These fuzzy-sweater wearing air show fans picked out a pretty good spot to watch the Blue Angels at NAS Whidbey in the early 1960’s. Try this with today’s average car and there would be two human-shaped dents in the paper-thin tin can metal roof, whereupon the car manufacturer would be sued for not placing a warning in the owner’s manual to “Never lie on the roof of your vehicle, especially when it is in motion” etc. etc…
Photos #1 & #2 show a squadron of O-47’s lined up while on maneuvers at the Malone, NY, airfield. A couple of BT-2’s and a B-10 are thrown in for good measure.
A mass of struts and wires, an O-43 waits beside the less strutted (but less graceful appearing) O-47’s.
Classy gas truck fills up the beasty O-47’s.
Lt. Howard Means and crew deplane after a grueling mission over upstate New York.
O-43 (33-271) gets a few tweaks before darting back in the sky.
“Miss Naval Air Station Whidbey Island” and her court wave hello to the good folks of Oak Harbor, WA during the town’s 1961 Memorial Day parade. Don’t know what that A3D Skywarrior is made of, but I would like to have it hanging in my house.
Passengers on the liner S.S. Olympia wave hello to the crew of an HO4S-3 (55875) of the Royal Canadian Navy in the autumn of 1963. The vessel, bound from New York to Europe, has now entered Canadian waters thus entitling the boys of the RCN to drop down for a look-see.
Basking in the warm (and humid) New Jersey sunshine, F-106A 57-2459 of the 539th Fighter Interceptor Squadron shares the ramp with an MC-131A and an F-105B. All of these aircraft were based at McGuire. Our F-106 had a long life, but she ultimately came to her end after being picked to pieces to keep other 106’s flying. Our MC-131 (52-5785) too had a long life but with a happier ending: After her USAF days she went to the Coast Guard, but is now on display at the Castle Air Museum in California. The F-105 (57-5784) spent most of her long career with the New Jersey Air National Guard (as seen here), but was saved and is now on display down Mexico way.
The crew chief and pilot of F-84E 50-1125, 474th Fighter Bomber Wing, standby for another trip “Up North.” Judging by the markings below the canopy, this will be its 24th mission.
T-33A 51-4113 gets a going over. Note the painted over “buzz number” on the nose.
F-84E 50-1157 of the 27th Fighter-Escort Group.
Another Kunsan-based unit was the 3rd Bomb Wing with its B-26 Invaders.
The Jive Bomber 