One of my books (I can’t remember which one) said the A-7 had a ‘particularly sinister reputation.’
Blue Angels performing at Marine Corps Base Kaneohe, HI this weekend. I got to see the military and family show Friday from the golf course. WOW, didn’t distract from my game.
lots of zoomies and then just falling from the sky before reaccelerating. The classic upside down pancake first with two then three planes. Two planes did a slow walk, using thrust to maintain altitude and just crawl forward for 20+ seconds, hadn’t seen that before.
Fat Amy put on a show too. She’s damn quiet with those scimitar props. Snuck up on us twice so fast I couldn’t get the phone out.
Loud too. Kaneohe bay is a natural amphitheater with lots of valleys to blast through.
Attempting single engine around the world at 15. Despite having a support pilot….pretty damn impressive.
It’s Fat Albert. Sadly they stopped doing the JATO launches after 2009. I always looked forward to that.
Albert/faceplant.
Albert faceplanted & got hurt, Amy stepped up to replace him. 
I’m just bemused to realize I didn’t know the Blue Angels had retired the original C-130T Fat Albert and replaced it with a C-130J a few years back.
Ditto. Looking up the J model they’re designed to compensate for the old JATO launch system so they’re not even equipped for them. So I’ll add that to the list of major aircraft I’ll never see again at airshows.
- F-4 Thunderbirds & Blue Angels
- SR-71
- F-117
- Fat Albert JATO launch.
- Concorde
- Martin Mars water drop
There may be more. Definitely many smaller planes on the list.
I’ve seen the Blue Angels perform in the F-11F Tiger, F-4, A-4, F/A-18A, and F/A-18E,
I’ve seen the T-Birds perform in the F-100, the F-105, the F-4, the T-38, The F-16A, and the F-16C. They flew the F-105 only a small bit of one season so I was lucky to see that fleet.
The F-11F Tigers were too early for me, but I think I may have had a four-plane 1/72 Blue Angels model kit when I was a kid. I remember the Phantoms. I’d broken my arm, and I couldn’t block my right ear at an airshow at NAS Miramar.
I’m sure I saw the Thunderbirds flying the Phantoms, but I don’t have a clear memory.
I really loved the Blue Angels’ A-4 Skyhawks and the Thunderbirds’ T-38 Talons. The F/A-18s just seemed ‘slower’ than the Skyhawks because they are so much larger. IMO, the Skyhawks put on a better show. (I know the point is to show off the ‘latest and greatest’, rather than to use the best aircraft for excitement, and that it doesn’t make sense to use out-of-service aircraft. Nevertheless, the Skyhawks were the best.) The Thunderbirds’ F-16s are not that much bigger than the Talons, but I just like T-38s. If I were a multi-millionaire, my jet warbird would be a T-38. FWIW, I think the Blue Angels put on a better show than the Thunderbirds. First, I’m a Navy brat. Second, I always loved the Blue Angels’ ‘sneak’ maneuver where they distract the audience with something in the foreground and then have a plane make a high-speed pass from behind.
I’m old enough that I saw them perform in F-11Fs. But I was a kid and don’t remember much about the show. On the other hand, as an adult I saw them perform their low show in Skyhawks under an overcast at Corvallis, Oregon in 1980-ish. Great show! My all time favorite performance. And I agree, the A-4 put on the best show of all of their mounts.
And I had the four plane Blue Angels kit as a kid too.
Hehehe, when I was a kid watching planes fly from/to DFW, Fat Albert meant an orange Braniff 747.
The 747 happened to come along at the same time as Bill Cosby with his Fat Albert character. I always thought the term referred to 747s in general.
Well, a friend of mine’s mom worked for Braniff, she only referred to the orange ones as Fat Albert.
Interesting thread subject. Got a couple of Braniff-related stories to share.
In a strange coincidence, both my boss and my uncle flew for Braniff. Both had flown the Calder 727 on various routes. Both of them said that airplane was “bent” (their words), and frustratingly difficult to trim.
When the 747 was new, my uncle was on a re-positioning flight in it. He was allowed to bring his 2 grade-school kids along for the ride (things were different back then). So the kids got to ride in an empty 747 cabin for a few hours. As a joke, they hid somehow after arrival and it took the crew a while to hunt them down.
On another aviation subject:
I was at Oshkosh a few weeks ago and got a close look at the Toyota/Joby eVTOL.
According to the presenter/salesman, they are working with the FAA to define a new class for it, since it doesn’t really fit in the current powered-lift category as it is now. Apparently it will have so much automation that pilot training will be different enough to place it in its own class. If I understood correctly, it will have stability similarities to recreational drones, and will be much easier to operate than current rotorcraft/powered-lift aircraft. Disclaimer: he was talking to several of us at once, and I could have misunderstood.
I spent quite a bit of time in the “e-plane” displays, and an electric tilt-rotor for personal/passenger use was the most fascinating of the group.
There were a few 2-seat electric planes there, roughly the size of a Cessna 150. The pilots said they were weirdly quiet while taxiiing, but almost as noisy in flight as their ICE counterparts. I guess the wind is responsible for more noise than we realize.
I wonder how the Scots will pronounce ‘Joby’? 
So we’re hacking around Mamala Bay golf course today surrounded by Honolulu - Joint base Pearl Harbor - Hickam airport. A U-2 is an early highlight around 9am. Then a number of sorties of F-22s throughout the morning into the afternoon … then … a Boeing 747, all white, with no name AND no number to trace. ??? I’ll upload pictures later. Any ideas?
It’s common to paint an aircraft all white (“a white tail” aircraft) when it’s not in operation and not listed on any registry. It may be in an airworthy state in terms of maintenance, but would need to add registration numbers to operate (there are ways to do this with temporary decals, like for a test or relocation/ferry flight).
The registration can change over an aircrafts lifetime. The actual “name” of the aircraft will be the manufacturer serial number and it’s found on data plates (typically on the aft belly of the plane, often also near the main door). A plane is also the sum of it’s parts - quite literally - and often the larger components will also have a stamp with the MSN on them.
Balloons have 3" high N-numbers; whereas on fixed wing they are larger; something to do with speed of 180 kt or less but I don’t understand why & my curiosity stopped just shy of doing any research. There are a few other exceptions to the N-number size but I don’t know them either. I can tell you from experience those small N-numbers, while there if you are up close, are all but invisible from any distance.
IIRC, U.S. aircraft can have three-inch numbers within the United States. I think 12-inch numbers are required in Canada. So will Canada deny entry if your plane has three-inch numbers? Or can you apply for an exemption?
I’ve never heard of a speed clause (the fastest plane I’ve flown was a Skylane), but I do recall that there were exceptions to the former 12-inch rule that allowed smaller numbers based on unique aircraft configuration (like maybe small booms). There may or may not have been an exception for historically significant aircraft like warbirds. It’s been ages since I read the regs though, and things have changed.
I remember seeing a picture of a small 1970(?)s car with a 12-inch N-number painted on the side, that was a protest against the 12-inch N-number requirement for aircraft at the time.