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Thunderbirds


Finn

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Nice! I got to see the T-Birds with the F-100D and F-4E when I was a kid. Here are some pics my dad took in 1968 at McConnell AFB. I know there were other slides, but sadly, I've never been able to find them. Same with the F-4E slides. 

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My dad was stationed at Hamilton AFB in 1964 and witnessed Capt. Devlin's F-105 crash. He said they sat on the ramp for about a week, then departed single-ship to Alabama (Maxwell AFB, IIRC) for modifications. They decided it wasn't cost effective to make the mods, so they stayed with the F-100D until they switched to the F-4E.

 

Dad took these photos as they were departing Hamilton AFB. I haven't been able to find any information that they were flown after they reached Alabama, so this may have been the last time these jets flew in T-Birds colors. Note the extended bomb bay fuel tank on the jet in the foreground in the first photo. 

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Ben

Edited by Ben Brown
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The only time I ever saw the Thunderbirds, was at Scott AF base some years back, and they were flying F-16s. Never saw any of the others. I have seen the Blue Angels numerous times though, as they make frequent St Louis stops, but never saw them before the Hornets. 

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6 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

I wonder if there are any T-Bird historians hanging about on LSP.  There was an engine-out incident at Daytona Beach back in the 1962 time frame I’d like to refresh my memory about.

Info via ex-F-100 crew chief Larry Natrass:  Capt. Bob Cass, flying #3 in F-100C 53-1718, hit a pole at Daytona Beach and damaged the aircraft. He landed safely and the jet was repaired and flown again. The same day, Capt. Bob Bell flying Slot in 55-2722, had to make an emergency landing at a Navy field due to an engine failure. 

 

I'm not a T-Birds historian, but I do confess to being something of an F-100 nut (my friends will say that's an understatement! :D)  I spent many hours working with Larry and Henk Scharringa to find which F-100s were flown by the T-Birds and who the pilots and crew chiefs were. They ended up flying 33 different F-100s and broke quite a few of them!

 

Ben

Edited by Ben Brown
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Aha!  I knew somebody would know something about this.  To the best of my memory, this is what I saw:  I was about 12, maybe 13.  Riding my bike near my home in Sanford, Fl.  We, like just about everybody else, lived very close to the pattern at NAS Sanford - the base to final turn for 09 was right over my high school, for example. Very low, very loud, very dangerous but nobody cared.  Back to the T Birds:  NAS Sanford is pretty much next door to Daytona Beach, just a couple of minutes away by F-100.   I’m riding around pretending I’m flying a jet when I hear a racket and look up.  Right above me were three Thunderbird F-100s in a really, really tight formation entering a left downwind for 09 at NAS.  They were so close together that it looked for all the world like the guys on either wing were carrying the guy in the middle.    In reality, they may have been because I just don’t see a Hun gliding that far after a flameout.  As soon as they turned onto left base, I hauled butt to the other end of the street so I could see better.  Once they were on final and literally right in front of me, the two wingmen backed off a bit and the guy in the middle dumped his nose and tried for a restart.  Big orange flame came out the tailpipe and it looked like he was going to be okay but I lost sight of him behind some big oak trees.  The other two guys didn’t seem to exercised about it, so I figured he was good.  Sounds like a big deal, but NAS Sanford was a master jet base with lots of airplanes in the air all the time and this kind of thing was not uncommon.  Just another day in the neighborhood, as they say.  I think I know some additional bits and pieces to this story, but I won’t bore you all with what I think I remember versus what actually happened.  Still, it was pretty nifty to watch.

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I've not seen near enough Vipers in the air. I did see two Air Force examples take off from here one day, quite a long time ago. The Air Force boys must have had different permissions for take offs than the local MOANG guys, as these two took off line abreast, something I never saw the Guard birds do. They were really cooking when they reached me, I can say that. Still gives me chills to think about it.

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