Worked on tooling for my airplane today.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Sun May 08, 2011 1:12 am

Got some work done on my airplane project today. I've been studying the blueprints for several months now, and I realized that I simply could not do the job from scratch without a sheet metal brake. Brakes are extremely expensive. Even a "cheap" Chinese-built Harbor Freight Special is $200 for a 3' brake. Better quality ones are much more expensive. I needed a smallish one for my basement workshop, so I headed to Home Depot today to buy supplies. I built it up out of angle iron, square tubing and a piano hinge. I spent less than $100, and I have a brake that will do up to 4' bends in sheet metal. I bent a piece of scrap aluminum, and it works quite well.

I have to add a few finishing touches, but it will bend most thicknesses of aluminum I'll be working with, and put in the 1/8" radius called for in the blueprints. Now I just need to order some aluminum and make my forming blocks and I'll have an airplane in no time (well, probably 3+ years minimum). The beauty of this type of brake, other than the price, is that it's portable. As long as I have a sturdy bench to work on it'll go just about anywhere. I'll be building an 8' version to do my wing skins and other longer bends. That will go in my garage workshop.

I was going to post pictures here, but they're too big, and I don't feel like re-sizing them and then uploading again.

But you can look at my airplane building blog here:

Zenith Aero Blog

Bonefish · Post by **Bonefish** » Sun May 08, 2011 1:16 am

Joe, have i ever told you how much I effin' love you?

Man, when the zombie apocalypse comes, everyone else is gonna panic. I'm heading to Joe to help him build a plane!

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Sun May 08, 2011 1:17 am

Bonefish wrote:Joe, have i ever told you how much I effin' love you?

Man, when the zombie apocalypse comes, everyone else is gonna panic. I'm heading to Joe to help him build a plane!

Aww shucks! Hopefully, I'll have the plane built before the zombie apocalypse. Then I can just fly away from the carnage right when it starts!

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Sun May 08, 2011 1:38 am

Nice! Can't wait to see more on this. I think it's awesome that you're building your own plane.

I can't remember what I was going to make that I needed a press brake for... OH yeah, custom mounts for my drums. Actually, one of the mounts I have just needs a little more angle to it. What gauge steel do you think something like that could handle?

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Sun May 08, 2011 12:50 pm

Raygun wrote:What gauge steel do you think something like that could handle?

The gauges are different for different kinds of metals (i.e. aluminum gauge is different than steel). Anyway, I'm not sure what gauges it'll work on, since my aluminum deals in inch-thicknesses. But the brake should be able to handle anything up to about .063 inches. For aluminum, that's 14-gauge. But the same thickness in mild steel sheet is about half way between 16- and 15-gauge. For stainless sheet, that thickness is exactly 16-gauge.

I might try it on thicker stuff, but I know it will not handle .125" aluminum...I think that has more to do with the cheap-ass piano hinge I used than the angle iron. I used 1/8" (.125") angle for the bottom edge, and 5/16" angle for the top clamp and bending surface. The 1/8" gets bolted to your work table, so it doesn't need to be as strong. The top clamp and bending angle do all the hard work, so I made them thicker. Most people who have made this design have used 1/8" angle throughout. For the $10 more I spent on the 5/16" angle, I think I'll get less flexing. This will be especially true when I build the 8' version.

The main thing is the radius. You can bend thicker metals if you put a larger radius in, as long as your materials are strong enough to handle the thicker sheets. If what you're building/fabricating needs to be able to resist cracking, you generally want a radius of no less than 3 times the thickness of the material. So for 1/8" thick sheet, you'd generally want a 3/8" radius. Building the brake out of angle iron, without adding tons of truss-type supports along the length, means you can't do material that thick. Also, the design does not lend itself to bending radii larger than 1/8" to 5/16" (the thickness of the angle).

I am looking at designing an adjustable "bending edge," so that I can vary the radius of the bend & adjust for different thicknesses. However, I don't need it to be a professional brake, so I may just let it do it's thing as is.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Mon May 09, 2011 11:11 pm

Ah. What I'm dealing with here is .135" steel (it's powder coated, so 10 gauge), with very little radius. I guess in that case I should probably just take it to a machine shop and it would take them all of two minutes to put another few degrees of angle to the thing.

