The Blues

Then and now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnMZQATbenM

 

Thanks for that, Jim. I can say that I saw the BA's when they were flying F6's, F8's, F-9 Tigers, and all the rest. They are good and fun to watch but our experiences when they performed in the same shows as we did were not fun. They always caused some kind of trouble with their elitism and uppity demands. I don't remember seeing any of them at pilot's briefings or performer's gatherings after the shows. The Thunderbirds were just the opposite.

 

I was thinking about our last show in which the Blues flew. We were dragging the clown plane out to the showline and passed the Blues line up so we thought that it would be nice to take a picture of our steed next to one of the Blue's mounts. As we neared the sacred ground a crew chief ran out waving his arms and yelling, " GET BACK GET BACK!" My partner asked what was wrong and the mechanic said that "We weren't proper or sophisticated!." Standing there in a grease stained paint splattered pair of coveralls that were once white and wearing a bowler with the lid blown open, he asked," Now where the hell did you get the idea that we weren't SOPHISTICATED?"

 

Bob, I hope this is in the book……...

 

I saw the Blue Angels in F-11 Tigers while living in Puerto Rico in the '60s. Once they actually did their show at SJU - imagine shutting down a significant airline airport for an airshow! I watched from the Pan Am Clipper Club, where my dad had a friend who was a member.

(I also saw the Thunderbirds flying F-100s while in P.R.)

 

Thanks, it is in the book and I can expect to get in trouble with my other comments about our Blue's experiences.
We are proofing the book next week prior to releasing it for publication. Price will be 20.00 and should be available in no more than three weeks. Amazon and Kindle will carry it. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Can't wait! Super excited for you!

 

THEY ARE GREAT,THEY ONLY MISSED A GREAT PLANE TO USE,,THE ''F-14 TOMCAT''

 

The F-14 used too much airspace when doing aerobatics. Plus they were very expensive to operate.

 

The F-14 would have worked at least as well as the F-4 Phantom, though they obviously would have had to lock the variable-geometry wings in a particular position while doing formation maneuvers.

The F-4 era was noteworthy because both they and the Thunderbirds were flying versions of the same aircraft, which hadn't happened before. At some point in the future, I expect that to happen again with the F-35.

 

I grew up in the pattern of NAS Alameda and remember seeing the Blue Angles perform there in the F4's. They billed themselves as "The Loudest Airshow on Earth" and boy they were. During Viet Nam NAS Alameda was a very busy repair center. Between the engine test cells that displaced most of the noise into the foot hills and the constant overflights of F4's A4's, A6's and F8's it was a noisy place. A friend in later years was a shipmate of Mcains on the Forrestfire. He was reassigned to Alameda after the fire. He wound up being a maintenance test pilot there. He said it was the best Navy job he ever had.

 

Jim- The F-14 had both manual and automatic wing sweep selectable. Either way it would not have made any difference in formation since the air data computer would have been seeing the same information for the wing sweep.

 

F-18s were perfect at the Houston air show a week ago..,,,

 

Read (somewhere) that it takes an average of 8 hours of maintenance per 1 hour of flight time to keep the F-14 in the air.

 

Friend got us VIP passes to meet Blues & see there show

Excellent Men, my son had a great time
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H- Your photo deappled. Cute kid and I like the little Navy flight jacket.
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Found this pic of us shortly after we insulted the Blues mechanic.
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Wife's uncle founded them: Roy "Butch" Voris. Had some great stories.

Art

 

Just saw them last weekend here in Pensacola. I grew up watching them practice all the time and it's still amazing every time they roar overhead.

 

E

 

ya,but it still would have been cool