Used to see Air National Guard birds doing their stuff all the time back home, but heck, that was back in the sticks, not near anything, and not anwhere near a "populated" area.
Favorites I can recall were the day a flight of 4 F-105 Thuds came roaring past, not sure what the heck the leader was thinking, but he nosed down right before he crossed my grandparents house and went thru the top of a few of the pecan trees in the orchard there.........my old man floored it when he saw that, just knew we was gonna see a fireball soon.......when we got into some more open land, we saw the guy still flying, but he was trailing a lot of smoke. Guess he made it to a base, only thing we ever heard of it was a week or so later when the USAF made one of it's little tidbit stories, said a F-105 had ingested a bird and made a safe emergency landing afterwards.........
. Always did wonder how the pilot explained the leaves, branches, and raw pecans in his fuselage.....
Other one, a little more close, was after I was out of high school, working in the oilfield about 70 miles east of home.
Out in the mesquites, helping dig down on an old abandoned and plugged well, got tired of standing in water past my waist and climbed out. I look up and see...........
I know the guy was maybe 25-30 feet up, but I swear I thought he was gonna hit me, an F4 Phantom, and I just fell down.......looked up to see him cross between a radio relay tower and it's guy wires. The bastage had to reef the thing over 90 degrees onto his side to clear, but he did it and I was in awe......and a little pissed at the same time, too.....lol!
