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My second attendance at Wings Over Houston...The Navy's Blue Angels plus Fat Albert put on an incredible show...No operator errors with the camera this time...
The weather started out overcast, windy and coolish...It quickly moved to sunny, a hint of a breeze and upper sixties...
Captions and links have been added to photos in this album...
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| The USAF displayed one of their Lockheed C-5 Galaxies at the show...They were just beginning to fly when I left the service, and have been flying now for nearly 50 years... |
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| It's a whole lot roomier inside than the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter in which I hitched a ride back to Germany...That was a 12 day trip...Did I mention we had a 10 day layover at NAS Bermuda?... |
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| It's hard to believe an aircraft this large is carrier-capable... |
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| Also known as the "Warthog" for obvious reasons... |
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| It's a warplane you always want on your side...Few of its opponents get to live to tell the story... |
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| It's had a troubled history, but is in service with the USMC now... |
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| The fighter lineup... |
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| Vought F4U Corsair...The wing design provided ground clearance for the 13 foot propeller... |
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| Corsair with wings folded for carrier storage... |
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One of the lesser known workhorses of the Vietnam War was the Douglas A-1 Skyraider...They were developed as a dive bomber but also showed they were invaluable in close air support for ground actions...They could carry up to 8,000 pounds of bombs, rockets, mines and even torpedoes from 14 hardpoints...They were so heavily armored they were almost impossible to take out except by a direct hit from a missile, but ordinarily they flew so low that missiles couldn't lock on...With a large fuel capacity and slow speed a pilot could support ground troops with napalm or rocket attacks...
They were designed for carrier launches or inland bases...This one is appropriately named "Uncle Ho's Nightmare"...
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| Fat Albert Awaiting his intro cue... |
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| For those wondering, the term "the whole nine yards" referred to the lengthof the cartridge belt for each .50 Caliber Browning M-2 machine gun...This B-17 carried 12 BMG's...Sometimes they came back without a single round left unfired... |
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| Osprey in action... |
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| B-25 with fighter escort... |
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| Sadly Galveston Gal was lost on a training flight in Chocolate Bayou later...No survivors... |
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| Bell P-63 King Cobra...An underappreciated aircraft... |
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| "Texas Raiders" is a mainstay of the CAF armada... |
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| USMC version of the North American B-25 Mitchell... |
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| "Betty's Dream" is an attack variant of the B-25... |
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| Aircraft which participated in the D-Day landings of June 1944 had "Normandy" stripes painted on them to reduce chances of being shot at by friendly forces... |
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| The Allison V-12 powerplant is located behind the cockpit, and drives the propeller through a shaft...Everything else forward of the pilot is guns and ammunition... |
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| The Douglas A-1 was designed for carrier use by the Navy at the end of WWII...It went on to serve in land based functions also another 40 years... |
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| The "bent wing" design of the F4U Corsair was for deck clearance of the huge 13 foot propeller... |
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| These are replicas of Mitsubishi Zeroes... |
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| A Grumman F7F Tigercat... |
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| This guy's act is almost unbelievable... |
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| This is a McDonnell-Douglas QF-4E Phantom II flown in from my base of separation, Holloman AFB, New Mexico... |
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| Only one afterburner was lit to save fuel for airshow use...Apparently they weren't expecting any enemy action for the day... |
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| This is the "carrier approach" with tailhook down... |
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| A Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptor... |
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| This pilot could showed off the advantage of an aircraft with thrust vectoring capability... |
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| Both afterburners lit here...This one was battle-ready... |
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| This is the view a groundbound enemy sees just before the lights go out forever... |
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| Just cruising along on AB... |
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| This year's Heritage Flight included the F-22, F-4, P-51 and P-47... |
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| The distortion is actually from the jetwash from both the F-4 and the F-22 in front... |
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| The old F-4 is following the F-22 in case he needs a push...And he's got 34,000 pounds of thrust to push with... |
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| Fat Albert claws for the sky... |
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| Fat Albert makes a parade pass... |
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| Angels in the air!... |
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