Category Archives: Military Aviation

Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16 demo team’s inverted selfie

RNlAF Dutch demo team inverted
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Once again a cool selfie taken from the cockpit of an F-16 Fighting Falcon.

The latest example of self-portrait photo most probably taken with a GoPro camera from the cockpit of an F-16 comes from the Royal Netherlands Air Force: a cool series of “selfies” was posted by the Dutch Demo team on their Facebook page.

The shots, from various points of view, were taken during last week’s display practice at Gilze-Rijen airbase.

RNlAF Dutch demo team

Image credit: RNlAF Demo Team

The Dutch F-16 demo team 2014-2015 is based at Leeuwarden Airbase: the homebase of the team shifts between Volkel and Leeuwarden Airbase every two years.

The RNLAF F-16 Demo Team 2014-2015 is made of personnel from both the 323 and 322 Squadrons, based at Leeuwarden Airbase. The team consists of one display pilot, Captain Jeroen “Slick” Dickens, four display coaches, eight technical specialists and a webmaster.

 

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Another insane Russian helicopter low altitude flyby

Ka-52
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A Russian combat helicopter performs an impressive, quite dangerous, low pass.

Few days ago, we published an article about the fully armed Ukrainian Air Force Mig-29 performing an impressive and unusual show of force in eastern Ukraine where pro-Russia separatists blocked the rails.

The Kamov Ka-52 Alligator is an all-weather attack helicopter featuring the distinctive coaxial rotor system of the Kamov design bureau.

Although the combat helicopter, usually employed as an armed scout chopper, equips the Russian army since 1995, you don’t happen to see them around every day.

By the way a few were seen supporting the initial helicopter armada during the Russian invasion of Crimea last month.

For this reason any video showing this weird aircraft is quite interesting. Even more if the Alligator performs an impressive, dangerous pass at ultra-low altitude.

H/T to Marsattaque blog for the heads-up

 

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B-2 Spirit or new Mysterious Stealth Plane? New image of triangular shaped plane emerges

Mystery plane over Wichita new
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A new image taken in February seems to show the same mysterious plane photographed over Texas last month.

On Mar. 10, 2014 Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett took the famous photographs of three mysterious planes flying at very high altitude over Amarillo, Texas.

The images they took showed what looked like an almost boomerang shaped plane, equipped with two engines (or at least two exhaust nozzles).

Noteworthy, something quite similar was spotted in February this year in Wichita, Kansas.

As reported by KSN, Jeff Templin, an amateur photographer who was taking pictures of wildlife back in February, shot a silent triangular shaped plane leaving what looked like an unusual contrail.

The top image is a crop of the photo Templin took from the ground back then.

Is this the same plane spotted over Texas by Douglass and Muskett or is it just a B-2?

Even though we can’t be 100% sure, the above image (click here for a higher resolution version) doesn’t seem to show a B-2 Spirit, even if the shape can be distorted by reflection, distance, and several other factors.

Provided it is really a new black project, there are several theories about the role of the mysterious triangular/boomerang shaped plane: some believe it could be an RQ-180 stealth drone or, more likely, a prototype of the American next generation LRSB (long range strike bomber).

Updated: user Dayanx on Reddit, filtered the image and highlighted the possible shape of the aircraft. Don’t you think it’s quite similar to the shape I created with Ugo Crisponi from the first blurry images taken at Amarillo?

Judge by yourself:

Mystery plane over Wichita filtered+rendering

Image credit: Jeff Templin via KSN (H/T to Steve Douglass)

 

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Ukrainian Mig-29 Fulcrum (in display team livery) performs low pass over pro-Russia separatists

Mig-29 Ukrainian display team
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Ukrainian Air Force once again active in the eastern Russian-speaking part of the country. With Mig-29 Fulcrum aircraft still wearing the national display team color scheme.

A weird show of force was performed by the Ukrainian Air Force over Kramatorsk on Apr. 16: a fully armed Mig-29 Fulcrum overflew pro-Russia separatist blocking rails at very low altitude. But, interestingly, the aircraft sported a high-visibility, white, yellow and light blue livery: the one of the Ukrainian Falcons, the UkAF aerobatic display team.

Here’s a video of the improvised “airshow”:

 

On Apr. 15, the unconfirmed news that a Ukrainian Su-27 supporting a special operation in Kramatorsk was shot down circulated for some hours.

Mig-29 Ukrainian display team 2

Image credit: Reuters

 

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Selfie of Chinese Pilot as his J-15 naval fighter plane launches from China’s aircraft carrier

J-15 selfie carrier takeoff
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It looks like Chinese pilots like self-portrait photos as their “Western” colleagues

We have already published an interesting “selfie” (as self-potrait shots are dubbed) taken by a PLANAF (People Liberation Army Naval Air Force) Shenyang J-15 “Flying Shark” pilot.

It’s not clear whether the following image was taken during the same flight. Nevertheless it is quite cool as it was taken during the departure of the jet from the angled flight deck of Liaoning, the China’s first (Soviet-era, refurbished) aircraft carrier.

The J-15 is a domestic variant of the Russian-designed Sukhoi Su-33, the carrier-based derivative of the Su-27 Flanker.

Image credit: PLANAF via Alert5.com

 

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