or the other ground crew????

It just goes to show that an inventive, tactically smart pilot can defeat a technically superior aircraft. sounds similar to the Flying Tigers in china vs. Japan early in WW2. the P-40’s were inferior to their Zero opponents, but innovation and tactics can still win the day.

Right. We had the same situation at Barksdale with the B-52’s. There were more airframes on the tarmac than there was funding for, so they rotated aircraft on the flying schedule and flyable reserve. An aircraft would go unflown for a couple of months at a time.

The Thunderbirds with F-4Es at Upper Heyford July 1971. Never knowingly bettered…

That was just 5 planes though wasn’t it? I’ve always thought the opposing solo adds just that much more excitement to a show.

I’ve sat in the cockpit of one that visited Barksdale AFB in the early 90’s with 2 Bear H’s. I was in line to go in the Bears when a thunderstorm made them shut everything down. 😡

I downloaded and watched this movie last night…. a lot of the flight scenes looked like stock airshow footage that was just re-hashed with some admitedly good CGI (like when the Midas tanker explodes, or when the rear seat is ejected and a Sidewinder homes in on it’s exhaust plume).

Ken, the only difference I see with the ground PS pic and the BORT 801 pic is the mudguard on the nose gear wheels on the grounded aircraft seems to go a little higher over the wheel than on 801. Is that specific to older SU-27’s, but not the -35? Also, the in flight pic you linked to looks fake as well since the rocket plume and smoke from it does not appear to be affected by the wind blast. Could they have taken the ground shot from a -27UB painted up like 801 and digitally removed the landing gear and added a jettisoned canopy? That scene from the movie did look somewhat fake.

IIRC, Post Vietnam Cold War SAC plans were to retire all but the newest models of B-52’s (G’s, H’s, and Big Belly D’s) arming them with free fall bombs and SRAM, Develop the AMSA (Advanced Manned Strategic Aircraft), what eventually became the B-1A to replace the B-52 fleet 1 for 1. With the Carter Administration killing the B-1 in it’s original configuration in leu of developing the cruise missle, the B-52 was left to soldier on with just the FB-111 as a pseudo strategic bomber. With Reagan came the desire to spend the soviets out of existence. This revived the B-1 as the B-1B with the plans that it be a stop gap bomber until the brand new B-2 was operational, then retire the D models B-52, and continue with the G and H model B-52s as cruise missle carriers, The B-1’s as low altitude, high speed penetrator with the B-2’s being used for the highest priority or heavily defended targets.