To make it even more spectacular, the lead launched flares after flares while rolling in the vertical flight. Truly, a spectacular display. Never seen flares being launched in real life before, and for that I thank the organisers. Great group display for the day, and the aerial display had just begun.
Status : Too concentrated on airshow to notice
V-22 Osprey
The Black Knights stole the attention. The following displays are single aircraft aerobatics. First off it's the V-22 Osprey. It may sound like an ordinary large bladed helicopter, but it flies much much faster. Just look at the massive radius of the rotor blades. This is why they are tilted at almost 45 degrees when on ground. Any lower, and the blades will just snap off the engine.
V-22 hovering with rear ramp open
The V-22 did a 360 rotation while hovering just tens of feet above the water, spraying little droplets all over the crowd, not enough to get you wet, but enough to let you know. Slight vortexes may be seen generated by the rotor blades.
A lot of moves were made, such as tight turns and so on.
Rotors tilting movement
The V-22 demonstrated how it can easily switch from the hovering mode to the flight mode, by tilting its rotors slowly from a vertical orientation to a horizontal orientation. This has to be done slowly as the basic principles of flight takes place.
The rotors provide lift while it is hovering. By slowly tilting the engines, the lift provider is slowly being transferred to the wings. As the engines become more and more horizontal, it pulls the aircraft forward, increasing the forward speed of the aircraft. As the speed increases, wind passing over the wings generate lift which keeps the aircraft in the air. Finally, when the engines are fully horizontal, the wings take over and the Osprey flies like a normal aircraft.
The osprey speeds off after that, clearing the space for the next aircraft, nick-named "Rhino".
F-18 Super Hornet
Not meaning to sound cliche, but the Hornet came in with a BANG!! Zooming pass centre stage. Looks like they would require all the fuel they can carry to perform all the moves. A single external tank was carried. This I guess should be the best fuel to maneuvarability ratio to give the aircraft more fuel, while not weighing it down too much nor to affect its aerodynamics during the performance.
Hard turn with full afterburner
The Roar coming from the engines is SO intense, it makes you wonder how it will feel should you stand right next to it. The Rhino made multiple turns and circles, often aiming it's engines at the crowd. I guess that's the main idea, to let them feel the POWER.
Of course, knife edge passes, high G turns/ascends and barrel roles were included in this energetic display. This also included a low speed fly-by, similar to that of the black knights and the C-17.
Condensation on wings of the F-18
One more zoom and the F-18 was out of the area. The single aircraft performances are great, though maybe placing it after the grand group aerial display kinda raise the expectations.
F-16 Fighting Falcon "Viper"
Next in line was the Viper, a single-engined smaller aircraft. this was a single seater, as compared to most of the other display aircraft which had tandem seats. They are sleek aircraft, and can be installed with conformal fuel tanks on the upper fuselage to increase flight operational range. These look like permanent add ons to the aircraft, as compared to those bulky external underwing tanks.
If memory serves me correctly, I watched a documentary on the F-16. It has fly-by-wire controls. The control is more of a side stick, like Airbus' rather than the yokes of older aircrafts like the F-14. This aircraft apparently isn't aerodynamically fit. To put it to simpler terms, if you were to launch it into the air without any onboard computers, it will just spin out of control and crash. The computer makes tiny alterations to the flaps to prevent this from happening. Advanced stuff huh. This same type of computer compensation actually saved an F-22 Raptor from crashing, after it lost a part of its wing (or was it the vertical stabiliser).
The orange glow
Most of the moves are similar to the Rhino (sharp turns, high G ascends, knife edge, barrel rolls). Just included the photos of those which I missed with the Rhino.
Didn't expect to have to stop here for now. This is the end of the aerial display for the Singapore Airshow 2014. Will just cover a bit more of the indoor section before I officially close the Singapore Airshow Posts.