But it sure would be nice to have my own shop!

3278 · Post by **3278** » Mon May 09, 2011 11:30 pm

Another place to look is guys who build race cars, like amateur local stock car fabricators. A lot of farms around here have very impressive [if very old] sheet metal brakes, because they use them to fabricate car bodies. And they're likely to let you use the machine for beer.

Sometimes you see tools like this on Craigslist and the like, too, and while you have to be cautious, this is one of those tools that, properly taken care of, is just as good now as it was in 1973. Unfortunately, that's often reflected in the used prices, which can be close to those of basic brand new models.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Mon May 09, 2011 11:31 pm

See, and now I want one of these.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Tue May 10, 2011 1:30 am

3278 wrote:See, and now I want one of these.

Hell of a headwind.

I saw a couple of guys take the trip to the great beyond in a Piper Cub once. Ever since then, I've had kind of an aversion to them. I know that's pretty silly, but whenever I see them, it reminds me of that.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Tue May 10, 2011 11:13 am

I watch the Valdez STOL competition videos every year. I love watching those guys thread the needle on the shortest airplane take-offs and landings you'll ever see. The really impressive take-offs and landings are done with highly modified planes...with tens of thousands of dollars spent to shave just a foot or two off their ground rolls. The airplane I'm building is a STOL design, but doesn't come close to the numbers the Valdez competitors get. It does use some interesting techniques, like inverted elevator surfaces, leading edge slats and vortex generators though. Many of the Valdez competitors have 20,000+ hours of bush flying...They've been flying in the Alaska or Canadian wilderness their entire lives. It's really incredible what they can do with an airplane. I'm always surprised the that Piper Cub design still reigns as the design of choice, even though they're highly modified.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Tue May 10, 2011 4:01 pm

The thing that I wondered is whether doing so much to maximize STOL capability doesn't compromise other flight characteristics, you know what I mean? Does it hurt fuel economy, or stability, or are these not zero-sum changes?

Bonefish · Post by **Bonefish** » Tue May 10, 2011 6:16 pm

I know it fucks with your top speed and maneuverability at high speed.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Tue May 10, 2011 9:32 pm

3278 wrote:The thing that I wondered is whether doing so much to maximize STOL capability doesn't compromise other flight characteristics, you know what I mean? Does it hurt fuel economy, or stability, or are these not zero-sum changes?

It does lower your top speed, due to drag. High lift = high drag. Anything you do to increase lift increases drag. Hence, lower speeds, unless you compensate with huge amounts of power. Structural integrity isn't affected, per se, because you simply can't go as fast. If you were to add enough power to compensate for the high drag, you'd either add too much weight & screw the CG all up, or the plane would weigh too much to get airborne, or it would fly apart at such high vibration and drag resistance it experienced. It decreases fuel efficiency too, since lift-enhancing devices need slower air moving across them. The benefit, of course, is that you can land at much slower speeds without the wings stalling. That corresponds to a much shorter landing length. In bush flying, short landings and take-offs are everything.

Bonefish · Post by **Bonefish** » Wed May 11, 2011 6:00 am

Why couldn't they just, you know, make the runway bigger.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Wed May 11, 2011 1:42 pm

UncleJoseph wrote:The benefit, of course, is that you can land at much slower speeds without the wings stalling. That corresponds to a much shorter landing length.

I love watching the landings. In a way, they look less impressive - it just looks like someone flying very slowly - but if you know what's going on, it's incredible that they can fly this slowly. But those takeoffs are what look so ridiculous, just swiveling in mid-air and hovering off as if the prop were a helicopter rotor. Hell of a thing.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Wed May 11, 2011 4:18 pm

Yeah, it really is pretty impressive.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Thu May 12, 2011 1:06 am

3278 wrote:I love watching the landings. In a way, they look less impressive - it just looks like someone flying very slowly - but if you know what's going on, it's incredible that they can fly this slowly. But those takeoffs are what look so ridiculous, just swiveling in mid-air and hovering off as if the prop were a helicopter rotor. Hell of a thing.

