The unreal and risky takeoff of a Canadian CF-188A Hornet fighter at RIAT 24

@DefAviation ES 7·22·2024 · 23:12 0

Among some people who publish airplane videos on YouTube there is an ugly habit of putting unrealistic previews as a bait.

The passion for the Spanish Harrier II at the great British airshow RIAT 2024
The shots with live ammunition of Swiss F/A-18C fighters at an alpine airshow

Those previews are usually of planes that don't exist or impossible shots of real planes. Generally, when I see a preview like this, what I immediately do is tell YouTube to stop recommending videos from that channel, but something unexpected happened to me today when I saw my subscriptions on that multimedia portal.

For years I have been following an excellent British spotter on YouTube, Elwyn Roberts, one of the regular photographers of the famous Mach Loop of Wales. This man posts excellent videos and never puts photomontages in his previews: he doesn't need it. Today he published this video of a CF-188A Hornet fighter (the official designation of the F/A-18A) of the Royal Canadian Air Force at the British air festival The Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) held at RAF Fairford. He seems like a setup but he is not. Check it out for yourself:

Elwyn notes that the Canadian CF-188 demonstration team has not participated in RIAT since 2018. This year it has returned to England for the centenary of the RCAF, which is the reason for the beautiful decoration that this fighter has. The pilot author of this maneuver is Captain Caleb Robert. Its takeoff can be described as a feat or as madness, since it did not touch the ground with the nozzles by a few centimeters. Aerobatic pilots are still prodigious crazy people who cause admiration, so my respects go to this Canadian pilot, who has left many of us stunned.

P.S.: Of course, I have decided not to put the video preview as a preview of this entry. Many readers would think that I am trying to deceive them ... 😄

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Main photo: Canadian Forces CF18 Demo Team.