Fleet Week is held every year in October in San Francisco. It’s a fantastically beefed-up air show, with an amazing array of aircraft displaying their abilities. I saw a bit of it from the air last year as I flew out of Oakland airport, and even from 3 kilometers up it was very cool to watch.
A couple of years ago, I was trying to interview scientists at a meeting in SF when a Navy Hornet flew by a few hundred meters away. It was very, very loud.
Still, that must have been a lover’s whisper compared to what these guys heard:
Not to be inelegant here, but holy crap!
That is one of an incredible series of high-res pictures Bernard Zee took of the Blue Angels and other planes during Fleet Week this year. Seriously, check them out (especially this one, where you can see all sorts of interesting optical effects as the air is compressed supersonically under the plane). They are incredibly cool.
Tip o’ the flight helmet to Fark.
December 14th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
But, but, Phil, I thought you were an Evil-u-shunnist lefty and all, in league with AlGore and Osama and Satan.
How could you say good stuff about the military, invading San Francisco no less?
December 14th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Air shows are fantastic. I’ve photographed a quite a few of them over the years, and have been fortunate enough to get some “exclusive access” to the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds.
in the past the word was “use a lot of film” but today running out of film is not an issue.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
“…where you can see all sorts of interesting optical effects as the air is compressed supersonically under the plane…”
That’s what THEY would like you to believe, but its obvious that’s the effect of the transgravity-shear drive they reversed engineered from the Roswell crash!
;^)
December 14th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
This past August I was at an airshow in Abbotsford BC, (Near Vancouver), and the Canadian version of the F-18, the CF-18 Hornet was there doing a performance. They are incredibly loud, and incredibly fast! The Stealth Fighter was also there, making one of its last appearances as it is to be retired soon. Interestingly enough, it was the only aircraft there to have an armed guard, 2 to be exact, and the fence sign said, “Use of Deadly force authorized. Do not cross this line.” Just wonderin’ what those good ol’ boys don’t want us to see?
December 14th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Air shows are cool. And so is Fleet Week.
I was involved in Fleet Week in Fort Lauderdale on board the Enterprise.
A few months before that, we staged our own air show for our Tiger Cruise (no relation to Tom Cruise).
Being far out at sea, this allowed one of our F/A-18s to travel near Mach 1.
The sonic boom rattles your chest.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Hornets are pretty loud, but the personal record I have for nearly popping both eardrums was a shaw at MCAS Miramar, near San Diego- a Marine Harrier vertical take-off attack jet was hovering right in front of where we were sitting. Makes Hornets sound like hummingbirds! Those lines under the Blue Angels bird almost look like Schlieren photographs- amazing shot.
December 14th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
What amazing pictures…. Thanks for linking to them, and thanks to the photographer and web poster.
There used to be an airshow in Batavia, NY (sits nicely between Buffalo and Rochester, and has a decent length runway). The airport is maybe a mile behind my sister’s house, with farm roads heading through the fields to it. Great (free) view from the farmers’ fields. We tried to have our family reunion during the airshow weekend.
My favorite memories:
– Hearing a dull roar, then looking up as the F14 comes screaming right over my sister’s house at what I believe was around 400 feet altitude. REAL LOUD. A lot of the kids in the backyard started crying – it was an amazing yet scary sight (and sound);
– Sometimes there would be 5 or 10 minutes between the different sets of planes. Nothing had happened for over 10 minutes, when suddenly I kind of felt, rather than heard, something to my left. I looked and there was the F-117 Stealth Fighter, almost right on top of us. That sucker was quiet… so, so quiet. Any other plane, even small prop jobs, you could hear from a long distance away – this guy snuck right up on us. Plus, it’s a very cool plane.
– Harriers dancing. Really. They were just hanging in the air above the runway, tilting to the left and moving, then tilting to the right and moving. Reminded me of Bugs and Daffy doing their Vaudeville dancing on stage.
December 14th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
You forgot to mention that Fleet Week also features many ships from various navies, including some glorious older ships. Many are open for tours.
My best Fleet Week was when we lived in the Sunset District. The Angels would pass directly over our building on their practice days. So I made a big sign out of a sheet “GO ARMY, BEAT NAVY!” and stretched it out.
After three passes, I got a group wing waggle from them.
December 14th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
That looks to be an F-18. In my experience (canada, air force) the approach of an F-18 is startlingly quiet, but when it goes past you, the racket in the rear is almost unbelievable.
December 14th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
When I was in college a bunch of my hippie liberal friends and I took a walk into downtown Scranton during some sort of event. There was a smallish fighter jet – an F-16, maybe? – parked on the city square. We all just drooled over it, awestruck, admiring its sleek lines and compact beauty. And then one friend looked up and said, “Waitaminute. What are we doing? Shouldn’t we be protesting this?!”
December 14th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
[...] that touched me. It’s amazing. … nullifidian (blogroll) – http://blogroll.nullifidian.net/ Hit the deck! By The Bad Astronomer That is one of an incredible series of high-res pictures Bernard Zee took [...]
December 14th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
“you can see all sorts of interesting optical effects as the air is compressed supersonically under the plane”
You might want to change that to “… the air is compressed supersonically all around the plane”. If you look carefully at the hires image, you can see the distortion on the top side of the plane as well.
Think 3D, too; it’s actually a cone with the point situated on the aircraft and the rest, behind it. Some people refer to it as the Mach cone.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
> That looks to be an F-18. In my experience (canada, air force) the approach of an F-18 is startlingly quiet, but when it goes past you, the racket in the rear is almost unbelievable.
