airforce question

September 17th, 2003, 07:47 AM

airforce question

the airforce base here is holding their regular low altitude flying exercises. ever since yesterday night.
Now I wonder,
Does anybody know WHY they are practicing their low altitude flying in pairs?

there's 2 airplanes coming over every couple of minutes, and always the one farthest away from our house is flying a bit in advance of the other one, and possibly a little bit higher (I can't judge on that one since it's father away and therefore already seems smaller)

Now, why 2 and not 1 or 3 or 4 ?
is this in any way connected to air streams?

September 17th, 2003, 08:30 AM

Nope, it's standard airforce stuff. They fly in pairs with a leader and a wingman so that the wingman can cover the leader and act as backup in case his weapons fail. Flying singly tends to be dangerous, and trying to arrange it with three or more tends to be complicated. They practice everything in pairs so that the leader and the wingman can get used to flying with each other.

September 17th, 2003, 01:34 PM

What I said at Agora, plus as was just on a Discovery Channel, they mentioned that one of the reasons is so what when an Bandit is tracking one, the other can target the bandit..

Pluse, as I said at agora, training wise, if something happens there is somone else to tell what happened, and or warn you if something is wrong with the plane ( I do believe, the first things 2 Navy planes do when in the air is circle around eachother to make sure there are no problems.. ) ..

Ryoken

Chris B · September 17th, 2003, 11:32 PM

a Bandit or Boagie (i think), liz, is a an ememy aircraft: ie. a foe.

September 18th, 2003, 03:42 AM

boagie monster?

September 18th, 2003, 09:04 AM

Bogey. They call them bogies because, yeah, they're like the bogey man.

September 18th, 2003, 11:35 AM

Bandit is an Enemy, Bogey is an Unkown aircraft..

Ryoken

Commodore-SirJohn · September 19th, 2003, 10:32 AM

The terms Bogie and Bandit actually come from the RAF, who were the first to use them.

(This has been another - WHAM! - useless fact.) <-- Bonus points to whoever can name that show...

September 21st, 2003, 12:57 PM

Tally ho!

I have no idea...

skyhawk223 · September 22nd, 2003, 06:59 AM

No joy on your question

p.s. Cargile · October 5th, 2003, 08:04 PM

Anyone other than me know what the radar symbology on US jets for the target is?

skyhawk223 · October 6th, 2003, 06:37 AM

Isn't that the upside down bat symbol?

p.s. Cargile · October 6th, 2003, 10:39 PM

Bat symbol?

I want to say a star--I remember that for some reason--but my thinking what a bat symbol could be has lead me down another path.

October 16th, 2003, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BGEN-SirJohn
(This has been another - WHAM! - useless fact.) <-- Bonus points to whoever can name that show...

Animaniacs

Commodore-SirJohn · October 27th, 2003, 06:17 AM

And the prize goes to the guy with the Scooby Doo avatar!