My favorite plane!

Interesting how the boys from Boeing put Air to Air missles on the jet that they leased back from the Navy to fly the demo in Paris. I guess the foreign governments want to see that it can perform with stores on it before they buy it.

Bdger

The news lines say Airbus really cleaned up last week- 425 aircraft orders taken in one week. I guess this means they are not going to fold due to the A380 delay-related pullouts, hot news only 6 months ago.

If I saw the Hornet fly upside down while fully loaded with whatever those things are, I'd buy a few hundred myself!

Cubdriver, Airbus will not fold now or anytime soon. I have an uncle who worked as an engineer in the early development stage of the 747. He retired a millionaire. He encouraged us to buy Boeing stock because it, too, will never go under. Uncle Sam will never let it die. I'm glad I listened to him so many years ago.

Is this an air show or is this an air show? Why the heck am I not in Paris right now?

Cause it's in FRANCE

Lol.......

Yup! I went there in 1987 to film. Started off by not getting some of our equipment back until day 3. "we didn't lose you gear, we just can't find it" That was the show that the B-1 made an appearance. The Russians stole a handheld GPS from the trade show and got caught. It was an interesting week!

On the new F-18...I saw it last year at the Airshow in Salinas, Ca. WOW! I do promotional videos for the aerobatic pilots and thought I'd tape a few shots when it flew. Wound up shooting the full flight both days. I'm retired from Naval Aviation(1987) so I do have a soft spot for some aircraft. It was a great demo!

I just finished doing a 9 minute segment on the F-22 Raptor with the demo pilot talking you through each maneuver.(it's on my web site)
The point of flying demos with weapons is the right way to display the aircraft's performance, like to see the SU-30 do the same. The F-22 demo pilot and I talked about this very subject. The F-22 is all internal stores, so the aircraft always has a clean aerodynamic profile and retains the stealth qualities. The pop-up 20mmm gun is cool!

Here's a shot from the 2007 Sacramento Airshow

Considering those are all air to air weapons, the Hornet had better be able to maneuver while carrying them or its toast! What's really impressive is being able to maneuver while carrying the big, heavy stuff, ie, a some LGB's or JDAM, but the air to air stuff is way more sexy.

Man, you guys act like seeing a super hornet is rare.

Oh wait, I got to fuel them as they were coming out of the factory at STL for four years. I'm sure I have hearing loss from watching them launch on test flights off RWY 24.

The legacy hornet is pretty neat, until it's sitting next to a super hornet. However the F-18 looks like a toy when it's sitting next to an F-15 regardless of the variant.