ORIGINAL: Wolfie1
That one reminds me of when I worked in an office about 2 miles from the British Aerospace factory, it was about 1988 and a test pilot was on his last day before retirement - he took a Lightning up and basically broke every rule in the book. Every window in the canteen blew from the sonic boom and I watched him come down the river Ribble so low he was leaving a wake - just like that pic[:D]
I worked an air show every year when I was in college. Most of the time I worked on the announcer's stand feeding data to the guy telling the crowd about the aircraft, so I was kind of at the center of things.
One year we had a newly restored F-86 that had just gotten it's airworthiness certificate. The owner loaned the plane to a test pilot for Lockheed who after a few fly bys with some other aircraft radioed the tower that he had a bit of extra fuel and would it be OK if he did a few extra fly bys. He got the go ahead and proceded to beat up the field from one end to the other violating every FAA rule for airshows including knife edges right over the heads of the crowd. (It was one of the best air show performances I'd ever seen.) The FAA people were furious and almost shut down the air show.
I heard later that the FAA tried like mad to pull the guy's license for several months afterwards but found the DoD prevented it at every turn. A few years later, I put 2 and 2 together. This was right in the middle of the F-117 test program and this guy was probably vital to the program. He knew that he could do anything he wanted to and the FAA wouldn't be able to do squat about it.
The first year I didn't go to the airshow, the F-86 met a tragic end. The owner was flying it and had a flame out right after take off. There was a freshly plowed field just past the runway he could have bellied in, but he tried to turn at low altitude with no power, stalled, caught a wing tip and cart wheeled down the runway. The F-86 was reduced to scrap metal and the pilot killed.
Bill
