Former Thunderbird "Mace" Curran Breaks Down 2020 Near Midair with Helicopter
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- čas přidán 27. 02. 2024
- Former Thunderbird Mace Curran joins Mover and Gonky to break down the 2020 incident involving a near midair with the USAF Thunderbirds and a helicopter. Mover, Gonky, and Mace discuss recent news of Russia's plans to use nuclear/EMP weapons against satellites. Join the channel to watch LIVE every Monday at 8PM ET or to see full episodes of The Mover and Gonky Show. You can also join in on LIVE Q&As with the Mover Mailbag: / @cwlemoine Monday at 8PM ET, Mover (F-16, F/A-18, T-38, 737, helicopter pilot, author, cop, and wanna be race car driver) and Gonky (F/A-18, T-38, A320, dirt bike racer, author, and awesome dad) discuss everything from aviation to racing to life and anything in between. Featuring guest host Mace Curran: Mace was the second woman ever to fly in the lead solo position since the team began in 1953. She’s currently a motivational speaker, empowering others to face their fears and excel under pressure with “Upside Down Dreams.” You can learn more on her website: www.macecurran.com
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The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.
Views presented are my own and do not represent the views of DoD or its Components.
The snark in that "Yeah, me too."
As stressful as it was, we still thank you for that. Our flyover was on my daughter's birthday, and she was absolutely thrilled that "Daddy made that happen" for her.
That’s awesome lol…. Never let her think otherwise
Man that’s awesome! Nothing beats when my kids bring up core memories of things, some I don’t even remember, and you can hear how much they look up to you.
@@cmartins187I love the idea of a core memory. My daughter is 4 now and I’m hoping that some of the things I put effort into are remembered forever, but I also realize that I don’t remember anything from when I was 4, so I think what I’ve been creating all along was core memories just for me.
That “Me too!” Has me rolling haha
I never considered how stressful those flights were. Thank you so much for doing these, I know it made a positive impact on myself and so many others.
wow, this was awesome...i think most everyone who loves aviation have seen that video but wow, to have a pilot that was actually flying in it and hear her explain it is what sets this channel at the top, you guys are awesome, please don't ever stop and bring Mace back more
I was one of the GA pilots that had the idea of going flying with a chance to see the formation fly through my area. I called the local tower to see if they knew the exact routes and altitudes that would be used. They didnt know. I called the Denver ARTCC, and they didnt know. Denver controllers didnt know either. Ultimately I decided to stay on the ground since I didnt have firm info on altitudes and I didnt want to be staring down a six ship of Vipers opposite direction. Still saw the flyover from the ground, and it was much appreciated and enjoyed.
I hadn't heard about that near midair until watching this, crazy.
Mace is really a great addition. Another great guest
I remember that day when the Thunderbirds flew over San Diego.
We were at Kyocera Montgomery Field near Miramar and we all stopped work to watch the formation.
Didn't hear there was a near miss until this program.
We also video the whole fly including the #8 trailer outside the formation.
It's a day I'll never forget and I've been to a number of airshows and served.
Thank everyone for your service no matter your job.
Only together can we stand strong.
Semper Fi
Mace and C.W. are two of my favorite social media people, awesome to see them on the same pod.
What about Gonky? What an awesome genuine dude!
I'd like to thank both the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds for those magnificent flyovers.
I was at Manassas airport in VA when you came by that morning. Drove near two hours to get to the perfect spot. There was a good-sized crowd out there. The sky was near perfect that day. I was the first one to spot you all. Three O'clock, level, making a wide sweep to the left. Came right over my position as you departed over the south end of the runways heading northeast. Even though I was in my late 50s at the time and had spent part of my life maintaining F14s and had gone to who knows how many airshows, for a few minutes I was as breathless as a little kid. Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
I remember when you guys were doing hospital flyovers. I was at Saddleback Memorial Hospital in Orange County California. We were having a rough day on the ambulance (a rough year tbh) and you guys flying over was such a morale boost. Thank you for doing that.
7 hours?!? That's crazy.
No doubt. Insane to maintain that level of focus for that long.
As a retired Airman, body messed up since’79, I was moved to tears to see the Two apex demo teams ever flying together. And now, understanding just how hard and dangerous they were, I appreciate it all that much more!
Great respect for the 'birds doing the flyovers in that tempo. The Wing King made the right call.
Thanks to you three. Another great debrief.
