Air show over Lake Lemon

[maxwelhse]

I was lucky to see one at an air show once. They were surprisingly graceful doing their thing. So was the Harrier, which is something I'll never forget. Loudest thing I've ever heard.

 

[churchmouse]

I was lucky to see one at an air show once. They were surprisingly graceful doing their thing. So was the Harrier, which is something I'll never forget. Loudest thing I've ever heard.

Some years back the Motor Speedway included the Harrier in its Veterans Day military display. They had been circling the track and area a few days before hand practicing for that event.
I was across the street from the 1st turn on my bike at the gathering point (the beer store) with a few friends and there was the loudest most intense noise I have ever heard. It got louder until we saw a Harrier literally rise above the 1st turn Bleachers and gracefully do a clockwise 360 and then a CCW rotation. It was close enough to see the pilot. He rotated away from us and lowered it below the stands. Then it was gone.
it was intensely loud.

 

[maxwelhse]

Some years back the Motor Speedway included the Harrier in its Veterans Day military display. They had been circling the track and area a few days before hand practicing for that event.
I was across the street from the 1st turn on my bike at the gathering point (the beer store) with a few friends and there was the loudest most intense noise I have ever heard. It got louder until we saw a Harrier literally rise above the 1st turn Bleachers and gracefully do a clockwise 360 and then a CCW rotation. It was close enough to see the pilot. He rotated away from us and lowered it below the stands. Then it was gone.
it was intensely loud.

Can absolutely confirm.

My experience was at the Dayton air show. They had the pilot patched in to the PA on the ground and he was cracking jokes and waving at us and all of that... until it with VTOL time. Then he turned the radio off because apparently that's pretty hard to do. If I recall, he told a more softly worded version of the joke of "You guys don't really want to hear me screaming as I crash this thing into the first row of seating..."

I saw a lot of cool stuff that day and the Harrier, and the Stealth Fighter are what stuck with me over the years. The Stealth stuck with me because they took off out of New Mexico that morning, went up to Oshkosh, came to visit us, went back to New Mexico, and then came back to visit us (and then Oshkosh again) before the show was over. I'm not a smart man, but that thing must have been moving the mail to get all of that done in a day.