Airforce at it again: C-17 Stirs fear and loathing in American hearts!

[CaravanMan]

Come on California! Fall off into the Pacific already!



/from that whack job of a state

Hahaha! Gonna have to wait a couple million years for that, lol! However, California is the Land of Granola......




...it's where all the Fruits, Nuts and Flakes are from. I can say that though, I'm from there...so, which category do I fall under??

 

[Mooseflyer]

A couple years ago the AFB where I work got a complaint about a night local trainer that I flew. The caller (a rent-a-cop security guard) said I was "hovering and flashing my lights". I don't recall flashing any lights in particular which don't flash normally, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't hovering. Gotta love it......

 

[jarhead]

The Airforce goes right over my mom's boathouse on Lake Gaston on the deck at full bore. Must be a military training route. When we hear the first Eagle go by, we all run out and see if we can wave to the pilot of the second one. We know he/she can't see us...but we can see them. Maybe not close enough to see what style the sunglasses are...but it's fun to try and spot the second one before it's gone!!!!! BOOOOOOOOOM! There it goes!

Man can I relate to that, FN FAL.

Good friends of mine own a cabin on a quiet little lake near Minong, Wisconsin.

We’ve been spending the 4th of July up at that lake cabin every summer since the mid 60’s. The ANG base located at Duluth, MN was not too far away from that lake. This will date me a bit, but every 4th or 5th of July, a couple of F-4 Phantoms would make a low level pass just off the end of their dock. They WERE close enough to see the style of sunglasses on the pilots. They’d always make a higher altitude circle over the lake that was about 5 miles long by 2 miles wide. That would be the alert for all to get down to the lake shore or dock and wait a few minutes.

Then you’d see them off in the distance, coming from the south at an altitude of about 60 feet off the water, relatively slow. Then, just as they passed my friends dock by a few hundred yards, these guys would light the burners and pull the stick back. Such a roar you seldom hear. They’d go just about to the vertical and do barrel rolls until they disappeared from view. Everyone on the lake enjoyed that display on the 4th of July.
We suspected that one of those pilots had relatives on the lake, and did a slight deviation from their weekend warrior mission. Don’t think anyone ever complained.

That yearly display ended when the ANG replaced the F-4’s with F-16 squadron. Probably different pilots as well.

 

[Sniper Bob]

Thread jack...


Any airshows this year with the F-4s flying?

 

[gern_blanston]

When I was a kid (I know, I'm dating myself) we lived 60 NM East of PDX, and the century-series fighters from the Guard base would go supersonic overhead on their way East. Rattled the windows just a bit. I thought it was the sound of freedom, and I thought, "Cool, this is the greatest nation on Earth!"
I'd love to hear it again.

 

[FN FAL]

Thread jack...Any airshows this year with the F-4s flying?

Private or Military? Who drives F-4's now days?

When I was a kid (I know, I'm dating myself) we lived 60 NM East of PDX, and the century-series fighters from the Guard base would go supersonic overhead on their way East...I'd love to hear it again.

I heard that...during the late 60's, I was a Protestant stuck in a private Catholic school, because the Navy base at Charleston had such a crappy school system.

Every time we'd hear a sonic boom in class, Sister Virginia would make us bow our heads and make us pray for peace. Unknown to Sister Virginia, I was praying for a piece...a piece of that Catholic girl sitting in the seat next to me!

Yea...I remember those days and I remember hearing sonic booms once in a while, back in the day. Unless those were TNT blasts from a neighboring construction site?

Also a treat; we did our grocery shopping at the Charleston Air Force Base and sometimes we'd catch the movie matinee on base, Saturdays. You got to see a lot of planes driving to and from the grocery store...lots of C-130's and C-141's. And the base theater had some sort of alert system for flight crews in one corner...kind of gave it that, "Dr. Strangelove" effect.

...Everyone on the lake enjoyed that display on the 4th of July.

As far as I'm concerned, they could do it every Friday afternoon...I'd be sitting in the water in an inflated innertube getting my drink on, waving. Saturday night the beer light would be reserved for later...just in case we needed to make a night move on any "complainers". Nothing serious, but if they didn't like Phantoms putting on a show, they sure as heck wouldn't like getting their front yard tree toilet papered.

 

[Tim47SIP]

I can relate!

Reminds me of a deployment we made to El Toro MCAS (when it was open). We were out there doing Deck Carrier Landings (DLQ's) and were traversing some high affluent areas towards San Clamente Island. We received a phone call to read a letter from a lady with a noise complaint to the editor in the LA times. It was a lengthy complaint about the military helicopters that don't care about anyone and are out hot dogging and making noise just to make her misserable.

Long story short, the reply letter to the editor (that was published the next day) was a rebuttal to be proud of. It described the deployments to the desert (SW Asia) and what we went through while we were training to terrorize the inocent people back in California. It talked about the many, many months away from our families training to ensuring we knew exactly how to piss off the California population. In other words, we trained overseas in hostile areas specifically to piss off that lady.

We never heard another peep from anyone in the area for the next few months we were there. Imagine that!

 

[TurboS7]

Oh no it is a big one....I am not sure we can handle it.

 

[FN FAL]

Reminds me of a deployment we made to El Toro MCAS (when it was open). We were out there doing Deck Carrier Landings (DLQ's) and were traversing some high affluent areas towards San Clamente Island. We received a phone call to read a letter from a lady with a noise complaint to the editor in the LA times. It was a lengthy complaint about the military helicopters that don't care about anyone and are out hot dogging and making noise just to make her misserable.

Long story short, the reply letter to the editor (that was published the next day) was a rebuttal to be proud of. It described the deployments to the desert (SW Asia) and what we went through while we were training to terrorize the inocent people back in California. It talked about the many, many months away from our families training to ensuring we knew exactly how to piss off the California population. In other words, we trained overseas in hostile areas specifically to piss off that lady.

We never heard another peep from anyone in the area for the next few months we were there. Imagine that!

The base commander should have called her up to assuage her fears (fear tax) and asked her if the aircraft had "red stars" on them...when she said, "No!" they should have replied, "Thank God!" and hung up on her.

 

[jarhead]

Reminds me of a deployment we made to El Toro MCAS (when it was open).

What a great place to be stationed. I lived on base for two years, and enjoyed every day of it. A-4 Skyhawks, F4H Phantoms, F8-U Crusaders, and the venerable C-130.

Great little civilian bar outside the main gate called "Tail of the Bull", and my favorite bar of all time, located in downtown Santa Ana called "The Honeybucket", with live Dixieland jazz.

Getting nostalgic now.....sorry.

 

[Metro752]

Beat them with rods.

No! They'd like that!

 

[AA717driver]

Military aircraft = The Sound of Freedom.

If you're from San Fran 'acquiescence is the sound of freedom' .

How F'ed up is that?

HEY! Can you FORCE a state to seceed? Or....Maybe the residents of AZ and NV should invade CA and force them to find their own ****ing water and charge them market rates for electricity! That'd fix 'em.

Sorry about the rant.TC

 

[FN FAL]

HEY! Can you FORCE a state to seceed? Sorry about the rant.TC

Yes you can...just test a few of those bunker busters on a fault line and let slip the dogs of... continental plate construction.

 

[Huggyu2]

It warms my heart to hear how brave our populace is. Is there a yellow stripe missing from a highway near that airport? It was probably stolen and placed on the backs of those residents.

 

[Rick James]

People are such friggin pussi#s. I would pay money to see that beutiful bird do touch and goes. If you arent able to seperate an airplane doing low approaches from 9-11 then I'm not sure you should play a role in our society.