The Blue Angels are Flying Above My House At This Moment
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Those pilots are artists, technicians, and athletes all in top form all at the same time, all in perfect unison. I took several of the Navy's tests to see if you were appropriate pilot material, which they gave to anyone who enlisted. Don't call us, we'll call you, was their response. The few pilots I knew were multi-talented. One guy was a farm kid who flew recon over Thialand and Vietnam, could play six or eight instruments really well, took up writing in his thirties and has published about twenty books. Someone asked an old buddy at his hometown gas station if he knew his old friend had written a book, and he said: "I didn't know he'd ever read a book." He only quit flying when he crashed his private plane. A buddy who was (this is true) a snake handler told him he wished he'd been along.
I don't know how those guys do it. I feel like I'm strapped to a rocket half the time I fly my 185 at a wimpy 115 knots.
I live right behind the EAA Airport in Oshkosh Wi. This will be our second year at the house, and I have dedicated most of my vacation to the event. We don't have to pay money to get in and see the show, being so close. Last year July, the blue Angels were there and flew what seemed to be 50 yards above the house. (LOUD) We get everything from jets to antique military planes, and the cool air cloud/smoke art.
I should try to take pictures next time, but on holidays for sure and many weekends, the Air Museum takes a giant Lancaster (I think) Bomber out for a spin around the lake and circles over my house. The odd time it flies *very low*, where the rumbling of the engines shakes the house.
Brings back some memories when I was a Kid, I've seen the Blue angels several times at the Pensacola NAS. Thanks for posting.
A very happy Fourth to you all. I've heard there's such a day in Canada, and in fact, around the world there's a 4th of July, just not as special as here.
Didi- Those aren't Blue Angel smilies and hearts, are they? I've never seen them do sky painting, but anything's possible with those incredible pilots.
Didi- Those aren't Blue Angel smilies and hearts, are they? I've never seen them do sky painting, but anything's possible with those incredible pilots.
The skipper of my minesweeper, MSO 489, on which I was a lowly enlisted radioman, was a Lt. Cmdr. fighter pilot who had rotated out of aviation to be a line officer, presumably to round out his portfolio and climb the naval officer career ladder some more. In his aviator glasses he looked like General MacArthur. He had a game knee and it gave him some trouble on the pitch, roll, and yaw of that little round-bottomed wooden hulled (spruce) ship. I've tried to track him down on Google to see if he made it into the admiralty, but have never turned him up. The Executive Officer on the ship was a home-boy to me, from my town, but never made any conversation with me, and I didn't presume. He died in his fifties, obit in the local papers. He'd been on river patrol boat duty before he was on my ship. I think he retired as a Lt. Cmdr., so he didn't climb the ladder so much. He was a big, quiet guy, smart but not sociable. Later, on a different job, I actually spoke briefly with Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the Chief of Naval Operations when I was in the Navy; I was in a biomedical research group and he was involved and interested in the health effects of Agent Orange. He'd lost a son to those effects.
I am absurdly jealous. As a private pilot I have always dreamed of going to this event, I just never seem to have the time to get down there when it comes up. I do manage to make our Great Alaska Aviation Gathering almost every year though, and the airshow when it comes to town to see the thunderbirds/blue angels and all other manner of bat shit nuts aeronautical pilot porn.
None of those have anywhere near the quantity of experimental home-built freak machines one would see at Oshkosh though. And that's what I really want to see more of.
Underrated comment.
A professional motocross racer friend of mine was invited to ride in the "passenger" seat of the Thunderbird teams' journalist/etc demo plane years ago, and was treated to the "civilian grade" routine.
Pro motocross guys are considered world-class athletes by any measure, and are especially accustomed to attitude gyrations and G-force changes. That ought to be enough, right?
He said he couldn't wait until the "ride" was over, and wouldn't do it again for ten thousand dollars.
'Had a former Marine pilot friend who described his first training landing on an aircraft carrier. Just hearing about it made me sort of swallow my lunch a second time. These people, men and women today, are born to this. Just training is not enough. You have to have a set of elevated genetic characteristics. With the Blue Angels and other teams, you aren't just watching training. Maybe wire walkers, only more so. If you make it through the selection process, and live through the training, you are some kind of rare being. Some seem really arrogant, but others seem almost bored with it, or at least calmly focused. When I was a kid, I had a friend whose dad had been a fighter pilot early in WWII with the Royal Air Force training in Canada, and later with the U.S. Army Air Corp (Air Force). Won't tell that whole story -- point is, he was the calmest, quietest individual I've ever seen. He'd done it all.
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