300 knots at 3 feet...

Thank god for the velocity vector.

IAMONE: Didn't see any kinda altimeter on the HUD. Wonder if it would even work a couple feet off the ground.

Huh? Altimeter is the box on the right side. Even better is the radar altimeter, which is a smaller box just above the data block on the lower right side, which measure altitude above ground. The little flashing "R" next to it is flashing because it's not getting reliable radar alt data when it's going over the trees or when the airplane rolls (and the radar alt is pointed at the sky).

spacemanjones: Kind of. Im not saying I dont think its impressive, I'm just not sure why. Does it get harder to fly a plane at lower altitudes? Do plane not want to fly in a straight line?
Actual curiosity on physically what happens.

It's not necessarily harder, there's just less room for error.

Air behaves like a fluid in three dimensions - at 3 feet off the ground, it doesn't take but a slight displacement to ruin your day. The good news is that in a fighter or trainer, the wing loading is very high, so turbulence and smaller amounts of displacement don't affect you as much.

However, within a wing span of the ground, you're in ground effect, which actually reduces drag. That doesn't seem like a problem until you consider the plane has been trimmed to fly at a certain attitude and speed (i.e. the control forces are in equilibrium at said speed and attitdue). When you're diving for the deck, and accelerating, those control forces are going to change drastically, then once again as you enter ground effect. One screw up in stick pressure, one change in wind could have easily killed everybody there.

Plus there are birds down close to the ground - shiat a robin could have done them all in.

spacemanjones: Can someone tell me why this is so impressive? Just fly the plane low and dont hit the ground. Why is this a difficult thing?

In case you are being serious, the difference between hitting the ground in an attack jet flying at 350kts and an alt of 3 feet, thereby killing yourself and all of those poor bastards in front of you, and getting away clean is about 1/10,000 of an ounce of pressure on the stick. And even if you nail it, a bad gust of wind could easily roll a wingtip into the ground. This guy is not good, he's stupid and dangerous.

spacemanjones: Can someone tell me why this is so impressive? Just fly the plane low and dont hit the ground. Why is this a difficult thing?