Mig-29 flying around my neighborhood

[Paul Wescott]

Interesting.  This weekend, tomorrow and Sunday, is an airshow over nearby Huntington Beach.  It happens every year and as my house is under / near the landing pattern to the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Base I am used to all sorts of interesting aircraft overhead.  Lately we've had F-22 Raptors, Osprey tilt-rotors, all the U.S. military show teams and their C-130 support ships plus the Canadian team, and the occasional C-17 lumbering along.  Yesterday we even had a P-38 Lightning "Fork Tailed Devil" fly past.  The jets usually overfly the JF Base before circling around to land, which gives me time to walk outside and get a good view / take a pic from my back yard or driveway.  I'm mostly immune to a lot of it but TODAY I had a real treat!  An honest-to-god Mig-29 rattled the dual pane windows as he showed off on his fly-over he was so LOUD!  Then he slowed it down to a comparative crawl and came back around and headed for a landing.  I wonder who owns that thing.

My house is the blue dot on the map.  I didn't pick the location, my FIL picked it in 1972, then in 2017 my wife wanted to buy her childhood home out of probate, not a terrible decision all things considered.  Currently she is quite unhappy about the overhead noise, I'm the one who's happy about it (shhh, don't tell her, "yes dear the noise is certainly terrible I think you should call the base and complain I believe the public affairs officer is on their face book group...).

[Colin McRae]

When I was a kid in Hawaii, I was playing basketball at a local public park when 3 Japanese Zero's in formation flew directly overhead quite low. Came to find out later that the movie Tora-Tora-Tora was being filmed at the time. Was pretty cool.

Colin

[Mark wood]

Once when I was in Milan Italy working I went to the airshow at Vergiate where Agusta helicopters are made and there was a Mig 29 that did a routine including the cobra maneuver. That was back in the day when it was the badassedness pinnacle. They are definitely cool.

[Paul Wescott]

Once when I was in Milan Italy working I went to the airshow at Vergiate where Agusta helicopters are made and there was a Mig 29 that did a routine including the cobra maneuver. That was back in the day when it was the badassedness pinnacle. They are definitely cool.

I would LOVE to see one do the Cobra!  But having zero experience watching aircraft with thrust vectoring, a thrust-to-weight ratio that's off the charts, and all the other high tech features, I'm sure it would scare me to death to see it in person.

[Mark wood]

I would LOVE to see one do the Cobra!  But having zero experience watching aircraft with thrust vectoring, a thrust-to-weight ratio that's off the charts, and all the other high tech features, I'm sure it would scare me to death to see it in person.

Well, while the Mig 29 was very impressive, there were other demos I personally thought were equally good. The cobra maneuver was just the equivalent of a quick stop in a helicopter and it didn't require thrust vectoring to do, just massive elevator control authority and overweight balls by the pilot. Otherwise the jet did cool jet stuff for about 10 minutes. No question the Russian pilot was good. For me the coolest thing was that the Agusta demonstration pilots converged on center field from the four corners with different helicopter models  and as they crossed the fences they simultaneously did loops beginning at a bout 250 feet and then they crossed at center field after exiting the loops. That probably required more weight than the cobra maneuver. Then the Frecci Tricolore team flew their routine including the pierced heart. That was very impressive as well. But Luigi had to take the show doing a full on rowdy aerobatic routine in the A129 advanced attack helicopter doing loops, rolls, hammerheads and various hovering maneuvers all under 1,000 feet. The latter I admit to being biased about as that was what I was doing there as the powerplants integration specialist. I did talk Luigi into giving me one of those rides.

[Paul Walker]

You don't live too far from where we used to fly at Garr high school at the SE junction of 605 and 91. Long time ago.

[Dave Hull]

Pretty cool, Paul...

The first Mig-29 I saw was shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Ukraine was on a goodwill tour and they brought a -29 to the Hawthorne Air Fair. Not an air show--too much city underneath. They parked it right next to the YF-17. The contrast was interesting. The -17 was blocky and stout. The -29 was elegant, even in deep blue and gold colors. But up close the real story showed. The leading edges and the nose of the -29 looked nice, but all of the rest looked like it had been hand-made with ball-peen hammers. Brutal sheet metal work. With the Northrop YF-17 sitting right next to it the contrast couldn't have been greater.

I stuck around for the departure. The Ukrainian pilot hustled down the 4,880' runway pulled straight up and disappeared overhead. Really, really loud. But no "airshow type maneuvers" were allowed. Not to worry, he likely was headed home...?

[Peter Klosky]

Here's a google search about the owner.

[Peter Klosky]

Fellow appears to be making contributions to air and space endeavors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Isaacman

[Mark wood]

Fellow appears to be making contributions to air and space endeavors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Isaacman

He's also the NASA chief administrator. Boss of NASA. He has Black Diamond Jet team which is now the Ghost Squadron. He's heavily involved in lots of aviation and space activities. Every time I've gone to the Starship launch he has made come kind of appearance. Flyby inspection of the rocket in his jets or his Sikorsky helicopter. Has quite the list of accomplishments.

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