Most planes going high subsonic are like that. After all, all the thrust comes out the back end.
> You might want to change that to “… the air is compressed supersonically all around the plane”. If you look carefully at the hires image, you can see the distortion on the top side of the plane as well.
Yes, but that F-18(C, it looks like) is also very low. Very very very low. Ground effect low, and because it is subsonic, you’re still getting air ‘squish’ beneath the wings.
> “Waitaminute. What are we doing? Shouldn’t we be protesting this?!”
The United States Air Force: we’re in ur squayr, bogglin ur hippyz.
THREE! THREE USAF REFERENCES IN ONE DAY! AH AH AH AH AH *lightning*
December 14th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
The only thing with the CF-18 (Canadian Forces), is that the government is so cheap, fixing them was never a high priority. For a while, pieces of them were literally falling off as they flew overhead. So, when a CF-18 flew over, “Hit the Deck” took on a whole new urgency!
December 15th, 2007 at 12:00 am
I remember visiting the ruins of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire (in England), wandering down between the high broken walls of the cathedral and the bits of foundations half-hidden in the grass….
BOOM! Two Tornadoes came rocketing right overhead, no warning (must have been nearly the speed of sound), and the thunder was bouncing off the old stone walls on both sides. Totally disoriented everybody for a couple of seconds, a physical sense of pressure and of being off-balance, of not seeing right.
In hindsight, what happened was obvious – the pilots were using the abbey ruins as a highly visible waypoint. This was 20 years ago, presumably they now have GPS and don’t scare the hell out of the visitors anymore.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Ground effect is a very, very cool thing. Unless you’re trying to land.
And while we’re talkin’ supersonic F-18s, there’s always this. I love that awesome effect the shockwaves create right as you bump against Mach 1.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:21 am
Really, really impressive pictures. Thank you for sharing this link with us!
December 15th, 2007 at 1:27 am
I used to work next door to the El Toro Marine Air Station. Apart from front row seats to the annual air show, the perqs included watching Harriers hovering (and they were, as noted, REALLY LOUD) but also nightly F-18 exercises. I’ve seen both a B-1 and a B-2 sneaking overhead. During the build-up to the first Gulf War we watched hundreds of helicopters being packed up and loaded onto C-17′s (we could see straight through them, both nose and tail lift up for loading and unloading).
I’m a liberal, not fond of unnecessary military spending, not reflexively enthusiastic about every war we start, but I’m also a guy, and an engineer, and I can’t help enjoying this sort of spectacle.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:38 am
I was born near Manchester, and we had the Vulcan bomber fly over us quite often as there was an airbase nearby. That was a sweet machine! They would come in, maybe 150 to 200 feet overhead. Loudest plane i have ever heard has to be the Concorde. It was at an Airshow in Edmonton maybe 8 years ago. It landed then taxi’d right in front of us. Had to plug the ears for that one! Beautiful plane though.
December 15th, 2007 at 6:19 am
Wow! A Schlieren effect picture taken outside a win tunnel, cool indeed.
December 15th, 2007 at 6:34 am
for Ronan Cunniffe: it was probably a low-level incursion exercise.
They used to run them all the time, back when Russian-made surface to air missiles were the big worry. Tornados use inertial navigation and (now) GPS. If you think a pair of tornadoes is noisy… try a B-52 at similar altitude. they’re subsonic, but anything that big with 8 engines is going to be loud. and they are. Funny thing about the B-52 — there are people flying them today who are the sons and daughters of people who flew them in Vietnam, and possibly even grandchildren of the original pilots from the 1950s.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
As a 27-year NAVY vet, I’d just like to say that you CAN be interested in science, the environment, and our amazing universe and still serve your country. These are not mutually exclusive.
P.S. We really DON’T march around singing “and Napalm sticks to kids…”
December 15th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
On one hand they’re war planes designed to rain death and havoc on our fellow humans……on the other hand they’re stunning examples of our technology. Superb pictures.
Pity we can’t deliver food and medicine as accurately and quickly as we can deliver missiles and bombs…..
December 15th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
If you notice that when the mach cone hits the water, it forms a whitish parabola on the surface. High school geometry diagrams come to mind i.e. cone sliced by a plane. That same effect on the water also happens when the mach cone dances on your eardrums. The energy of the shockwaves transmitted to the water gets it very disturbed but that same energy on your eardrums will cause a rupture.
Telephoto lens aside, good thing they were “500′ away from any person, vessel, or object” (Fed Aviation Regs) because the Fed Aviation Admin. (FAA) would file a violation with the military. …nudge, nudge, wink, wink!
December 16th, 2007 at 7:38 am
I learned to fly at Patuxent River NAS…
We slept in a house right under Final for one of the runways… we got to hear the Osprey, F/A-18, and JSF… all at about 100 ft…
December 17th, 2007 at 8:05 am
> Pity we can’t deliver food and medicine as accurately and quickly as we can deliver missiles and bombs…..
Oh, we can. Think air-dropped food aid to the Kurds.
At which point we drop crates on children and thus still can’t win. It’s a pity that unicorns that fart rainbows and candy don’t bring peace and joy-joy feelings to all, but that’s the world we live in. Bemoaning the fact won’t help so much as actively trying to change it, one way or the other, will.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Jim i think that beats my recollection of a couple of f-111s crusing overhead on their way to Darwin. iirc they stopped at Alice Springs for fuel and then did show off flights up to tindal for more fuel
2 of them about 100m up in the air going fast enough that you had a very large “wtf was that” moment