In article k.net,
Dudley Henriques dhenriques@noware .net wrote:

"Chris Colohan" wrote in message
...

The Thunderbird show seems to emphasize "look at how cool our planes
are", and not "look at how skilled our pilots are".)

You obviously know little about the Thunderbirds my friend :-)

To me, the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels fly an incredible and
amazing routine that is positively boring.

Standard Thunderbirds/Blue Angels routine:

Diamond takes off, disappears into next county.
Solos take off, do a 'dirty roll', disappear into next county.
Diamond does a fly by and disappears into the next county.
Solos show 'tactical surprise' by sneaking up behind the crowd and
giving everyone hearing loss, and then disappear into
the the next county.
Diamond comes by and does a four point roll, disappears into next county.
Solos do an opposing pass, disappear into next county.
etc.

They are great pilots, and what they do is hard, but unfortunately,
it is also never changes, so once you've seen either team, you can
head to the car and watch the show as you beat the traffic out of the
airshow.

The Snowbirds are a much more interesting jet team. Their jets
are slower, so they have to come up with more things to do then
just turning jet fuel into noise. With a nine plane formation,
they can come up with some interesting things, like a Canadian
goose.

The late Ameila Reid had a routine in a Cessna 150 that got to
maybe 500ft in altitude and used an area around 2500ft across.
Not high speed or high horse power, but it was a great routine
since it was right in front of you the entire time.

John
--
John Clear - http://www.clear-prop.org/