USAF Ret. Crew Chief/Flying crewmember
I've been waiting for this for years now. Thanks for sharing!
Heard the stir-the-pot idea in T-38s, also did it when slowing to gear/flap speed on inside downwind. Seemed to work, but that was a long time ago to recall the details.
Had no idea how dangerous those flyover missions were. Thank you very much. Sure do appreciate it!!!
MACE is awesome.
Mover….. fire up your production skills and write up a documentary on MACE.
Appreciate the breakdown of the dangers faced. Mucho respect.
The three of you together are pretty awesome. Time to get Mace into DCS!
That was awsome hearing it from one of the pilots. I live just north of L A and saw it live on the news Never knew it was a helicopter in the flight path that caused that. Love the Thunderbirds Former AF guy here. 👍🇺🇸
Thank you for this. I’ve always wanted to hear someone from the t birds talk about this. I remember watching it live
Impressive how quickly he came back to formation.
Thanks for this one.👍🏾. This was the one I wanted to hear from Mace about when I watch one of the other interviews. When this happened, I thought it was Mace and gave her all the credit. Sorry Gumbo.😂 Gumbo did a hell of a job rejoining formation so quick and smooth.👍🏾
I was one of those people photographing you Mace, in Colorado April 2020. Cool to see, glad everything turned out safe for you.
Any video with Mover and Mace together is bound to be good.
She's a badassed pilot.
Just catching this video now. Wow just The podcast and talk about it here the anxiety going, never mind actually being there and flying it. Well done.
Love Mover and Gonky!!! I learn and laugh so much!!
Caught the Blue Angels during the Houston flyover. Had no idea it was as difficult as it was. Grateful to them and our Thunderbirds for all their hard work on that. We needed it that year.
I seem to call a similar incident that happened at an airshow that I attended in Langley in 2011 with the Thunderbirds. The Thunderbirds were ready for takeoff. Departure left of center, and there were two news helicopters taking pictures. And they absolutely would not leave the flightpath for the Thunderbirds to takeoff so we had to wait. I think it was like 10 minutes or something like that if I’m recalling correctly before the helicopters left the flightpath. I was sitting directly behind the Thunderbirds. All that was separating us was the fence.
I like Mover's formation call 😂😂😂
Man I remember going out to watch the Deltas in the DC Area. It was awesome. I'm an Air Force brat, so I've been going to airshows to see the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels since I was a kid. Its always awesome and inspiring to watch them.
That was very interesting! Cudos to all pilots for quickly overcome the startle!
I saw them in the two group formation heading South just East of BWI airport. It was very cool. Thanks for that!!
MACE... A wonderful pilot and speaker! Thumbs up!
I remember watching this live on TV and wondering what happened. They were supposed to fly over the town I was in later that day, but it didn't happen, and we didn't know why at the time. They did do one more flight that day but they didn't fly the previously announced path (we saw the formation way off on the horizon). Apparently it was because of this incident earlier in the day.
I still think "Thunderbird" is an even better nickname for Mace. At least for us Europeans. ⚡🦅😁💪
Mace been one of my all time favs for a while
I was in San Diego and at KSEE and they flew over. I still have the video along with comms from the Birds and the Tower. Super cool.
Insightful perspective from Mace, cool vid. Saw this formation and flight from Signal Hill right next to KLGB.
So, I got to meet Nicole Malachowski many years ago (got her to autograph a photo for me) and I just wanted to say thanks Mace for your service and thanks for doing these flyovers. I live in Vegas (home of the Thunderbirds), so I got to see Mace quite a few times.
I watched that live on TV and have seen the T-Birds in person several times. The most impressive thing to me was how quickly #6 was able to rejoin after getting thrown out of formation
Thanks
I will pile on and say THANK YOU to Mace as well as the Blues. I had assumed you would fly a much looser formation in transit.
Mace, I hope your back/neck issues are healed.
In the early 90s I got a clearance to cross an Airport Traffic Area (now Class D) with the comment "Watch out for the Thunderbirds". Quite a treat to see the show (practice on that day) from the air.
Mace is real rad to listen to!
The thunderbirds and blue angels are flying together this week in El Centro. Amazing insight. This is the first detailed commentary I’ve heard from that mission. I am not surprised there was near contact. Drones are a big deal as well. Thanks you.
Mace is a freaking ROCKSTAR!
