US 31st Fighter Wing from Aviano to do a solidarity flyover in ... over my house!

These seem to be spreading ...

For me this is very out of the ordinary around here, at least in this particular area, the training grounds are at the other south-western side of the country, and the last time there was a little glimpse of an F-16 in my city was at least more than ten years ago and I don't know whether the other ones were A-10C bit I remember the shape looked like it, that did flew over my house when there was an airshow but I don't remember, perhaps someone knows if US keeps A-10Cs anywhere close here in an Italian base (well if they were used in Balkan wars then I guess they do) ... the last time I heard of F-16s in our airspace is in some aircraft escort/intercept once ago, but then again I'm not at all up to speed of the US air operations around here.

https://www.aviano.af.mil/News/Press-Releases/Article/2201184/f-16-fighting-falcons-gratitude-and-solidarity-flyover/

https://www.rtvslo.si/slovenija/slovenijo-bodo-preleteli-lovci-f-16-in-pilatusi-v-zahvalo-borcem-proti-epidemiji/525675

F-16 Fighting Falcons gratitude and solidarity flyover

 

Six F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 31st Fighter Wing, Aviano Air Base, Italy, will conduct a flyover into the Slovenian region around Ljubljana June 1, 2020.

 

The flyover is a salute and thank you to all healthcare workers, first responders, and other essential personnel working on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19.

 

...

 

Upon entering Slovenia airspace, fighter jets from the Slovenian Armed Forces will join the six-ship U.S. formation to fly the following route toward Ljubljana before returning to Italy. The flyover formation should begin at 1:15 p.m.

https://english.sta.si/2770045/flypast-by-fighter-jets-as-thank-you-to-emergency-workers

Three Slovenian Pilatus PC-9 will be joined by for the six American F-16 fighters, taking off from Aviano air base in Italy, will join up around Jesenice in the west just after 1pm and then fly a loop over the entire country east and then back west.

 

The flypast will be in two echelons a mile apart at an altitude of about 1,200 metres and a speed of 425 km/h.

Let's see if I can catch them on my cam and see how many external fuel tanks they'll be having or other interesting things that I don't know about right now that I could look for. Perhaps they will have smoke generators too.

I don't know what the forum's opinion on these flights are, I'm mainly taking this as my own aviation thing no matter the background, the mainstream news comments are mixed with "accidential weapon release" to "video taping us from above" but hah I do not expect them having weapons loaded at all , nor a tracking pod, so there's probably no worries there right, and there's one big city even more to the east that got cut out of this plan, perhaps it was a fuel issue, I should look up the numbers a bit on F-16, but since the props are escorting maybe it's their fuel issue.

So they were armed ... ??? With AA for self defense I guess, normal procedure ?

And the targeing pod? Hah I was way off.

https://www.24ur.com/novice/korona/prelet-za-zmago-nad-koronavirusom-425-kmh-nad-vecjimi-mesti-bolnisnicami-in-dso-ji.html

So they were armed ... ??? With AA for self defense I guess, normal procedure ?

Training missile, note the blue bands painted on them. ( I was not sure if you where joking about that or if that is what you meant when you wrote you where way off)

Well I thought I was way off predicting they won't have anything besides the fuel tanks.

Then we see I wasn't that far off after all :) Thanks.

I was also way off picking my sighting location, I should have moved inward into the city but I picked the wrong farmland to the edge of the city so my pictures are a bit useless but I did see them with binoculars for a while, the sound was obviously the main thing I got out of this, that was cool.

There's a video shot from the prop plane which I found interesting and unique and I can't find the source of it to reupload it here, since the commercial site that hosted it is riddled with ad-walls, I downloaded it with one but the video wasn't valid. I might do it later.

Oh, the news reported one of the F-16's left the formation early due to "unexpected higher fuel consumption" ... did they forget to fill one external tank to full or what hehehe?