Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military
From: military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: F-4 Aerobatics
Message-ID: <15494@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 12 Apr 90 00:55:43 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 35
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: att!jsugate!nak
>From: fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
    [stuff deleted]
>The Blue Angels transitioned from F-11F-1 Super Tigers to A-4 Skyhawks to
>F/A-18 Hornets over a couple of decades.

	You forgot the F-4's.  In 1973 the Blue Angels were flying F-4
    Phantom II's.  Source:  a Naval Recruiting magazine/flyer, complete
    with numerous color glossies.  My dad was a naval reservist at the
    time, and NROTC was apossible way to get me through college.  When I
    read the vision requirements for naval air, I got depressed.
    
    I think that easily as far back as 1967 they were using F-4's.
    My dad was stationed at Glenview Naval Air Station (near Chicago), and
    we used to see Phantoms in formation overhead many an afternoon.  We
    were always told that they were the Blue Angels.

    In particular, the story I always heard... [Would anybody from
    McDonnel-Douglas care to shoot this one dead or confirm it]
    ...was that the conventional wisdom from McD-D is that the Phantom was
    not supposed to be able to do one of the formation manuevers the B.A.
    performed.  This is where the entire wedge rolls on a common axis
    through the center of the point plane.  The outer planes were not
    supposed to be able to generate sufficient areo forces to do the
    manuever.  But the Blue Angels, like bumblebees, went and did it
    anyway.

    They switched from the "too mean and hostile looking" Phantom to the A4
    Skyhawk.


    Neil Kirby
    ...att!jsugate!nak