Is it normal for host countries to use international track meets to show off their military hardware? From the World Athletics press release:
On opening night on Friday, July 15, a flyover will take place when the session kicks off at 5 p.m.
On Saturday night, there will be an F-15 jet flyover right before the introduction of the athletes in the men’s 100m final.
On Monday, July 18, the night belongs to women, beginning with a Women in the Spotlight presentation followed by a Black Hawk helicopter flyover at 5 p.m. The helicopter will be flown by a female pilot.
Given the existence of the Phildo and it always being about size (and might) – such a flyover is a natural extension of the theme
I do hope there is a demonstration protesting this tasteless display of violence.
Maybe Tom Cruise will drop out of the helicopter and do a Mission Impossible stunt for us. Then it would be worthwhile.
Something tells me this wouldn’t be happening if Trump were still president. A distraction from inflation, the war in Ukraine, mass shootings, etc? And let us not forget the appalling “ordinary” steady homicide, as that inner city pastor has had the decency to remind us. But perhaps it is a salute to the splendid DEI efforts taking place under our University Tower? After all, one of the pilots is said to be female. Then perhaps all is well.
Honestly! What a troll!
OK, you tell me why the Commander-In-Chief (or someone under his supervision) is doing this? The three previous commenters also seem put off. OK, I know Trump would have sent F-35’s, a whole squadron.
Is it perhaps to allay my current annoyance over the UO Library’s miserable collection, information access, and overall poor service?
Well, to begin, the Commander In Chief was likely not in the loop on whether or not to have a flyover. This is really lower-level stuff.
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Realistically, the use of these flights at athletic events has a long history in this state, and the OR National Guard has conducted them numerous times over the years, under the notion (to answer the direct question of “why?”) that these flights provide flight planning and training. It was “tradition” that allowed for a Guard F-15 flyover at one football game per year. (I bring up the Guard as the 142nd Wing has done these flights in the past, and they, generally speaking, are the folks flying F-15s hereabouts.)
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In 2012, the campus in Corvallis used up their “annual flight” at Commencement – the CIC’s wife was speaking – and torqued a number of football fans who had become accustomed to their fall flight on the Saturday set aside to recognize veterans. It was also pretty nifty that most years, one of the pilots was a Beaver alum.
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Most recently, the 142nd did a number of flyovers on Independence day, loosely coordinated with Fourth of July parades.
Could the “female helicopter pilot” be non other than Betsy Johnson (Phil’s Phave politician)?
Hopefully she doesn’t crash the helicopter too and then try to seek legislative immunity…
I can hardly wait for my pet and I to be terrified again when it sounds like a jet is about to land on our roof. Ugh. What a waste of jet fuel.
Aaaaand, 6:30 AM Sunday…..continuous helicopter flyovers of the marathon route. I myself was hoping for a bit more peace and quiet and a bit of a lay in today. No FAA rules against this?
Mike — Not sure the FAA rules over military air operations. I just hope they are staying out of each others ways —
I was in Hendricks Park Saturday afternoon for another F-15 flyover. I have to admit it was impressively terrifying, even though I knew what it was. It mustn’t even have been going that fast, no sonic boom.
I have to admit not really too excited one way or another. The real American military seems to be in crisis, with horrendous recruitment shortfalls, rampant wokeism, and dangerous challenges coming for which one suspects it is not well-prepared. The invincible gorilla act has failed one or two times too many. Even the simpletons we academics like to sneer at, are catching on. Military families reportedly are telling their kids to stay away. In my own case, I was glad to see a close relative transition off an aircraft carrier a couple of years ago. (He can tell you a lot about what fighter jets are really like.) A bit to my surprise, he completely agrees, saying he thinks it is far more dangerous than a few years back.
Lol “wokeism.” The biggest problems finding new recruits are obesity, a huge list of medical restrictions (ADHD? Really?) and the realization that you might get sent off to a pointless war.
Somehow, the military was slowly growing during the Trump years. Now they are missing their recruiting goals by more than half. I’ll leave it to independent experts to explain this. Hah, not the increasingly untrustworthy official military, or the civilian government!
recent sonic boom flyover in Oregon
https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/loud-boom-shaking-in-lincoln-co-caused-by-supersonic-jets/
I grew up a dozen miles as crows fly from the end of a SAC AFB runway, which was at one time home to the 509th Bomb Wing (a military group perhaps most famous in its WWII incarnation for a B-29 piloted by one Paul Tibbets). When I was but a much younger one, we were inured to the hourly flights of B-52s passing overhead. In the early 1970’s, the B-52s were phased out in favor of FB-111A jets.
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While it didn’t happen often, it happened often enough that someone flying out over the ocean would go supersonic and our area would feel the effect of those speeds. I remember being in Troy, NY, 200 miles west, when the house we were at suddenly shook with a loud boom. Folks there were a bit freaked out, and weren’t ready to believe a teenaged kid who told them it sounded just like a sonic boom from the fighters at Pease. They seemed to raise their impression of me when the next day’s Times Union explained the rattled china as I already had.
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Photographer pals and I used to spend evenings in a gravel pit out near the base access road at the end of the tarmac watching the jets do their touch-and-go drills. Regardless of your views, it is fiercely awesome to watch a small rocket with wings barely 300 feet overhead kicking in an afterburner that shoots out twice the length of the plane itself, sending the fuselage and pilot in a visible jolt of acceleration high into the sky.
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Yes, they are loud and annoying. But they are in their own way magnificent. I recall a younger me watching these things fly and wondering, “If we can build something like that, why can’t we figure out these other problems…?”
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Still wondering…
https://www.historylink.org/File/2237
I grew up about two miles from this now decommissioned (1970)
naval air station in Seattle (Sandpoint) – sonic bombs in the early
late 50s/early 60s were almost a daily occurrence.
I remember having nightmares about being attacked by the russians at Sandpoint. These nightmares usually occurred after
school drills where we were told to hide under our desks in the
case of an atomic bomb drop.
My location was also close to this atomic bomb fallout shelter:
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattle-history/article/seattle-nuclear-fallout-shelter-history-in-ravenna-16177037.php
Developing an awareness of the state of the world while growing up was just as disheartening then as it is now.
I think they did testing on sonic booms in the 60’s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_sonic_boom_tests
Although it was not 64 and not in Oklahoma, I too lived with many air bases close to non-US airspace and my childhood was filled with daily sonic booms and flyovers late 60’s. When I heard about these experiments I assumed they never stopped. I loved them, they would rattle our giant plate glass window, and I always hoped they would shatter one day.
This is where I too began to believe that science and education could achieve great things; too bad human nature always seems to get in the way.
Flyover on the marathon route was private helicopter, continuously circling. Back again today https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N6605?fbclid=IwAR0Ji-BfVsHa8J9vkr7V2sKr3zZswsuYlLVu04yyEzlAOIaEOIkXNlLL2Uk
National Guards’ commander in chief is their Governor, not the prez