I had the opportunity to see the '08 team at Charleston last month, and will see them again on successive weekends in Ft Worth and Atlanta later in the year. Awesome show, as always! I had a couple of questions though, that I wanted to put before you all.

During the engine start, Major Weeks a/c was streaming a white mist behind it. It seemed pretty obvious that it was fuel not smoke. (Unable to figure out how to insert image here). I was just beginning to wonder what would happen if...'WHUMP', and a big flash of flame out the back of the plane. From my vantage point, it looked like the engine DID start, but she shut her down and went to the back up a/c (complete with the #5 decal of course).

My question is: What is that called when a plane backfires like that on an engine start? Does it pose significant threat of engine or structural damage that would warrant the pilot going to the backup a/c, other than just to be 100% safe? She flew out #5 the next morning with the rest of the team, burners and all.

Also, is there any ceremonial significance to the two ground crewmen positioning themselves behind the a/c while the others stood in front as their charges taxied out? (Ditto on the image posting here) It seemed almost humiliating.

OK, here are the two images, the first being a rather poor representation of the mist streaming from TB#5, and the second of the two crewmen positioned behind #5 just prior to taxi.

The 'mist' was most likely smoke (not the smoke system) from an over temparture condition, which from what you describe sounds like a Engine Hot Start. The internal temperature of the engine exceeded the limit for a certain time period (I don't know the numbers on the F-16).

I am just guessing here.

We get lots of smoke out the back of the Embraer on hung starts, or when the turbine is slow to spool up such as starting with a stiff tailwind up the pipe. On hot starts there's usually a smoke plume thrown out the back (sometimes flame), but not prolonged. A hung start typically has billowing smoke pouring out the back. She probably had an abnormal start of some kind, but that doesn't mean the engine or anything was necessarily broken. She probably just couldn't get a light off to occur...

I'm not sure about the crew cheifs standing behind the jet, that's a good question