Yeah, that's definitely the thing. To the uninformed, those really slow landings look meh. To anyone who knows the physics of flight, they're crapping their pants at 20mph approach speeds. One of those guys had a combined take-off and landing roll of only 89 feet! I'm hoping to be able to reach my airplane's design take-off roll of 100 feet and land at 125 feet. Those guys can take of and land in less feet than I'll be able to take off in! But that's what stripping down the aircraft, adding shit-tons of mods, having 300 HP, nitrous injection and 25,000 hours of pilot-in-command time gets you!

Bonefish · Post by **Bonefish** » Thu May 12, 2011 7:44 am

Anyone else impressed by the fact that we got into the air? Maybe it's just cuz i live in the "first in flight" state, and EVERY GODDAMNED LICENSE PLATE has the wright flyer lifting off, but man.. flight is pretty cool stuff.

Any of you guys been to Kitty Hawk? I got a memory of that plice, mostly lfyin kites and stepping on sand that had been baked for hours by the sun. But I'm still continously impressed by the fact that my grandmother rode into this world on an ox cart, and she's also flown in a plane.

We've come a long way, is all.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Thu May 12, 2011 10:37 am

Bonefish wrote:Anyone else impressed by the fact that we got into the air?

I am always amazed when flying, whether it's me at the controls, or someone else. I think it's even more amazing that we can build aircraft like 747s and Airbus 380s. On a side note, helicopters do not fly. They beat the air into submission.

Bonefish · Post by **Bonefish** » Thu May 12, 2011 7:34 pm

UncleJoseph wrote: I am always amazed when flying, whether it's me at the controls, or someone else. I think it's even more amazing that we can build aircraft like 747s and Airbus 380s. On a side note, helicopters do not fly. They beat the air into submission.

I love you a little more each day, good sir.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 12:34 am

Laid out 2 of the rib forming blocks for the rudder on plywood today. Been a little slow in getting started on the actual construction part due to some home repair issues.

My jigsaw won't hold blades any longer, so I picked up a 10" band saw yesterday...it will make cutting wood/plastic a /lot/ easier and faster than my jigsaw would have. I have to make lots of forming blocks and rubbing blocks, so it was a worthwhile investment. I now have a pretty complete shop...wire feed welder, drill press, bench grinder, band saw, compound sliding miter saw, table saw, combination disk/belt sander, oscillating belt/dowel sander, etc..

I need to make another bending brake before I can construct some pieces for the rudder. The first one I built is only 4' long (it fits in my basement and will work great on anything less than 4'), but I still need an 8' one. Need to source some 3" x 3" x 8' angle iron to build it.

I'm trying to decide if I want to just build the pieces I can (which is a lot), or work on portions of the plane from start to finish, one at a time. For example, I could build the rudder from start to finish before I make any tooling/parts for other parts of the plane. Or, I could just go on making pieces forever, until I've built up a supply of parts to make many sub-structures. Because I need a longer bending brake before I can even build a complete rudder, I'm probably just going to make lots of different parts to start.

From a progress standpoint, making lots of small parts first will make complete assembly probably go faster. However, it will take a very, very long time to have any appreciable progress on actual assembly of the plane. I'm afraid that I'll suffer long periods of downtime due to discouragement if I don't build in "sections."

At any rate, I'll be doing most of the form blocks first anyway, because that's all woodworking. I don't even have the raw aluminum materials to actually start forming parts. I need about $300 worth of aluminum to build the complete tail section...all in all very cheap. That same structure, if I were to buy the kit, would cost me $2000+. On the other hand, building from scratch takes ten times as long...but at least I can afford to do it that way.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 6:49 pm

Sweet. Keep it up, man. I can't wait to see this this thing when you're done.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:04 pm

Raygun wrote:Sweet. Keep it up, man. I can't wait to see this this thing when you're done.

