”Heritage flights” are just about the coolest single thing that the United States Air Force takes part in: assemble a few fighter aircraft from different generations and fly them in a very tight formation over a crowd, usually set to inspiring music. Obviously, they’re designed to fill our hearts with patriotism and love for the military, which is about as politically charged as it gets — but if you can emotionally separate the political goal from the cool factor, watching an F-22 Raptor share the sky just feet away from a World War II-era P-51 Mustang or P-38 Lightning is intensely amazing.
Watch an incredible 360-degree video of a F-22 Raptor flying in formation with a P-51 Mustang
The Air Force conducts heritage flights at airshows on a regular basis, but I’ve never seen it from this vantage point: using YouTube’s 360-degree camera support, you’re sitting inside the cockpit of a P-51 with an F-22 just off the wing. Using your mouse (or your finger, if you’re on a phone), you can look around in every direction. A flight in a vintage P-51 can cost thousands of dollars — most of us will never have a chance to do it — and the odds of ever participating in something like this are practically nil. Watch and enjoy.
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