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Sweet photo for real tho.

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Maybe a bunch of Air Force pilots are simply taking the aircraft for a joy ride but those are definitely F-18s painted in the blue and gold of the Blue Angels rather then F-16s painted in the red, white & blue of the Thunderbirds.

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Those have to be the Thunderbirds. Blue angles wouldn't have flown on such a wonky formation.

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Must have been different angles.

Blue Angels were the only ones scheduled to fly today, so it's likely them.

If you zoom in you can see that the rear plane is the only one with 2 seats. I'm guessing there was a photographer in the back seat using this as a photo op.

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Those have to be the Thunderbirds. Blue angles wouldn't have flown on such a wonky formation.

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Those have to be the Blue Angels. The Thunderbirds wouldn't fly such sh*ty aircraft

It is the Blue Angels. They come to Seattle every year during the last week of July for Seafair/Fleet Week.

They arrived earlier this year than normal (usually come in on a Tues or Wed).

Great dramatic clouds today.

Weather will be awesome this week so we get the High Show over Lake Washington.

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Those have to be the Thunderbirds. Blue angles wouldn't have flown on such a wonky formation.

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If you look closely, there are actually seven planes in the picture. The Blues are all bunched together and the seventh trailing craft was taking pictures. They were doing the flight this evening for photo ops/promo shots.

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If you zoom in you can see that the rear plane is the only one with 2 seats. I'm guessing there was a photographer in the back seat using this as a photo op.

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Exactly!

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Those have to be the Thunderbirds. Blue angles wouldn't have flown on such a wonky formation.

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Those have to be the Blue Angels. The Thunderbirds wouldn't fly such sh*ty aircraft

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You do realize that the F-16 beat the F-18 in the original fly off competition, and the F-18 was never supposed to be built, don't you?

Sounds like we are on the same side.

Technically, the F-16 beat out the F-17.

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Sounds like we are on the same side.

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It was early....I misread.

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Those have to be the Thunderbirds. Blue angles wouldn't have flown on such a wonky formation.

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Those have to be the Blue Angels. The Thunderbirds wouldn't fly such sh*ty aircraft

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You do realize that the F-16 beat the F-18 in the original fly off competition, and the F-18 was never supposed to be built, don't you?

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Friendly fire.



The reason the F-18 won out for the Navy is because they wanted redundant engines. In the CONUS there is a runway every 10 yards. So if you loose an engine there is chance you can land somewhere if you start out high enough. Over the ocean you are screwed. The F-18 had other problems that made it ineffective which forced them to make the larger super hornet.

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Those have to be the Thunderbirds. Blue angles wouldn't have flown on such a wonky formation.

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You know Thunderbirds are white aircraft, right?

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Technically, the F-16 beat out the F-17.

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Technically, the YF-16 beat out the YF-17

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Technically, the F-16 beat out the F-17.

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Technically, the YF-16 beat out the YF-17

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touche

The F-18's replacement, the F-35C, only has a single engine. The reason the F-16 wasn't adopted by the Navy is because it wasn't feasible to beef up the landing gear and airframe to handle the rigors of carrier landings.

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The F-18's replacement, the F-35C, only has a single engine. The reason the F-16 wasn't adopted by the Navy is because it wasn't feasible to beef up the landing gear and airframe to handle the rigors of carrier landings.

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IIRC, it was actually BOTH of those reasons...

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The F-18's replacement, the F-35C, only has a single engine. The reason the F-16 wasn't adopted by the Navy is because it wasn't feasible to beef up the landing gear and airframe to handle the rigors of carrier landings.

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IIRC, it was actually BOTH of those reasons...

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While multi-engine may obviously be preferable for Navy operations, it certainly wasn't a requirement during the selection process for what became the F-18. When the Navy was looking to update from F-4s and A-7s, they ended up latching on to the Air Force's search for a lightweight, inexpensive fighter jet. The Air Force's winner was the F-16 and its loser was the YF-17 (eventually became the F-18), and the Navy's results were just the opposite. Had "multi-engine" been a requirement, the F-16 vs. F-18 competition wouldn't have been much of a competition. Added to that, one of the aircraft the F-18 was intended to replace (The A-7 Corsair) was single-engine too. In essence, neither the F-16 nor F-18 were initially designed with carrier operations in mind, but the F-18 lent itself better to the necessary adaptations when that time came.

(Also, the Super Hornet wasn't designed to alleviate problems with the earlier Hornet models. It was an adaptation of the Hornet to fill the need for the replacement of the A-6 Intruder.)