I can't wait either!

Bonefish · Post by **Bonefish** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:59 pm

When do we install the machinegun?

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 11:26 pm

Bonefish wrote:When do we install the machinegun?

As soon as I install the remote, pop-up turret hardpoint.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 3:49 am

Only one? Aww... At least two! Sopwith Camel time. What's the lift capacity?

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:20 am

Raygun wrote:Only one? Aww... At least two! Sopwith Camel time. What's the lift capacity?

665 lbs, from which I have to subtract pilot, passenger and fuel.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 6:03 pm

How much does a full tank of gas weigh? Have you considered a second wing?

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:36 pm

Raygun wrote:How much does a full tank of gas weigh? Have you considered a second wing?

144 lbs.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 11:40 pm

Awright, maybe not two, then! How about 200 lbs each for the pilot and gunner. That leaves us with ~120 lbs to play with. How about an M240D (26lbs) on a lightweight door mount (~50 lbs, no door), with 500 rounds (~30 lbs). Close air support AC-130-style! I bet that'd be fun as all hell.

Bonefish · Post by **Bonefish** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 2:55 am

I can diet and get down to 150-160lbs really easy. I'll fly nekkid if you're ok with it. Just let me shoot things.

"Anyone who runs is VC. Anyone who stands still is a well disciplined VC!"

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:59 am

Raygun wrote:Awright, maybe not two, then! How about 200 lbs each for the pilot and gunner. That leaves us with ~120 lbs to play with. How about an M240D (26lbs) on a lightweight door mount (~50 lbs, no door), with 500 rounds (~30 lbs). Close air support AC-130-style! I bet that'd be fun as all hell.

Works for me!

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:59 am

Bonefish wrote:I can diet and get down to 150-160lbs really easy. I'll fly nekkid if you're ok with it. Just let me shoot things.

Well I'll be doing the flying, so I'll need a gunner...

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:40 pm

In that case, I'll have to be on the ground with a radio and GPS, pointing at things to shoot and also shooting them! Time to put the ATV-with-a-Barrett-50 plan to work.

If you shoot me, Bonefish, SDQ will not be kind.

Bonefish · Post by **Bonefish** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:56 pm

Raygun wrote:In that case, I'll have to be on the ground with a radio and GPS, pointing at things to shoot and also shooting them! Time to put the ATV-with-a-Barrett-50 plan to work.

If you shoot me, Bonefish, SDQ will not be kind.

Just don't call Danger close fire missions then.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 12:38 am

Today I spent all afternoon designing and building a portable work station for my 3 large woodworking tools (table router, band saw and oscillating belt/spindle sander). This was one of those jobs that, although meant I was not actually working on the plane, definitely will help things stay organized and efficient.

I laid out different arrangements on the floor of my garage to determine the best placement for my benchtop tools. 36" square allowed me to mount each tool in such a way so as not to interfere with the other (Odd that 3 tools needed a square benchtop..its the band saw that makes that necessary), and each tool has its full range of clearance for material cutting. Although the work surfaces of each tool were nearly the same height, things like ripping fences, miter gauges and tilting worktops made the layout tricky. I built the table on large casters, so I can move it all around the shop where I need it or into the driveway. Ideally, I'll use it in the driveway because, even with a shop-vac dust collector attached, they all throw some major sawdust.

I built the table out of some old 2x4s and 1x12 pine boards I had from a dismantled shelving system in my basement. I didn't have to buy a single piece of wood, and I had plenty of all-purpose screws to assemble it. It took a fair amount of measuring and cutting (hooray for my compound miter saw!). It also has a mast in the center of it, on which I will mount a power strip. This will allow me to plug all the tools in at once, and string a power cable along the ceiling rafters out of the way.

The platform itself is only about 23" tall, but that puts the working surfaces of the tools at the perfect height. I built a shelf into the bottom supports, and it will hold all the accessories, bits, extra belts, saw bands, etc. for the tools above.

