www.kirtlandairshow.com Is anyone going? Today I watched the Thunderbirds practicing for 20 minutes during work. They were flying in formation with smoke on, doing loops, etc right over my building/parking lot, which is about 3/4ths of a mile east of the crowd line. It should be a great show.
The show was amazing. Here are some pics from it. The first one is of the 6 Thunderbird F-16's at the show center. Some interesting things about the pilots themselves- There was one woman and all the pilots were all majors or Lt. colonels. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Here is a series of pictures of the CV-22 Osprey. Kirtland AFB now has an operational squadron of them. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Here are some of the planes (including those that arent currently in military service) that were on display, but did not fly. They include a P-51, two T-6's, a Pitts, a Beech Staggerwing and some others. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Here are some modern military aircraft that were on display, but werent flown. The F-16 is from the 150th FW based at Kirtland. The Tornado is German. There are some German pilots with their Tornados based somewhere in NM. There are also some pics of a C-5. It looks big in pictures but it seems even bigger in person. It is HUGE. Pictures of the Thunerbirds are coming up.... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Here are the Thundebirds... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I still can't believe I got this picture. Both jets are travelling at almost 600mph but I managed to get them just as they crossed. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Similar situation here. All the jets were converging on each other, you can see three in the picture. There is also a picture of the six jets in a diamond. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Those are awesome pics! And that C-5 is HUGE!!! I wish I could see one in real life. And to think how big the An-225 is! Wow! Isn't the cannon of that A-10 a 30-mm? I have a question if I may ask. Can you explain to me about the thrust of a jet engine. I'm kinda confused. If the aircraft weighs 30,000 lb.(empty) and the engines (2) produce 10,600 lb.-thrust, then how does it pust the fighter along at Mach 1? (I am speaking of the F-117) The Weight excedes the lb.-thrust. Where with the F-16, it weighs around 18,500 (empty) and its single GE engine prodeces 25,000 lb.-thrust or so. Couldn't the F-16 lift its own weight in a 90 degree climb and excelerate? Just curious... maybe I should have posted this under a different thread?
Hi Kevin, 30,000 lbs is the pull of gravity on the aircraft. A car weighs say 2000 lbs, but you can still push it along by hand. Yet you cannot possibly generate 2000 pounds of force. The Jet engine has only to push the aircraft, and overcome momentum. Once it is rolling, the wings produce the lift that makes the aircraft fly. Once the aircraft leaves the ground, resistance of the wheels decreases, and the aircraft is made as streamlined as possible, further reducing resistance. Here, Thrust is only to overcome drag. As far as vertical flight, This has more to do with energy management than thrust. A car can travel at 80 MPH. It runs out of fuel. But it doesn't stop immediately!! It is using the kinetic energy developed by the burning fuel, turned into "momentum" to keep moving. In an aircraft, energy, can be used, and reused. For instance: the jet engine produces thrust to get the plane to 10,000 feet. The pilot can turn this altitude, into airspeed (another form of energy) by diving. The increase in airspeed, can be returned to altitude. "Reuse" of the same energy. Watch a glider (no engine) do loop, after loop, after loop and you'll understand energy management. Of course this cannot go on indefinitely... some energy us given up to friction, and drag. But thrust alone, can lift a vehicle vertically. View any space shuttle flight. Then calculate how much thrust it takes to lift the rocket, and payload's weight. A F-15E can accomplish this when the weight of the F-15E is less than the 58,200 pounds of thrust produced by the engines (commonly referred to as a thrust-to-weight ratio of greater than 1.0 :1). Thrust is a measurement of force. Force is addressed by Newton's second law of motion and is represented by the formula Force = Mass x Acceleration So the answer to your question: "Couldn't the F-16 lift its own weight in a 90 degree climb and excelerate? " is..... Yes it could accelerate, straight up, if the thrust to weight ratio, is greater than 1.0 :1 Hope this was clear, and helpful.
Yes that does help alot. I knew about most of this and had thought about how maybe the fact that the aircraft is on wheels had something to do with it but wasn't sure how it could fly with less thrust than weight (would that be like for example 09: 1 ratio? or the other way around?). But yes that helped alot. I like learning new things! Sorry for that. lol Back to the airshow now.
