RotorImage From United States of America, joined Jun 2006, 40 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (6 years 10 months 1 week 6 days 15 hours ago) and read 2757 times:
Quoting Daleaholic (Reply 2): Awesome video! The pilot must've been pretty skilled to get so low!
Not to suggest the pilot in question doesn't have skills.....But being able to fly like that doesn't necessarily mean the pilot has hands of gold - it simply demonstrates that they're good at not hitting the ground. While impressive to watch, those sort of passes aren't nearly as hard to perform as say, navigating a low level route with a hard altitude floor and ceiling you have to maintain.
Just my two cents....Anybody else with tactical low-level experience can chime in....
Bsergonomics From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2002, 462 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (6 years 10 months 6 days 19 hours ago) and read 2522 times:
During a recent discussion with one of our suppliers, their programme manager suggested that 500 feet is classed as low level. He was a little surprised at the response. 500 feet - in the UK - is the lowest that a civil aircraft can fly (technically, it is, "within 500 feet of any person, structure or building"). Again in the UK, the lowest that the military can fly (in dedicated areas, such as LLTRs) is 250 feet. During wartime, however, the lowest that an aircraft can fly is generally dictated by the lowest point at the aft end of the aircraft. This is generally between 3 and 6 feet, since that is the height difference between the location of the Radar Altimeter (RADALT) and the lowest point of the engine exhaust.
The art of low flying is simply this: do not hit anything solid.
You know that you're flying low when you have to ask, "On what side of the road do we drive here?" Just see the videos of the Foreign Legion helicopters in Africa to understand what this means.
The video is a nice example of gaining speed (kinetic energy) before gaining altitude (potential energy) and is great to watch; it is not, however, low flying. When you see a jet passing over a saddle in the mountains at 450kts, 20 feet above the ground and inverted... THAT'S low flying.
The definition of a 'Pessimist': an Optimist with experience...
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