'Merica

K

KsHusker

Active member
Relaying a story of something I witnessed on Saturday which was F'n awesome -- as a 42 yr old man there are very few things I thought could make me like a giddy school boy again but Saturday mid day it did.

For any of you KS guys familiar with the turnpike between Wichita/Emporia there's a stop I've stopped at a million times -- Matfield Green ---

First the weather -- clear blue bird day - very little wind at all which is unusual, and 60s - absolutely beautiful -- Everyone and their dog was burning the grass due to the great weather and the fact ground was still a little damp from prior rains. So lots of smoke plumes all over the flint hills.


Anyways we stop for a coffee stop as I was dragging -- as I walk back out to the vehicle to hand the coffee over to my wife and my son's drink and then go back around to get in - I notice off in the distance a slow moving F16 pretty darn LOW -- him and a buddy were weaving in and out of the smoke plumes having fun I'd assume --

He gets up over Matfield green rocks the plane over about 270 degrees so he's halfway inverted and fricking throws the throttle I can only assume all the way forward -- it darn near blew my ear drums out lol -- I am deaf and I had to plug my ears, the noise was earth shaking -- Car alarms are going off in the truck stop parking lot and you can see flames mid day shooting out of his exhaust plume --- It was absolutely awesome -- would love to buy that pilot a beer or if there is some Military pilot bulletin board out there on the internet somewhere give him/her KUDOS for a job well done!!!--

Definitely made my day -- I darn near yelled 'Merica I was so lost in the moment but didnt as I remembered I'm a middle aged dad lol and didnt hear anyone else yelling.

Still awesome to see -- I just got lucky I was outside at the right time.
 
AWESOME!

You were at a beautiful place on the Kansas prairie and got to see quite a show.

That takes me back to my childhood at the farm. It was wheat harvest time. The combine was an yellowish orange Minneapolis Moline. No cab and a steering wheel that was completely horizonal. Dad wore stripped bid overalls, a blue shirt buttoned at the collar, a blue strip engineer cap and curved glass goggles. Dad had good ears for any problems on that old machine. I was probably 10-12 years old at this time. My job was to cultivate cane(Ellis, Atlas, etc all tall cane varieties) that we would cut for silage. My tractor was a Ford 8N with a two row culltivator weeding the 40" rows planted with a two row lister.

On this particular day, a blue bird day, hot and calm, Dad was on a high ridge cutting wheat. I was below him on the bottom ground that we flood irrigated, cultivating that cane that was knee high. I could see Dad on that ridge going north, body slumped somewhat over that horizonal steering wheel with his head swaying slowing side to side and his ears intently listening for any unusual noise that would indicate trouble. I was going south with Dad in complete view of Dad and saw something happening. At first Dad's head was going back and forth like someone looking down a tennis net at a professional match. Then I saw it, a fighter jet had snuck up behind him and came right over him, in a very close pass and as he pulled up and hit the after burners. Dad had shut the combine down and got off to retrieve his engineer's cap. At supper that night Dad said he didn't know what was happening, but thought the combine was about to blow and he was ready to jump. Simple fun memories on the old farm.
 
i was pulling an all-nighter driving from CA to KS. at about 3 am i was the only vehicle on a NM highway in the middle of nowhere and struggling to stay awake. suddenly a military fighter jet buzzed me at about 50 feet, a wakeup call that left me with a pounding heart.

on a pleasant summer morning in '96 my mother's funeral was concluding at a country cemetery in Republic Co. The funeral home set things up so attendees were facing north. just as the pastor finished, a wing of B-1B bombers at about 200 feet passed by to the north about a mile away. the timing was perfect.
 
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I was doing some yard work one weekend in Wichita in the mid-late 90s. Everyone knew the B-1s stationed at nearby McConnell AFB were moving, but I didn't know the exact date. It must have been very soon, because several of them came screaming over my house and whole east side of town, much lower, much faster than normal. The wings were swept back which was also unusual, and they were banked almost 90 degrees into a turn. Unbelievably loud and impressive.
 
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