Flying a supersonic combat aircraft and displaying it to an informed audience of aviation people at Asian Aerospace takes a special kind of person. And when journalists were invited to meet the pilots following final validation and rehearsals yesterday, it quickly became clear that ‘special' is an inadequate word to describe the jet jockeys who thrill the crowds with their loops, rolls and high-alpha passes in the shimmering and moisture-laden skies over the nearby Straits of Johore.
Take Boeing's senior F-15 Strike Eagle test pilot, Joe Felock, for example. Joe has more than 3,000h in more than 50 different aircraft types including the F-4, F-16, F-18, A-7, A-37, and T-38. His F-15 hours amount to more than 1,700. He explains that the aircraft featuring in this year's Singapore display isn't a carefully-selected airframe but rather an active combat aircraft with more than 10 years' service behind it including six months of combat missions in Afghanistan post-11 September 2001.
Joe had 14 years' active duty with the USAF as a fighter and test pilot before joining Boeing in 1997 and he still holds the rank of major in the Reserves. With a master's degree in mechanical engineering from New Mexico State University, Joe is typical of the modern, thinking fast jet test pilot.
Emigrated
Another is Ricardo Traven, a Canadian who emigrated to the USA and was named as the US Navy's test pilot of the year in 1995. The author of many technical papers on flight-testing the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Ricardo has more than 15 years' experience as both a fighter and test pilot. He retired from the Canadian Forces as a major and joined Boeing in 1997, becoming senior experimental test pilot.
During his show, watch out for the second manoeuvre - an abrupt pull/push - and also for the following ‘flat turn reversal' which, he says, looks like a flat spin but isn't, as the aircraft retains full control authority throughout.
The slow ‘high alpha' passes at below 1,000ft have many pilots in the audience worrying unnecessarily while the ‘square loop' confirms both the aircraft's extraordinary manoeuvrability, the surfeit of raw power and the skill of the pilot.
Proving that the buccaneering spirit from a previous age is still alive and well is Dassault's Rafale B two-seater test pilot Eric Gerard. A 46 year old who enjoys flying as much as smoking good Cuban cigars, Eric exemplifies the gung-ho attitude of military pilots from an earlier generation!
His display is flamboyant too, with a seductive mixture of fast passes, tight turns and crowd-pleasing aerobatics. As you watch him, remember that Eric was the first pilot to land a Rafale B on the deck of the French Navy's flagship aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle.
Source: Flight Daily News
