Originally Posted by csandste
Never been to one, although I've seen dress rehearsals from a distance. Number of planes, types of planes and use of smoke vary, but all of 'em looked pretty good to me. I'm sure even Switzerland can find skilled pilots to do this.
Question-- Always heard the Blue Angels are better than the Thunderbirds. Why? Why are they better than some of the others? They look like they may be in tighter formation but the other countries are jacking around with twice as many planes. Enlighten me.
Simply: the Blue Angels show is more demanding of flying skill.
So, to a fighter pilot watching, the Blues are more impressive because the show is harder to fly. Tighter formation, higher AOA, inverted flight in close formation. All more difficult. They've always been that way. They were flying that way in F6F Hellcats before there was a USAF or the Thunderbirds.
The T-Birds fly a great show that exploits the energy of the F-16. Their show zooms to the sky with lots of energy and speed.
It's impressive, to a layman. It was inspiring enough when I first saw them (Pease AFB, in the summer of 1984) that right then and there, I decided that I wanted to fly fighters.
That's right, the Thunderbirds inspired me to become a fighter pilot.
But the Blue Angels show is simply harder to fly - more impressive with the more difficult maneuvers.
The carrier landing analogy is a good one. To land on a runway, you need to have the airplane within about 25 feet of where it needs to be. The runway is long and stationary. It's easy. I do it for a living now.
To land on a carrier, and catch the 3 wire, you need to be within 15 inches. 15 inches. In relationship to a ship that is moving forward through the wind and moving in pitch, roll, yaw and heave. With severe turbulence on final every time. There is always crosswind. And through all that, chasing a moving target, put the airplane within 15 inches of glideslope, perfect line-up, and two knots of airspeed.
So, the carrier landing requires a far higher degree of precision, it's far more demanding, than a runway landing.
And so it is with the flight demonstration teams. The Blues fly a more precise, more demanding, show than anyone.
But I think it takes a fighter pilot, someone who has flown high performance airplanes in formation, to see and appreciate that.