From things I had read through connections (grandfather worked 45 years in upper management at General Dynamics/Lockheed in FW) the F-16N was more feasible than was publicly stated.
The loss in performance due to heavier landing gear made the airframe "less than ideal", but not anywhere close to being scrapped. And from what he had heard, the 2nd engine for naval aircraft is purely opinion that is prevalent in some, not all, naval leadership. Look to the success of the A-4 for proof that single engine fighters can be valuable to the USN's mission

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Quote:The F-18's replacement, the F-35C, only has a single engine. The reason the F-16 wasn't adopted by the Navy is because it wasn't feasible to beef up the landing gear and airframe to handle the rigors of carrier landings.

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IIRC, it was actually BOTH of those reasons...

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While multi-engine may obviously be preferable for Navy operations, it certainly wasn't a requirement during the selection process for what became the F-18.

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I agree it wasn't a requirement in the contract, but it WAS a large part of the decision.

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When the Navy was looking to update from F-4s and A-7s, they ended up latching on to the Air Force's search for a lightweight, inexpensive fighter jet. The Air Force's winner was the F-16 and its loser was the YF-17 (eventually became the F-18), and the Navy's results were just the opposite.

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The reason they "ended up latching onto" the AF search was because their own search was coming in way too expensive and the Sec Navy made them look to the LWF. BTW, both of the planes the Navy HAD been looking at were dual engine.

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Had "multi-engine" been a requirement, the F-16 vs. F-18 competition wouldn't have been much of a competition. Added to that, one of the aircraft the F-18 was intended to replace (The A-7 Corsair) was single-engine too. In essence, neither the F-16 nor F-18 were initially designed with carrier operations in mind, but the F-18 lent itself better to the necessary adaptations when that time came.

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Well, the reason neither of those planes were designed with carrier landings in mind was because they were designed for the AF. However, when the Navy looked at them, both GD and MD teamed with other companies that had naval aircraft experience to design the landing gear. GD teamed with LTV (where the V originally stood for Vought). LTV had a ton of experience in this area, including the A-7 that was still in service at the time.

My experience with this, albeit anecdotal, is that at the very beginning of my career I worked at LTV. I talked with an engineer that had worked on that program to upgrade the YF-16 to handle carrier landings. He stated that while the requirements didn't state dual engine, it became quite clear very early on that the Navy wanted dual engines and was only going through the motions because they'd been directed to be the Sec Navy to evaluate both aircraft.

There's a reason why the YF-16 won. Pretty much every pilot found it a superior aircraft.

But it didn't have dual engines.

FWIW, the test pilot on my current program (helicopter) was a Marine and he said he thought the F-18 was a POS.

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From things I had read through connections (grandfather worked 45 years in upper management at General Dynamics/Lockheed in FW) the F-16N was more feasible than was publicly stated.
The loss in performance due to heavier landing gear made the airframe "less than ideal", but not anywhere close to being scrapped. And from what he had heard, the 2nd engine for naval aircraft is purely opinion that is prevalent in some, not all, naval leadership. Look to the success of the A-4 for proof that single engine fighters can be valuable to the USN's mission

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If the additional weight of gear was an issue with the F-16, it would have been with the F-17 too. The F-18 ended up being 10,000 lb heavier..

It's ok to be wrong.

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The reason the F-18 won out for the Navy is because they wanted redundant engines. In the CONUS there is a runway every 10 yards. So if you loose an engine there is chance you can land somewhere if you start out high enough

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Will dispute this. Fighters with dead engines have terrible glide ratios. In perfect, perfect conditions, you might dead-stick one in to a close and long runway. 99 times out of 100, they are going to pull the handle and give it back to the taxpayers.

And if you lose one engine on takeoff with a heavily loaded two engine plane, that one is going to be written off, too.

Bonus: My Thunderbirds pic from May 2011

[url=https://flic.kr/p/9NCUXX][/url]IMG_1533 by Drifter 77, on Flickr

Great pic!

In all seriousness, both teams fly almost the exact same show. The distance between planes is negligible, despite what either side will tell you.
The 16 is more maneuverable than the 18 in every way, minus angle of attack at slow speeds, so each plane has different strengths in their performances.

Picking a side in this debate is far sillier than Ford/Chevy or PC/Mac

nuke seattle

Have had the pleasure to see both on several occasions. Normally I'd be all over the Air force side over the service rivalry but damn me if they didn't shut me up every time with their work. So now I can admit....that they are equals to the Blue Angels. Both are great units.

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Great pic!

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Thanks. It was at USAFA graduation, so they were barely above the east stands of the football field, and I was up in the west stands. So it was a great angle.

I've met one former T-bird, he's my kid's current flight commander.

Wow, all the sudden everyone is an expert on military aviation.