I was heading out Saturday for some IFR practice. I had a trusty safety pilot and we were soon on final for Cecil runway 36R. The ILS needles were centered and I heard approach tell me that I would have 2 fighters pass 1000 feet overhead for the landing break.
Fighters typically fly over the field and the commence a turning descent to slow and align for landing. It also lets them move from close formation to a staggered landing formation by having the second plane turn later than the first.
This was not terribly unusual being in a military town but today we had 2 F35 stealth fighters. The planes zipped over and commenced their turns. They were assigned the parallel runway which is only 700 feet offset from my runway.
Fighters typically fly over the field and the commence a turning descent to slow and align for landing. It also lets them move from close formation to a staggered landing formation by having the second plane turn later than the first.
The first plane was ahead of us but the second ended up aligned with us. My safety pilot was slow to grab a picture but at one point I had the F35 directly next to me and only 700 feet away. Since I was not intending to land and he was slowing to land our relative speed was quite low and he only passed me doing 50 knots or so more. It was quite cool.