Nice seeing Mace on
some heroic airplane drivin !
Good stuff!!! I remember that.. 😎
Thanks Mace, had no idea the level of sh!t-show those sorties entailed. Kudos to the Wing King for calling King's-X on the chaos, it's great to have top-cover for such a tough-to-make call. When I took my Multi Engine checkride the Blues were doing this type of flyby overhead and I was stuck at the hold line while the evaluator took that time to play stump-the-dummy with me. Joy.
Mace is so damn cool! I remember when this happened, but it was great to get that prospective from Mace. Thanks for the video.
It's so refreshing to see an pilot for the Thunderbirds say that a publicly facing mission like the 7 hour flyover of US cities sucks, instead of the PR bullshit they spun it as. Yes it was incredible and I imagine the public loved it; I was there in Philly watching both the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds work their magic, but to now understand just how much of a shitshow it was for the pilots is an insight I never thought I'd appreciate so much. Thank you Mace for all you did. Sorry the cessnas, birds, tankers, and time was so tough to deal with .
Voice over oh xxxx would have been great. Thx Mace et all for great debrief.
The flyovers made me feel that at least someone knew the pandemic was serious and gave me hope that things were being done.
Gotta love the reaction speed that the F-16 is capable of! Daaaaaaang! 🤟🏽🤟🏽👍🏽👍🏽
What a sight for me to see the U.S. Thunderbirds make the turn at Disneyland in the Delta formation and then fly right over my house heading out to Riverside! #7 had smoke on to make for some fantastic photos, too! What a great day! Thanks for explaining this 2020 incident. I always wondered why you broke formation!
I remember them flying over here in Fresno when they were doing the California stretch
Great vid. How did Mace get her callsign ?
I'd like to think some cadet was hitting on her so she gave him a shot of pepper spray.
Insane traffic!
Oh shit ready now
Mace and Dozen were my favorite TBirds .
I’d love to hear Mace’s thoughts on the near miss from Orlando last year.
To this day, those flyovers are still rhe only Thunderbirds sighting my nephew has had. I vow to change that this season.
More Mace!
I remember watching this live it was definitely a pucker factor of x10,000 😳.
I appreciate you all. I got to see the Thunderbirds and Blues fly over Bethesda- Navy Med..
That being said, I am shocked that there was not a TFR in place for these flyovers. As a pilot, I thought there would have been for each of the flyovers. I hate to say it but, in my opinion, someone higher up dropped the ball with that and it nearly caused a tragedy- should have been a TFR for at least the area of formation flying.
Thank you for all you do and did during that time. As ridiculous as it seems today, it was tough for us all then. Thank you.
That looked like a code brown moment.
During the summer of 2020, a buddy and I were working the COVID unit at a med center hospital, basically the powers that be segregated us one tiny office by Fannin so that if we got sick, none of the other docs would. The one benefit was that when the Blue Angels did their morale flyby, we had a vantage point from a 4th floor window facing their route. So I'm trying to raise the window shade and figure out how we can squat to look UP at the airplanes, and around that time I become aware of an object passing by BELOW us. I pressed my face against the glass to barely glimpse the back end of a 4 ship flying off. That window was maybe 100 feet off the ground and that street is 3 lanes each way with a 2 lane light rail in the middle....maybe 120 yards between two continuous rows of tall buildings.
That was one of the craziest things that I've ever seen.
During an exercise on my final deployment (pretty sure it was Valiant Shield) an F/A-18 from the carrier almost hit our SH-60B. I can understand this being more of an issue over civilian airspace with the potential for some rando just hanging out in a helicopter, but from my perspective it is inexcusable out over the water in airspace under military control. Someone majorly dropped the ball. I saw the pilot in the p-way afterwards and asked what the expression on the F/A-18 pilot's face was like. She said that his visor was down but, and I quote, "....I'm pretty sure it was the expression of a douchebag." I'll never forget the way she said this!🤣🤣
ANG wings were also doing 2 and 4 ship flyovers at this time. Makes me wonder if they had similar issues during their flyovers.
