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Low flying German F4

HAL Pilot

HAL Pilot

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
Don't remember if it's been posted but here is my favorite airplane doing some low passes.

I got one flight in the back of a F4 during a Topeka, KS air show in 1971. Blue Angel #1 was my Mom's cousin. He sneaked me into the back of his plane and my brother into the back of #4 with instructions to keep our heads down below the rails anytime we were on the ground.... An e-ticket ride of a lifetime for a 10 year old. All I clearly remember is the sky spinning and puking my guts out.....but there are flashes of the rest.....and it was the day I decided flying was my future.
 
R

Rasczak

Marine
HAL Pilot said:
I got one flight in the back of a F4 during a Topeka, KS air show in 1971. Blue Angel #1 was my Mom's cousin. He sneaked me into the back of his plane and my brother into the back of #4 with instructions to keep our heads down below the rails anytime we were on the ground.... An e-ticket ride of a lifetime for a 10 year old. All I clearly remember is the sky spinning and puking my guts out.....but there are flashes of the rest.....and it was the day I decided flying was my future.
Click to expand...
Wow.
 
Flash

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
The Swiss Hunter video that pops up in the same category is pretty good too......
 
Catmando

Catmando

Keep your knots up.
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
HAL Pilot said:
...He sneaked me into the back of his plane and my brother into the back of #4 with instructions to keep our heads down below the rails anytime we were on the ground.... An e-ticket ride of a lifetime for a 10 year old. All I clearly remember is the sky spinning and puking my guts out.....but there are flashes of the rest.....and it was the day I decided flying was my future.
Click to expand...

What a great story! I'm thinking yes, things were far more relaxed back then, but still……..
"Keep our heads down below the rails anytime we were on the ground." 10 years old and flying in a Blue's F-4. That is just too awesome!

Then, while I'm reading and enjoying, I start to wonder, who was Blue Angel #1 that year?

So I followed the link…and that hit me hard. Although I didn't know Cdr. Hall personally, everyone in the Navy at that time certainly knew of him, and admired him. And I remember vividly the very day he was shot down.

Thanks for the great and amazing story, but also for the link to Cdr. Harley Hall.
 
HAL Pilot

HAL Pilot

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
Catmando said:
What a great story! I'm thinking yes, things were far more relaxed back then, but still……..
"Keep our heads down below the rails anytime we were on the ground." 10 years old and flying in a Blue's F-4. That is just too awesome!

Then, while I'm reading and enjoying, I start to wonder, who was Blue Angel #1 that year?

So I followed the link…and that hit me hard. Although I didn't know Cdr. Hall personally, everyone in the Navy at that time certainly knew of him, and admired him. And I remember vividly the very day he was shot down.

Thanks for the great and amazing story, but also for the link to Cdr. Harley Hall.
Click to expand...
So there I was at Trader John's waiting to start VT-10. I was searching the walls looking at the Blue's pictures when the old man himself said "looking for anyone in particular?" I replied "Yeah, my Mom's cousin...led the Blues in 70-71"...."You're Harley's cousin? Hey (C/S forgotten), come here"..."Yeah"...."This guy's cousin led your team back in 70-71".... "Yeah, let me buy you a drink."

So now I'm a young, newly commissioned Ensign drinking with Blue #1. I ended up getting quite a few flights in the 2 seater (TA-4) over the next few months prior to starting primary at VT-10. Those flights I remember better.
 
Catmando

Catmando

Keep your knots up.
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
Sorry. I'm far from being in ground effect or "5 (flippen) feet" and in this image instance, much 'higher' :D than normal, just for this photo-op..............

[Disclaimer follows:]

There was a Navy Captain in the building pictured below (located in a Philadelphia suburb) who told me to "wrap that QF-4B around the flagpole out front, Cat. Give'em a thrill." (Note the said flagpole just aft of my tail in the picture).

So I said, "Yes sir!"

I usually flew that orange F-4 much lower, and bent it around that flagpole any number of times, until I even (almost, but not quite ever) scared myself.

The (un)fortunate end came when a nun from a close-by Catholic grade school called to say that a "screaming orange airplane" flying dangerously low and out of control was scaring her precious young students.

Ergo, I was appropriately tasked with making a personal apology to the kind Sister, and her elementary students…. Shortly followed by a great Q&A of Naval Aviation, Navy aircraft, and Navy careers!

flagpole1rj1.jpg
 
Tex_Hill

Tex_Hill

Airborne All the Way!!!
Catmando said:
Sorry. I'm far from being in ground effect or "5 (flippen) feet" and in this image instance, much 'higher' :D than normal, just for this photo-op..............

[Disclaimer follows:]

There was a Navy Captain in the building pictured below (located in a Philadelphia suburb) who told me to "wrap that QF-4B around the flagpole out front, Cat. Give'em a thrill." (Note the said flagpole just aft of my tail in the picture).

So I said, "Yes sir!"

I usually flew that orange F-4 much lower, and bent it around that flagpole any number of times, until I even (almost, but not quite ever) scared myself.

The (un)fortunate end came when a nun from a close-by Catholic grade school called to say that a "screaming orange airplane" flying dangerously low and out of control was scaring her precious young students.

Ergo, I was appropriately tasked with making a personal apology to the kind Sister, and her elementary students…. Shortly followed by a great Q&A of Naval Aviation, Navy aircraft, and Navy careers!

flagpole1rj1.jpg
Click to expand...

A similar incident happened to Dick Bong when he was stationed near Oakland in July of '42. Here's a brief quote:
General Kenney Reports said:
IT WAS ten o’clock on the morning of July 7, 1942, at my headquarters in San Francisco where I was commanding the Fourth Air Force. I had just finished reading a long report concerning the exploits of one of my young pilots who had been looping the loop around the center span of the Golden Gate Bridge in a P-38 fighter plane and waving to the stenographic help in the office buildings as he flew along Market Street. The report noted that, while it had been extremely difficult to get information from the somewhat sympathetic and probably conniving witnesses, there was plenty of evidence proving that a large part of the waving had been to people on some of the lower floors of the buildings.

A woman on the outskirts of Oakland was quoted as saying that she didn’t need any help from my fighter pilots in removing her washing from the clotheslines unless they would like to do it on the ground.
Click to expand...

From Chapter 1 of:
General Kenney Reports.PDF
 
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