I could've mounted the table on a long bench, but this design allows for a very efficient and portable layout that can be pushed into the corner when not in use. Additionally, even though these are primarily woodworking tools, which will be ideal to construct my forming blocks, they can also cut aluminum just fine. Once I've made the form blocks, I can used them as templates for the aluminum (with the appropriate amount of flange material added), and then cut the aluminum on the router and sand it smooth with a metal sanding belt on the table sander. The band saw will also cut things like aluminum sheet, angle and other soft metals for fittings.

I originally wanted to mount my drill press and bench grinder on the table too, but that would've required a much larger table and, unless the table would've been really huge, would've caused some clearance issues. I'll leave those mounted to the benches.

Anyway, lots of progress for the shop itself...not much progress for the plane. But, I'm ready to start shaping the form blocks. Yay me.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:05 am

Did a lot of work on my form blocks today. Got the basic cutting and sanding done on most of the rib blocks for my tail section. Made a test rib for the horizontal stabilizer to check the angles and tolerances on my blocks. Need some additional bevel and relief cuts on the blocks to account for spring back and distortion. I think I will use 1" stock in stead of 3/4" stock for the rest of the form blocks I need to make...the aluminum overhangs the first blocks by about 3/16", which, when shaping the metal around the block with a hammer, means I can bend the overhanging part...a definite no-no. I'll manage with the blocks I already made, but I'll use thicker stock for the wing ribs and other forms.

Now I just need more aluminum! There is a place I can get it locally, but the thinnest sheet they have is .032". While I need that, .040", .063", .090" and .125", I need the most of .016", .020" and .025", as these make up most of the skins and ribs. The thicker stuff is mostly for brackets and structural members. Our local place is checking on whether I can special order the thinner stock. I might be better off just ordering from the aircraft supply places, but that takes more time, and there is a crating/freight charge associated with ordering from them.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:16 pm

Portable work table:

Bonefish · Post by **Bonefish** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:18 pm

That gives me a big rubbery one.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:43 pm

Made these form blocks out of 3/4" plywood, which may not be quite thick enough (I'll make do for these parts). Each rib template is laid you using the measurements from the blueprint onto the board. Tooling holes are cut so that you can clamp the blocks together to make 2 at a time. The blocks are then cut from the board using the band saw, and then sanded down to the lines on the oscillating belt/spindle sander to make sure the dimensions are correct. The idea is that you need very smooth, continuous surfaces (straight or curved, depending on the part of the block you're working on). After you've made 2 blocks exactly the same, you then use the router to put a 1/8" round on the inside edges of each block. This is where the aluminum gets sandwiched together. The 1/8" round provides the proper bending radius as the metal flange is formed around the block, to prevent cracking and fatigue points. Once the radius is put in, you go back to the belt sander and put in a bevel. The bevel is usually 6-8 degrees starting at the radius. This bevel allows you to overbend the aluminum slightly so that it springs back to the proper angle needed for the part. After that, you use the spindle sander to put relief cuts in any of the curved edges. These relief cuts take up the extra metal when bending along a curved surface.

Forming Blocks for Horizontal Stabilizer Rear Rib:

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 6:50 pm

After the blocks are completed, you sandwich your piece of aluminum between the blocks. You then drill the tooling holes in the aluminum, using the holes in the blocks as a guide. After the 3 pieces are clamped together, you use 1/4" bolts with washers and wing nuts to clamp them together tightly. After that you use and edge distance marking tool (sort of like a drafting compass) and measure/mark the proper length of the protruding flange around the perimeter of the block. Once that is done, you take the aluminum out of the block sandwich for cutting and deburring. The aluminum goes back into the block sandwich, to be clamped to a work bench or vise, where the flange gets hammered into shape around the form blocks. In some cases, you have to do right and left ribs, which means the flange has to bend the opposite direction on 1/2 of the ribs.

