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 Posted - October 09 2011 : 11:12:18 PM
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I just got home from a great day WITHOUT trains! That's right. Nothing train related was in sight all day. I took the kids to the Air Force base here in Albuquerque, NM and watched some birds flying around. OK... it was a six-pack of Thunder Bird F-16s. Here are the few decent photos I snapped. Very hard to get good photos of tiny jets doing just under Mach 1!!
Odd, I have tried to add the rest of the photos, but am unable to. Hopefully I will get them posted tomorrow.
Edited by - Hypoponera on October 09 2011 11:59:50 PM
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Posted - October 10 2011 : 05:44:57 AM
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Hypoponera,
That's so cool. I'll bet the kids had a blast too.
When I looked at this picture I that I saw two planes but there are four.
Alco Fan
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Posted - October 10 2011 : 09:19:00 AM
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quote:I just got home from a great day WITHOUT trains! That's right. Nothing train related was in sight all day. I took the kids to the Air Force base here in Albuquerque, NM and watched some birds flyi
Originally posted by Hypoponera - October 09 2011 : 11:12:18 PM
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Um, were there any Sikorsky helicopters present? If so, then there is a faint train link. I recently discovered ( a friend of mine works at the Sikorsky plant in Pennsylvania btw ) through some inadvertent research that United Aircraft ( of UA Turbo Train fame ) had bought Sikorsky helicopters company back in the '60's I think. And UA as a parent company still exists , so there is some relationship to trains if a Sikorsky helicopter was present. Not much, very tiny, but there. 
Jerry
" When life throws you bananas...it's easy to slip up"
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Posted - October 10 2011 : 09:40:22 AM
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Pal,
TB's or not if they were doing just under Mach 1 with their gear down, ALL of them will be grounded for a while!
It's surprising to think how old this line of Jets are now. They date initially from the 70's. F-14 Tomcat production ended years ago (IDIOTS). The F-22 is not fully on line yet and the JSF F-35 is still a fe years away. People have sure gotten their money's worth from these designs. I recently learned of a "Stealthy" F-15 Derivative that whatever McDonnel-Douglas is now, I guess Boeing? It cants the fins, uses the conformal tanks as weapons bays etc. It's real advantage is frontal aspect stealth. IOW fighters coming at you will have a harder time picking you up. Same sig for ground based Radar. These changes are mostly for countries who will be flying the F-15 for years to come.
-Gareth
"A is A"
-Aristotle
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Posted - October 10 2011 : 11:46:50 AM
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Sorry Jerry, I did not see any choppers other then a small number of Black Hawks. Their was a couple C-130s and a C-141 as well. But none were in the airshow.
The photo shows a slow speed passing formation with the wheels down. The second pair overflew the 4 shown at high speed. So fast I couldn't even lead them with the camera!
I am still a little "fuzzy" on why the F-14s got retired. The F-18s had already proven that they could not perform the same mission to the same standard. They just don't have the required loiter time nor the long range intercept capability.
As for the F-15, I don't think the Air Force will part with it any time soon. It is just too adaptable and capable. The F-16 is too short ranged to replace the F-15. And as you pointed out, the F-22 is still a long way off from mission capable.
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Posted - October 10 2011 : 12:07:16 PM
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I got the photo posting issue cleared up. Here are the rest of the decent photos. I have lots of photos of blue skies and even a couple with just the tail end of a plane but thought those wouldn't be of much interest!
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