Thunderbirds. GOOD OR BAD??

ryanmatty

Was at salthill today for a very good show. Just wondering what ye tought of the thunderbirds? I myself felt a little let down by them. Did very little aerobatics and what they did wasn't anything to write home about when you compare them to the Red Arrows, Patrouille de France & Frecce Tricolori. I will admit there close formation flying was top notch but after that i felt that they were like most american things very over rated.

aidan_dunne

Unfortunately, I'd have to agree with you on all counts. Personally, I thought The Blades put on a much more impressive aerobatic display and the Typhoon was much more kickass in the whole "noise and speed" department.

That whole Thunderbirds commentary and playing music while the display was going on thing was a disaster, in my opinion. I was on the slipway and nobody could make out a word of the commentary and the choices of music they were using was, well, let's just say I don't think it suited a display like that, to put it mildly (Robbie Williams, anyone! :rolleyes: )!

Bring back The Red Arrows for next year, if possible, I say!

CrowdedHouse

aidan_dunne wrote:

Unfortunately, I'd have to agree with you on all counts. Personally, I thought The Blades put on a much more impressive aerobatic display and the Typhoon was much more kickass in the whole "noise and speed" department.

Agree 100%

I couldn't hear the commentary where I was,thought there was none.

Still-thanks to the organisers

oscarBravo

Couldn't hear the commentary either (on the rocks just beyond the slipway), but I thought the display was excellent - the timing was well done, with solo displays interleaved nicely between formation manoeuvres. The quality of the formation flying was absolutely superb, including the flyby with one solo inverted underneath the other - very tricky as neither can see the other, and they were only about 2-3m apart.

Despite the brief clearance in the weather there wasn't a consistently high ceiling available, and I guessed at the time we were getting a compromise low-level display - maybe Steyr can confirm.

Despite getting sunburned and drowned, I had a great day.

jmayo

ryanmatty wrote:

Was at salthill today for a very good show. Just wondering what ye tought of the thunderbirds? I myself felt a little let down by them. Did very little aerobatics and what they did wasn't anything to write home about when you compare them to the Red Arrows, Patrouille de France & Frecce Tricolori. I will admit there close formation flying was top notch but after that i felt that they were like most american things very over rated.

Have to say totally agree, they did some nice formation flying but they were not a patch on either the Red Arrows or the Tricolori.
The only really cool thing we thought was when two of them flew over us back towards the beach.
The typhoon was cool, best noise of the day.
And I think the Blades were far better than the Thunderbirds and put on the better team aerobatic display of the day.
BTW that opinion is from three pilots and not just myself.

oscarBravo wrote:

Couldn't hear the commentary either (on the rocks just beyond the slipway), but I thought the display was excellent - the timing was well done, with solo displays interleaved nicely between formation manoeuvres. The quality of the formation flying was absolutely superb, including the flyby with one solo inverted underneath the other - very tricky as neither can see the other, and they were only about 2-3m apart.

Despite the brief clearance in the weather there wasn't a consistently high ceiling available, and I guessed at the time we were getting a compromise low-level display - maybe Steyr can confirm.

Despite getting sunburned and drowned, I had a great day.

Have to say the timing was not great, but I guess that could be down to the weather.
We had just dried out when we got another torrential spill. Global wamring me granny.
I guess the Blades were lucky they had the best of the weather.

I don't think the two Thunderbirds do fly directly under each other, they appear to do so from a distance but they are staggered so they can see each other.

OS119

jmayo wrote:

Have to say totally agree, they did some nice formation flying but they were not a patch on either the Red Arrows or the Tricolori.

its a direct result of the philosophy behind the US military display teams, both the USAF Thunderbirds and USN Blue Angels fly relatively large, very powerful frontine aircraft, they are simply unable to do the kind of manouvering within what is often a restricted area (cloud level and distance from the crowd) that a Hawk could do. their displys are equally impressive, if different, to the European teams if they have a very large area (usually height) to do it in. however, if, as is usual in Europe, cloud cover means they have to operate in a much smaller box, their display can't use the things that make it what it is, speed and power, and all that is left is to use manouverability - which compared to the aircraft the European teams use, they don't have.

nothing to do with the skill of the pilots, just a doctrine that works well in the relatively clear skies of the continental US but doesn't tranfer well to the cloudy skies of Europe.

jmayo

OS119 wrote:

its a direct result of the philosophy behind the US military display teams, both the USAF Thunderbirds and USN Blue Angels fly relatively large, very powerful frontine aircraft, they are simply unable to do the kind of manouvering within what is often a restricted area (cloud level and distance from the crowd) that a Hawk could do. their displys are equally impressive, if different, to the European teams if they have a very large area (usually height) to do it in. however, if, as is usual in Europe, cloud cover means they have to operate in a much smaller box, their display can't use the things that make it what it is, speed and power, and all that is left is to use manouverability - which compared to the aircraft the European teams use, they don't have.

nothing to do with the skill of the pilots, just a doctrine that works well in the relatively clear skies of the continental US but doesn't tranfer well to the cloudy skies of Europe.

Actually we were discussing that yesterday.
The Frecce Tricolori fly the Aermacchi MB-339 military trainer, the Red Arrows fly the Hawk which is an advanced training aricraft, the Patrouille de France fly the Dassault-Breguet Alpha Jet whch again is an advanced trainer.
The US teams always appear to use front line combat aircraft.
Also are European teams generally bigger in number than US teams?
The Frecce Tricolori have nine or ten, the Patrouille de France have eight and the red Arrows have nine.

Being fair I don't think anywhere else in Europe would have summer weather as bad as the stuff yesterday, it wasn't just cloudy skies, it was total muck for most of the day. Then the sun comes out to lull you into a false sense of security before the next downpour.

Also thought the display by A10s was a little tame, I don't think they are aircraft really suited to display, unless you are using targets and live rounds.
Have to say the Air Corps put on a nice show and filled a lot of gaps in the program.

Sponge Bob

Dont forget that the tbirds normally have a 2 mile long runway as a reference point for their displays, not the crooked galway coastline.

They were very good but the red arrows are better and they do more ooh ahh stuff with smoke like their heart with arrow routine , Thats all.