Using a piece of scrap aluminum, I made this test piece to check my bevel angles and relief cuts. The dimensions of the flanges aren't exact, and you can also see where the curved surface isn't quite a nice, smooth, sweeping radius. This is because my initial bevel angle (I inadvertently only put in 4 degrees, rather than the 6-8 required) wasn't quite enough, and my relief cuts need to be a bit deeper. They didn't take up quite enough metal to draw the curve tight against the form block. A little more sanding on the block, and this part will turn out perfect. Once I have the bevel angle and relief cuts sized properly, I can use the same measurements on all the rib templates...then it is just a matter of cutting and shaping the metal.

Test Rib:

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 7:03 pm

Incidentally, I had to make those 2 rib blocks for only 4 ribs in the tail section. It takes far longer to make the tooling for those parts than it does to make the parts themselves.

My main wings, however, require several more right- and left-side ribs. For those, I'll make cutting blocks too, which will allow me to use my router with a straight-cutting bit that'll follow the shape of the cutting block. I can then clamp 4-6 pieces of aluminum in the blocks at the same time, and cut 4-6 rib blanks. I'll do this with my nose ribs, center ribs and rear ribs for the wings, and then also for the flaperons and leading edge slats. With most of the other parts, I'm not making enough of them to justify making cutting blocks too.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 7:18 pm

Here is a partial page from my set of blueprints. This is the layout for the rudder nose rib, of which there is only one to be made. Notice the coordinate layout system, denoted by the box of X/Y coordinates at the top. These measurements are all relevant to cutting blocks, form blocks and the parts themselves. I basically have to re-create these drawings using the proper measurements on a piece of wood or aluminum to obtain my part. 4 years of drafting classes in high school really helped. Although these blueprints are easy enough for the novice, they're nothing I haven't seen a hundred times before. A bit of an advantage, I'd say...

The measurements are all in millimeters, so I had to buy a bunch of metric measuring equipment. Funny, because the aluminum thickness is measured in SAE, and my tooling holes are 1/4". The drill bit sizes are numbered drills (e.g. #10, #11, #12), because they are slightly oversized than their SAE counterparts to ensure proper clearance for the rivets. It is quite a symphony of measurement systems.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:07 am

A few more tools I'd like to get:

Electric sheet metal shear
Roller stand
Pneumatic pop rivet gun
Pneumatic solid rivet gun w/bucking bars
Fluting Pliers (I can make these on the cheap, but the aircraft ones are only $15, and do a better job than improvised ones)
About 20 Handi-Clamps

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:07 am

Not to ignore everything else, but:

UncleJoseph wrote:Portable work table:

Nice!

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 4:28 pm

Raygun wrote:Not to ignore everything else, but:

Nice!

Thanks. I must say, it made working on my form blocks very efficient and kept a lot of the dust from getting into the garage. Of course, using it outdoors means there must be fair weather, so I suspect I'll be using it a lot /in/ the garage as well. But I can connect the tools to my shop vac for some cleanliness. My experience, though, is that dust collectors don't work all that well. However, once I am primarily cutting aluminum, instead of wood, there'll be mostly metal shavings, which I won't want in the driveway anyway.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:55 pm

Yeah, it looks really handy.

Speaking of airplanes, I was woken up to the sound of jet fighters tear-assing through the sky today. The Montana Air National Guard flies F15Cs out of here, so it's not all that uncommon, but today they've been relentlessly obnoxious. Really loud high-G turns and such...

So I get up and look outside, and what's making all that noise, apparently, are a bunch of blue and yellow F18s. Turns out the Blue Angels are here. Them and the MANG guys in the F15s are all dicking around with each other over the city. I've been watching them on and off for the last hour and a half.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:58 pm

Raygun wrote:So I get up and look outside, and what's making all that noise, apparently, are a bunch of blue and yellow F18s. Turns out the Blue Angels are here. Them and the MANG guys in the F15s are all dicking around with each other over the city. I've been watching them on and off for the last hour and a half.

Jealous!

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:14 pm

JESUS. I just went outside to get some pictures and one came flying over my house from the north, turned straight up and kicked on the afterburner. I didn't hear him coming at all because the other planes were making noise elsewhere. That was fucking LOUD.

Raygun · Post by **Raygun** » Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:28 pm