Borrowed from another forum I frequent.
The year is 2012 and the Olympics are going to have to start early.
Here are your contestants for the Aviation Limbo competition.
How Low did they dare go!
I'll start the race in Age order (approximately), so here we start with the one and only (and much missed) Ray Hanna in a OFMC Spitfire (believed to be ZD-B MH434).
The legendary, extraordinary Ray Hanna makes an extreme low level pass in a Spitfire down pit lane at the Goodwood auto racing track in England in 1998. Sadly, with the death of Hanna, we will not see such feats again.
Travelling a little further afield as we advance through the decades we find ourselves in the Sultanate of Oman..
A particularly heart stopping photo of a Hawker Hunter of the Sultan of Oman 's Air Force beating up the base at Salalah. The Sultan employed mercenary Brit pilots to fly Hunters and Strikemasters to help put down the Dhofar rebels in the south. They clearly were bored from time to time! The rebellion ended in 1976, the same year I visited Oman .
A Hawker Hunter pilot of the Sultan of Oman 's Air Force (SOAF - possibly a former RAF mercenary) shrieks across the ramp on an Omani air base.
Ah! the Good Old Boys. But we can't stop for the past, it's time to move on, this time to the Land of Oz...
On a particularly hot day, a Royal Australian Air Force English Electric A84 Canberra bomber drops to within 25 feet as thrill-seeking mechanics get ready for the visceral experience of 13,000 lbs of Rolls Royce Avon power full in the face.
Back to Blighty for a bit of Menace…
An RAF Phantom II in full burner passes between two hangars at an RAF base. There isn't a Rhino-driver alive who didn't love dropping his locomotive-sized Phantom down to the hard deck and pushing the throttles right past the detents
Here's proof that Phantom drivers love it down low
Finally, incontrovertible proof; GAF F-4 Phantom II picking its way through the bushes
Right, off for a tour around the globe again, first stop, the good ole US of A...
A B-52 slides down the port side of USS Ranger (CV-61) in its typical nose down cruise attitude. Though it looks like it, this is not photoshopped. It happened in early 1990 in the Persian Gulf, while U.S. carriers and B-52s were holding joint exercises. Two B-52s called the carrier Ranger and asked if they could do a fly-by, and the carrier air controller said yes. When the B-52s reported they were 9 kilometers out, the carrier controller said he didn't see them. The B-52s told the carrier folks to look down. The paint job on the B-52 made it hard to see from above, but as it got closer, the sailors could make it out, and the water the B-52's engines were causing to spray out. It's very, very rare for a USAF aircraft to do a fly-by below the flight deck of a carrier. But B-52s had been practicing low level flights for years, to penetrate under Soviet radar. In this case, the B-52 pilots asked the carrier controller if they would like the bombers to come around again. The carrier guys said yes, and a lot more sailors had their cameras out this time. Photo was taken from the plane guard helicopter.
Back in the land of oz...
An Australian A-4 Skyhawk flies well below the deck of HMAS Melbourne
We're on the way back to Blighty but a quick refuelling stop back with our SOAF friends...
In the shimmering white heat of an Omani summer day, a Sepecat Jaguar adds superheated jet exhaust to the miserable mix as its pilot shows off for the ground personnel watching from the shade. In 1990, the SOAF was renamed the Royal Air Force of Oman (RAFO). It is not known if this is a SOAF or a RAFO Jag,
Welcome Home, so this is why we paid our taxes...
With speed brakes out, I am not sure whether this is a shot of a pass or a wheels-up landing for this British Electric Lightning
A Panavia Tornado spews heat, gas, and vapour as she howls from the runway with her wingtip a few feet off the ground
We're not the only crazy ones...
One of the most celebrated images of a low pass is this shot of F-14 Tomcat driver Captain Dale “Snort” Snodgrass making a curving pass alongside USS America. Many web-wags have stated that this was unauthorized, dangerous or that it even was a photo of a Tomcat about to crash. However, Snodgrass explained: "It's not risky at all with practice. It was my opening pass in a Tomcat tactical demonstration at sea. I started from the starboard rear quarter of the carrier, slightly below flight deck level. Airspeed was about 270 kts with the wings swept forward. I selected afterburner at about a half-mile out, and the aircraft accelerated to about 315 kts. As I approached the fantail, I rolled into an 85-degree bank and did a hard 5-6G turn, finishing about 10-20 degrees off of the boat's axis. Microseconds after this photo was taken, after rolling wings-level at an altitude slightly above the flight deck, I pulled vertical with a quarter-roll to the left, ending with an Immelman roll-out 90 degrees and continued with the remainder of the demo. It was a dramatic and, in my opinion, a very cool way to start a carrier demo as first performed by a great fighter pilot, Ed "Hunack" Andrews, who commanded VF-84 in 1980-1988
Even our close continental neighbours are up to the old tricks...
A Dutch F-16 with burner lit seems to follow the turn in the road. On the ground, Dutch airmen stuff fingers in their ears as he passes over head
Is it 'Dutch Courage' or “something” else !? Well, what ever it is it got translated over the Iron Curtain...
This Sukhoi Su-30 could be going Mach .98 or it could be hovering.
Now I know that this Judge is biased, so here is the winner, and if anyone can add to this forum as to what was actually going on here then feel free.
The Gold Medal goes to …..
The people (except the man on the left who is smartly covering his ears) have no idea how low this Avro Vulcan really is as it sneaks up behind them. The flag is at half staff, so this most likely was a sad occasion, but there were no doubt some shrieks and some olympic flinching when the sound reached them.
