real and unaltered post-flight photos of the Israeli F-15. The 2 frames on the left are digitally altered videotape of a normal USAF F-15.

That poor man.

Bager, he has the Blinkx Beat Virus on his computer.

Capt. James Robinson “Robbie” Risner did the push in Korea with his F-86 Sabre. He later spent 7 years as a POW in N. Korea and retired a Brigadier General. His book “The Passing of the Night” is an amazing story of his time as a prisoner of war.

Capt. Bob Pardo (not pardu) and his backseater Lt. Steve Wayne did the push in Vietnam in an F-4 Phantom II, pushing their wounded wingman’s aircraft 90 miles (the last half with only 1 working engine) before both crews ejected while still in enemy territory. All 4 men were rescued and made it back to base.

The TV series “Dogfights” has an episode with Robbie Risner telling his story and some great CG animation footage showing how it happened. I don’t know if Bob Pardo’s push is covered, but I think it is mentioned.

Do a search for “Blinkx Beat” or “Blinkx Beat virus”. I don’t think there is any problem with the forum, it’s almost certainly resident on your machine. You’ll probably see more of it regardless of what website you visit until you find it and remove it from your computer. Good luck.

Andy that’s pretty amazing, now I know what you looked like 20 years ago! The more you hear about this event the more amazing it becomes that no one was killed or seriously injured. I believe you are correct regarding the pilots identity. I had his name wrong for nearly 20 years until David Kavangh here on the forum gave me the correct name. I traced the mistake back to one of the first news stories I videotaped back in 1993 after the event and they identified him incorrectly and even got the location of the accident wrong.

Regarding the “Russian Debrief” between the two pilots, there’s one thing that no one has mentioned. The event as it was reported in 1993 says it happened on a Russian tarmac after the pilots got back home. So at the time there was never any report that the incident had happened at Fairford, because it almost certainly didn’t.

Cheers,

DC