Trucker Ted

Just saw this clip on live leak and not much room for error,in fact i was waiting on the pilot bailing when i first watched . At around 27 seconds you can see the jet wash on the water.

So is this luck,skill or a bit of both?

LiveLeak.com - French Rafale Almost Crash

apologies if a sial.

RB5SCOTT

Oldish. I would say its skill!

ScoTTyB

I'd say luck. Pilots are not allowed to jeapordise millions of $$ worth of plane showing off. There is one exactly the same of the eurofighter at an air show.

CrisPDuk

I'd say 50:50, I suspect he didn't intend to get quite that close to the water, but I bet he was aiming for less than 50'

French pilots are known to play a little more fast and loose with their aircraft than their US or UK counterparts

Wish

iTrader: (2)

That was luck, no piolt would come out of a dive so low......

TopBanana

Skill - or lack thereof

mart360

I seem to recall when Rory Underwood? took one of the blue peter presenters out for a run in the welsh valleys, he was saying that then can set the plane to follow the terrain radar, it will literally sit on the deck only popping up to clear hills etc, and would dive to the preset depth off ground level at whatever rate the pilot wanted, ie fast medium or slow...


only the pilot of that clip knows for sure, and i dont suppose he has let on

Mart

billythekid

Yeah our drivers never show boat like that.....

YouTube - harrier flyover

YouTube - RAF Harrier low flyby Afghanistan 1

YouTube - Spitfire Low Pass

CrisPDuk

I never said RAF pilots didn't showboat Billy

I merely said the French have more of a reputation for it

LiveLeak.com - French Mirage F1 performing low level flying in Chad !!

I have no doubt our drivers are just as good (I doubt whether the yanks are though) if not better, they probably just don't let it be quite so publicised

After all, do you remember the uproar in the media when your first link became public

BTW Your third link doesn't count, that wasn't a RAF owned (or piloted) spit

Vampire

It was a serious miscalculation and only luck got him out of it. There have been loads of similar incidents which didn't end so well, when the pilot miscalculated his altitude before/during execution of a manouvre.

F16 - attempted loop, not enough altitude.
YouTube - Thunderbird Crash

B52 - hard turn, stall, not enough altitude.
YouTube - B-52 Crash

F18 - attempted loop, not enough altitude.
Aviation Video: FA-18 MCAS El Toro Crash | Patrick's Aviation

Su34 in Paris - attempted loop/spin, not enough altitude. (Right Click - Save As).
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...arisCrash.mpeg

Su27 in Sorensen - loop/roll, not enough altitude. (Right Click - Save As).
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...rashinLviv.wmv

Spitfire - attempted loop, not enough altitude. (Right Click - Save As).
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photoga...eLoopCrash.wmv

Leslie

As Vampire says-it was a bad miscalculation, he did not allow the aircraft to go high enough at the top of the half Cuban to allow himself sufficient room to do a properly controlled recovery above the sea. It shows by the large angle of attack at the bottom of the dive that he was right on the bitter edge. If he had more height as mentioned he could have controlled the speed in the dive to recover safely and easily without clouting the sea and still gone low enough to impress.

A very lucky chap!

Les

Boro

iTrader: (1)

No-one gets THAT close through skill alone! A certain element of luck was the only think that kept him from the drink

Brun

Cool to watch - but what a tosser

vindaloo

IMO: The point of the exercise being to throw a huge tail of spray up behind the plane... Looks to me like he deliberately went low, then went high angle and lit up the engines to create a big splash.


J.

The Chief

I'm pretty sure that was Woodford airshow - i was there and saw that, quite a few years ago now, It may sound daft but it really shook me up, funny thing is out of respect they carried on with the show, but i had seen enough tbh and left

C17RPA

that was luck!!!!!!! i bet his **** went,if it had time pmsl