Blue Angels arrive on Long Island, NY

Which airport are they operating out of?

 

Usually republic in Farmingdale

 

Where Fairchild, Grumman and Republic had factories... built thousands of planes...

 

Sweet!

 

Love the Blue Angels! I live on Pensacola Beach during the summer, which is right across from their home base and get to watch them practice a lot. Also, they have a big airshow every year over the island and one on base. The one over the island is crazy. Usually 150k people packed on a tiny strip of land for one day. Takes till early morning to get them all off.

They put on an awesome show.

 

I first saw them in San Juan when they were flying F-11 Tigers, but most times I've seen them over Lake Washington in Seattle during the hydroplane races - a very interesting venue which obviously requires special preparation, considering the surrounding hills and tall buildings not that far away.

 

I suppose that I will ruffle some feathers but I am one who has no love of the Blews. I have no count of how many airshows that we were in when the Blue Angles were also featured. Every show was marred by the little spoiled boys from the Navy who demanded one thing after another to control everything they could. One show in which we participated cancelled our act because it would have made the Blews start their show a few minutes later than they said that they would start. One show at Abottsford they sent their PR man up to the tower to change the schedule to suit their preferences. The tower operator literally escorted the Commander out of the tower and told him that they were not in charge of the show and that he , the Commander, would follow the scheduled show procedures. And thus it went on. The Thunder Birds were just the opposite, friendly and accommodating.

 

Some more thoughts. Every morning before the show there was always a pilot's briefing and the schedule was recounted. I don't ever remember when there was a representative from the Blews at those briefings. After all, they were a show unto themselves and were not a part of the other show so they didn't have to coordinate with anyone. One day before we were scheduled to perform our clown act my partner and I wanted a picture of our ratty clown plane in front of one of those blue airplanes. We dragged the Champ in front of one and a crew chief came roaring out and yelled for us to get away because " WE WERE NOT SOPHISTICATED." My partner, dressed in a filthy white set of coveralls and a bowler with the top blown open asked, " Now where the hell did you get the idea that we weren't sophisticated!" I had on a ragged suit of farmer's bibbed overalls that were half on and half off and this guy was coming apart to chase us away. I have written about it before where the Thunder Bird guys , who had never seen our act, were staged near us and they were very interested in wether our airplane was flyable or not and they were making bets amongst themselves. Stan Musser, a leader, came over and asked us if we were really going to fly the airplane and we assured him that it was just a prop. Another Thunder Bird came over later and asked the same question and we told him that , of course, we were going to fly. After we performed, Musser came over with a smile and said, " You guys just cost me 100 dollars." And that's the way it was. Every show thereafter they came over to say hi. Bob Hoover and Art Scholl always made contact with us in spite of our being "unsophisticated."
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I just upset the daylights out of myself when I realized that we first performed the original One Aileron Clown Act 52 years ago.