Veterans Day with the Blue Angels
God bless air shows. Nothing else combines raw power, ear-splitting noise, and mind-blowing precision — all wrapped in titanium balls of pluck — like an American air show.
Who in their right mind would joystick a 12-ton jet propelled by 36,000 pounds of thrust just a few hundred feet above the ground, and execute flips, tumbles, and loops? What kind of disorder does it take to maneuver that jet in formation with just 18 inches separating wingtips?
This year, the 2011 Blue Angels Homecoming Air Show landed on Veterans Day. Every year the Blue Angels — the Navy’s flight demonstration team — caps its annual show schedule with a finale at Naval Air Station Pensacola, its home base.
Established by Admiral Chester Nimitz in 1946 and allegedly named after the Blue Angel nightclub in New York City, the Blue Angels ride the leading edge of aviator virtuosity. If naval aviators are the cream of all flyboys — and anyone who regularly crash-lands a 12-ton fighter on a moving carrier qualifies as cream — then a Blue Angel is the top one percent of that cream.
Example: the Blue Angels don’t wear G-suits, which help jet pilots absorb rapid acceleration forces without blacking out. The suit’s inflating and deflating air bladders interfere with the pilots control during precision maneuvers. So Blue Angels pilots, who have flown the F/A-18 Hornet since 1986, must anticipate these forces and combat them with muscle contractions.
This year’s Homecoming exhibition not only commemorated the 65th anniversary of the Blue Angels, it marked the 100th anniversary of naval aviation itself. On January 18, 1911, aviation pioneer Eugene Burton Ely flew his Curtiss pusher biplane from an airfield at the Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California, and landed it on a platform affixed to the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay. Ely’s flight was the first successful shipboard landing, and the first ever to use a tailhook system. A replica of the Ely’s pusher biplane, which sputtered around the Pensacola airfield at 55 miles per hour, made an appearance at this year’s homecoming.
In addition to tumbling Stearman biplanes and performances by World War II warbirds, the show featured an aerial acrobatic display by the A-10 Thunderbolt aka Warthog. The Warthog is Essentially a 30mm rotary cannon wrapped in a jet, a design focused on interdicting Soviet tanks in Western Europe. It was slated for decommissioning in the early 1990s until Saddam Hussein intervened to save it by invading Kuwait.
Introduced in 1977 and deployed in combat for the first time during Desert Storm, the Warthog wiped out 900 Iraqi tanks and thousands of military vehicles and artillery pieces. It’s been a staple in the U.S. Air Force arsenal ever since. The Warthog is expected to stick around until 2028.
Nice shots. Every air show I have ever attended has drawn a tear from me while I stood there watching in complete awe. This is real America unlike what the left protrays as their America-i.e. OWS, Che shirts, crony capitalism and cradle to grave government largesse.
To think that the Blue Angel’s pilots and the other demonstration pilots have flown in combat to protect our nation and us is the epitome of heroism and patriotism.
As for eventually having to pay for their performance-not a problem.
great post. I saw the Blue Angels the week before this show at Randolph AFB in San Antonio. Helluva great show. I got to shake hands with one of the Doolittle Raiders and take the kids through some great USAF cargo planes–c130, C5 and C17. They also got to look into the bomb bay of the B1. A great show and the Blue Angels are an extraordinary crew of professionals in every way. Loved it.
Even with budget cuts, the Blue Angels aren’t likely to be going anywhere. They’ve been the Navy’s best recruitment tool for years. Although, with the repeal of DADT, they may be forced to paint one pink.
Rather miss my office at an old job at MCAS Beaufort. Windows facing an F/A-18 flight line. Best view of any civilian job I’ve ever had. Sure, it could get a little noisy…but it was good noise.
I was stationed at MCAS Bft 1999-2003. I too miss the sound of Hornets spooling up. There was a sign, on the approach to the main gate I think, that said “the sound of freedom”. Said sound was distracting as hell on Parris Island.
That’s about the timeframe I was there as well, over in the NADEP area.