re: On the other hand...
How can something like that sneak up on somebody
ROFLMAO! Well Tom, isn't that the whole point of a B-1B? On the deck, real damned fast? If I recall right that bird can do over Mach 1 on the deck and deploy its munitions load. (to damned lazy to look right now)
Had a cruise missile test flight near Alamagordo do the same thing to me back in the early eighties. Keeeeeerist I must have jumped six feet straight up, from a flat footed start.
The 'escort' laughed his a** off at our reaction. He didn't even twitch.