Air Show Photos.

[Strike]

They are actually travelling just below the speed of sound - at about 0.99 or so.  The disc that you actually see in the first couple of passes is actually condensation (or "vapes") whic are a result of the condensation in the air at that point.  The bigger the vapes, the greater the amount of condensation that is in the air.  The shock wave forming around the plane is visible if you look hard enough, but its presence can be seen if you look at the water directly underneath the Hornet as it travels.

The condensation (Please don't use vapour in this example, as one might think wrongly that you are talking about vapour trails, which are caused by the change in temp from the engine exhaust.) is caused by a change in pressure in the air (PV=nRT suddenly comes to mind...argh, what you remember from university) directly in that point.  This is caused by the shock wave.  Not unlike the condensation one would see over the wings of an aircraft after they do a quick turn.

As for the Tomcat pass, if you go frame by frame, you will see a dispersion of the water as the plane hits mach 1.0 (or close to  ).

Wether real or not, you'd never see them pulling something like that at an airshow in Canada.  Slightly illegal.

 

[Bandit1]

I yield to your University know how...

As for whether they'd pull it at an airshow up here, they did last year in Quebec City.  The Thunderbirds as well put in a sneak pass in their show, and I've been there (here in Toronto) when they perform it as well...fun stuff...

Bandit

 

[Strike]

Ah, but I'm sure that they had a much more stringent stand-off area in which they carried out the sneak pass, and not in the middle of a flotilla of boats, otherwise the Coast Guard, Transport Canada and Nav Canada might have had something to say about it.

 

[Bandit1]

Blue Angels used the static runway, so the pass looked almost identical to the one in the video titled NAS Pensacola found earlier on in this thread.  The Thunderbirds sneak pass here in Toronto was about 50 ft out and about 75 feet up...and was such a surprise to so many that they jumped, screamed, etc, but those of us who knew it as coming responded with the like of..."F'ing cool!"

Bandit

 

[aesop081]

As long as the energy from the aircraft is directed away from the crowd by the time its gets to the 1500 foot line..........

 

[PMedMoe]

PV=nRT suddenly comes to mind...argh, what you remember from university

I got to learn that without university!  ;D   

 

[geo]

Theres a picture of a Mosquito flying under the Eiffel Tower at the 19Wing Comox Museum.

Might have been a different aircraft. I remember it having only one engine.

Single engined aircraft flying under / inside the Eiffel Tower.... methinks the Mosquito he's talking about is a Tiger Moth

 

[Signalman150]

Nope, nope, nope, and nope.  The pic I'm talking about--the one of an aircraft flying under the Eiffel Tower-- is definitely a Mosquito. It was a fuzzy black and white photo, but the almost perfectly cylindrical fuselage and the great-honking engine nacelles are unmistakable. I'll have to dig around in my old magazines ( a job not unlike cleaning out the Aegean Stables, only cleaner and less noisome) and see if I can find it.