Thumping
 

I enjoy all things British and spend quite a bit of time reading old BBC, Guardian etc articles. The one I was reading this afternoon was about the Chinese fighter pilot, Wang Wei, who in 2001 flew his jet very close to a US spyplane. He held up and pointed to a piece of paper containing his email address. Depending on one’s point of view, what he did was either derring-do or a silly antic. Whatever it was, his plane crashed and he died.

The article had this: “Incidentally, we were sent this interesting explanation from a reader of what the Chinese fighters pilots may have been doing just prior to the crash: "There is a well known habit among the Chinese and Russian fighter pilots to harass spy flights for obvious reasons. Since we are not at war, nor does anyone want an international mess like we have, they resort to harassment. It's called thumping. The jet positions itself, in front, and slightly under the prop plane. This disrupts the air flow across its wings, and make the plane fall, rather hard, about 20 feet or so, then it’s clear of the "wash" catches air again and "thumps" to a stop (of altitude loss). This rattles the pilots and crew, and can damage the aircraft when done repeatedly (and it is)."

Can anybody verify this? Is there really such a thing? Do these guys actually do it? I apologize if this is a sensitive matter after all.

can neither confirm nor deny the actions taken by the fighters when they escorted our reconnaissance (not spy ) flights in international airspace - but I do have some upclose and personal pictures of almost every fighter in the old Russian Air Force (1981-1992) - the Chinese also liked to get in tight formation -

All kinds of things went on during the cold war. Not just aircraft but ships and submarines too. I think there are books about these kinds of things. It's pretty well known in the defense community, and I'm fairly sure it's not classified in general. Specific mission details involving our intel platforms would have been classified of course.

Ever see the movie Top Gun? The film industry didn't just make up that stuff. Same with Hunt for Red October.

So they really do play volleyball in the Navy? :D

Actually, if you read the original Top Gun script, very little of that retarded stuff is in there.

Actually, yes. They got that part right.

I've always enjoyed the volleyball scenes. The real question is whether anyone in the Navy has Rick Rossovich's body and good looks. He once was quoted as saying he would like to be Martha Stewart's houseboy. Well, I'd like to be his ...... ;)

I don't fly spyjets, but if you do a steep turn in an airplane and cross your own wake you will always feel a thump as it reaches the disturbed air. It's a bit disconcerting. Any discontinuity in the freestream will produce a change in lift until it reestablishes equilibrium.

Someone actually went throught the trouble to locate and read the TopGun script? Hahahahahahhahah!

There was a script?