Wagons in vintage Street scenes

My first time seeing the Blue Angels I was quite young, maybe 10 or 11. My dad took me to the air show at Pt. Magu Naval Air Station, just south of Oxnard, Ca. At the time, the Blue Angels were still flying the Grumman F11F-1 Tiger....

 

Krash , when I was stationed at Pensacola NAS in the late 70's, I was able to talk to a couple of older Chief's that were long time Blue Angles ground crew. They told me those Grumman Fighters were so underpowered that they were dangerous to fly in formation. The Pilots were Glad they were retired for the F4's, but the F4's were not really suited for the airshow job for other reasons.

Compared to the F4's the F11's were good looking A/C though.

 

I'm still partial to "Heinemann's Hotrods:" the A4E was the variant the Blue Angels used. It had such a great power-to-weight ratio, they did not need afterburners, and could fly just above Mach 1 in level flight.

 

Isn't that a mortuary's flower car? The railings are what make me think that.

 

A co-worker of my ex's who's now retired is married to a former Luftwaffe pilot turned civil aviation pilot. When both were in Arizona where he was stationed in the mid 60's, he used to fly the F-104 Starfighter, nicknamed The Widow Maker. He was telling us that is was a fickle plane to fly. But, also the most fun he'd ever had

 

I'm so blathery tonight...I just remembered something that Dad told me about, when Sandpoint here in Seattle was still a Naval Air Station. He told me that there was an F9F trainer variant, painted similarly to a Blue Angels aircraft, and it had only one purpose: if someone was thinking about taking the steps to becoming a Naval Aviator, they could request a back seat flight in this aircraft, see if they really were suited to the rigors of high-G flight. I would've loved to have flown in it, just for the Hell of it.

 

Now, both images are showing up. Before, we were only getting the red X

 

The missile with a man aboard. Man, whoever at Lockheed convinced the board to pay out payola to get other countries to buy them, it boggles the mind.

This is the video I watched:

 

They sure packed them in tight at this place. I don't know how they got some of the doors open.

 

From what I remember, the F11F-1 seemed to have sufficient power to me.......W O O S H...........................
I had opinions about the other jets that followed - the F-4 Phantom was just plain too big and bulky for formation flying. The A-4F's seemed too small, and probably harder to handle because of their stubby wings.

They've been flying the F-18 Hornet for 30+ years now, and it looks like there's an order in now for new F/A-18 E's and 2-seat F's.....

 

I'll bet that some fists went flying, in that parking lot where those four vehicles parked in a manner as to where correctly parked ones couldn't drive out

 

Columbus, Ohio in 1970. What the heck is that parking with 2 or 3 cars in a row so one can't move without the other 1 or 2 moving first?