I watched this exact part of the fly over live and don't remember catching the formation break, might have been looking away for a moment. They passed over the office I was working at maybe 15 seconds later on Balboa Island
I have literally worked for an airline company but have never ever been on a Plane. Lol these days i see so much crap happenig with crashes and how people act online in videos when flying. Doesnt make me feel safe 😂.n i dont want to be on an airliner full of crazy people .but i think inwould fly with some one like her. Her personality and way she comes off. She seem extreamly professonal .even when they joke she smiles but keeps it chill like yea its funny but back to what we doing here. I get the feel shes very good with every thing she does when comes to flying .u can tell she has a real passion for it .she dont seem like a corner cut kind of person.
Mace is ridiculously cool
I’m a photographer in Newport Beach (the city in the background of this video), I was shooting this flyby from a park in Newport and was always wondering why it looked like such a strange formation. Now I know:)
Where I worked we got a flyover from a pair of C-130s out Mansfield.
I walked outside and heard a loud noise off in the distance and couldn't see anything for the trees. I kept watching and it ended up being the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds way off in the distance. They had just flown over the hospital in Newnan, GA. When I saw them they weren't over anything important, but they were still in tight formation. That blew my mind. That's when I figured out that they never really broke formation to get from one spot to the next. That's intense!
It's the fighter pilot's curse: Thou shalt not be seen looking bad
Does Mace have a poster I can put on my wall? Also, are there any Thunderbird pilots still active on the team who would have flown for the squad in 2008-2009? Thanks 🤘
Code brown! In cadence!
I almost had a mid air with a helicopter when I was practicing simulated engine failures with my instructor in a Cessna. The helicopter was on the wrong frequency for the area and had the wrong charts. It was a forestry helicopter too.
The coolest humans alive. Fighter pilots
settle down.
Awesome to hear from the source what happened on that flight. Amazing all of the things most people don't realize go into formation fliying.
I'm going to be a turbo nerd here but how does the radar work with all that paint? From what I'd read before, the paint interferes with the radar and that's why (along with the 72-hr time to get them combat ready) I thought that they didn't fly with them onboard
I saw the flyover in Colorado Springs. We got a second pass
Would ❤ to hear the comms
I'm really surprised there wasn't a TFR corridor established for these flights, just like 4 miles wide 0-2000 AGL along the planned path. Would have been a long one but avoidable for GA planes.
So, i'm never going to be able to watch these live when they are aired. Given that, is there any way to actually watch this full video? I joined for the $1/month - but between videos/lives/podcasts, I don't actually see how to watch this. Please advise.
You can watch the full videos in the members section.
TYVM @@CWLemoine
Oh, hey, if Mace was far left in that America Strong stuff she flew right over my house (I was the idiot standing on his roof just in case you did on the way into Austin. Remember me?)
I had lapsed a bit on my USAF tail-code lore at the time and remember thinking "Why the hell is the Washington ANG flying chase?"
"No more flyovers, kids. The helicopter messed it up for everyone"
I’m just an amateur, but I’m thinking that it ended up looking so dramatic because in that 6-ship bank to the left, the far left jet goes low and the far right goes high. When they all suddenly rolled individually back to wings level, following lead, it left the pilot on the far right going high and into the formation. An immediate roll to the right was needed which put the formation out of sight of that pilot. Thus the “drastic” looking maneuver. That pilot probably lost sight of the formation and so made a for-certain separation from the formation before rolling back to regain visual and rejoin. Right? Or so I think.
I thought the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels performed within a 5-mile radius, essentially “no fly zone”. Or was this just a fly by?
Oh, during pandemic. Okay.
“Okay, I think we’re done.” Good call!! I’m glad it all went ok. Excellent job!!
Poor number 3 was stuck in the middle! New flight suit time!
I noticed in a photo the other day that she was in a jet with "Candy" on the cockpit where you would typically see her call sign. ?
Probably flying somebody else's plane. That happens a lot more often than not.
I remember this. I loved it when I heard them flying by. Then I also remember that one nurse that came on the news and complained about the fly overs saying they are wasting money and we don’t need that now. Can’t enjoy anything without someone having a fit.
Unfortunately this is the same year Canada lost a snowbird to a bird strike engine failure
Everybody stir the pot on the "S" in "oh shit"
Great video, however Mace was probably wrong about the tankers in the wrong place, Mace and team were probably early to or late arriving, just the opinion of the son of a KC-135A pilot! lol
Wanted to hear the answer to the question about the Snowbirds that was cutoff at the end
watch the live it’s on the channel
This is an excerpt from a longer podcast. If you watch all the other excerpts, you may see it on those. The entire podcast is available on Gonky's channel.