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Robin Powney was at NAS Oceana for the F-14's final farewell. Photography by the author and Paul Tiller Considering its status as the East Coast's sole Master Jet Base and home to all the USN's East Coast fighter and strike-fighter squadrons under COMNAVAIRLANT, it was fitting for the last ever USN F-14 'tacdemo' to be performed in the skies of Virginia over 16-18 September. It is not an assumption too far if you were to assume that enthusiasts flocked to NAS Oceana for just the Tomcat - especially a flying one. It was noticed that enthusiasts had come from the UK, Japan, Poland, Australia and Brazil - to name just a few. I'm sure that if there had been passport control on the gates, 'us foreigners' would have made up quite a high percentage of the crowd. During the build-up to the show, rumours throughout the year varied from 'diamond six' formations to not seeing any Tomcats at all and back again… blood pressures were going up and down and deep breaths were taken. When Cdr Richard Erie and his airshow team confirmed the F-14 in the show, sighs of relief would have been heard the world over. Sadly, timing meant VF-31 Tomcatters and VF-213 Black Lions, both now with 500 lb JDAM-capable F-14Ds thanks to PMA-241 and pilots from VF-101 and VX-21, would be embarked on the USS Theodore Roosevelt and in a different, although perhaps not warmer, part of the world over the show weekend. VF-32 Swordsmen still had more than a handful of their F-14Bs (technically they're F-14B Upgrades, as they additional useful gizmos, but we won't split hairs) and VF-101 Grim Reapers had two F-14Ds left.
In terms of the static, the actual turn out was quite low but a few things spring immediately to mind here - a) Hurricane Ophelia. No-one seemed to really know which way Ophelia would move and sending your jets and helicopters to an area you don't know won't have a hurricane is a little daft. Unless of course you are a Hurricane Hunter, then right through the eye wall is normally in the job description! No-one can blame the organisers for a thinner than expected turnout. b) Tomcats. Flying. The static is thus surplus to requirements! I don't think many would have minded had there been no static at all, although many took advantage of the ample shade and protection from the sun provided by the parked aircraft.
The attendance of a 403rd Wg WC-130H was also somewhat of a surprise - what with their home base of Keesler AFB being recently hit by Hurricane Katrina and the demand placed upon the Hurricane Hunters by the NHC and NOAA in what is turning out to be quite a busy hurricane season. Sadly the home-unit static was a little thin with the only Oceana-based jets on static being the VF-32 F-14B 'CAG bird' and a VFA-106 F/A-18E - with fourteen VFA units and the Strike Fighter Weapons School Atlantic (SFWSL) calling Oceana home, it is a shame more jets couldn't have been made available, but we can't have everything and I was told most aircraft were hangared due to no-one knowing what Ophelia would do (bear in mind the Virginia Beach coast region was still under hurricane and tropical storm warnings until just before the show). The Fighting Omars of VFC-12 were officially on deployment, to be curtailed by Hurricane Rita, so they wouldn't have been able to attend the show anyway.
Rotary wise, the USN was represented by an example of the MH-60S Knighthawk, from HSC-26 Chargers, which just so happened to be the same one as that which was aboard the USS Saipan at the International Fleet Review, an HH-60H Seahawk, a very smart looking UH-3H from HC-2 Fleet Angels at Norfolk, one TH-57 Sea Ranger and, being used as the drop-ship (making it the first time I've ever seen anyone jump from a helicopter!!) for the US and UK parachute teams on Sunday was an MH-53E Sea Dragon presumably from HM-14 Vanguards at Norfolk. USAF attendance was limited to the F-16 'Viper' East Coast Demo Team from the 20th FW at Shaw AFB, an immaculately turned out QF-4E Phantom drone in a superb pale-bellied South East Asia camo scheme (one of the six drones the USAF have saved from the ravages of an AIM-120 and painted up for their new additional 'heritage' role), a grey T-1A Jayhawk from Vance AFB, an AFRC B-52H, a T-6 Texan II and a C-5B Galaxy plus the two F-86 Sabres in USAF markings. Oh, and a rather large triangular shaped bomber made a fleeting but welcome visit.
The F-4, F-86 pair and F-16 then formed up for the ACC Heritage Flight display - at RIAT, a lot of people slated the choice of Dwayne O'Briens 'We Remember' track being played when the P-51/F-15C heritage flight was displaying but as far as the fourship heritage flight at Oceana was concerned, it actually sounded very good and almost moving. At UK shows, crossing the crowdline is positively frowned upon (has it got the death penalty yet?) but at Oceana, the heritage flight (amongst many others) flew over the crowd more than once. The B-2A, the Spirit of Texas, was only on Saturday's programme and made a single flat-pass down the display line, banked left back round to a point north of crowd centre and then banked right for departure. It did make a change to see a B-2 without a gaggle of F-15s shepherding it, though it was still lacking something. As far as the US Army goes, it was a particularly poor turnout, with only the Army Special Ops Command Black Daggers parachute team being there - a shame that we didn't get any Army helicopters. However, with the aid operation in Louisiana and the massive commitment of more than 250 helicopters to that (including forty USN SH-60s and USAr UH-60s flying ninety missions per day from the USS Harry S Truman), it is little wonder helicopters were thin on the ground.
The Canadian forces were represented by a CH-146 Griffon (basically a Huey by another name), the rotary workhorse of the RCAF and a CP-140 Aurora - although visually very similar to the P-3 Orion, the Aurora has, mission-wise, more in common with the S-3 Viking and is due to continue to serve the RCAF until 2025. I was also secretly hoping that the CF-188 demo would have been able make it back to Oceana after displaying there last year but 'twas not to be! So, considering the circumstances and commitments of the US DOD all over the world (and at home) the static wasn't that bad and it was better than nothing at all. Typical of US shows, none of the aircraft had barriers and 'posing shots' seemed the order of the day for the crowd - fine for the taxpayer who wants to touch what 'they' pay for, but not much use for photography when it gets busy! The aircraft were well separated though, so given a lack of people, clear shots with little to no obstructions were a possibility. For those that 'moan' about UK shows and their barriers, well, at least we can get shots without people! However, all this pales into insignificance when you consider why most enthusiasts went to Oceana. It wouldn't have mattered if Cdr Richard Erie and his team had managed to secure the participation of a flying saucer, maybe even a display by one - enthusiasts were there for the Tomcat. The show doesn't just mark the sombre occasion of the last ever demo by the F-14, it also marks the occasion of the first time your scribe ever got to see a Tomcat fly! Not just one mind, oh no, a handful!! Four Turkeys were in the fleet flyby and airpower demo and then there was the solo in the tacdemo.
Saturday's weather allowed for the full 'pop-up' bombing demo with Sunday's early haze limiting heights somewhat… but it was just that tad more humid on Sunday, so when it came to the pair of Rhinos steaming in from the left, vapour was bubbling off like it has gone out of fashion. I've always wanted a shot of the 'Hornet shockcone' and VFA-211 allowed me to get that on one jet AND a cone forming on the second jet in the background! Great stuff!! F/A-18F - exit stage right. Not before 'Goon' and 'Didja', in a VFA-106 F/A-18F, took everyone by surprise with a 'sneak pass' though. Think low. Think fast. Then put the two together and don't tell the crowd… I was ready for it on Sunday though!
The whole spectacle was fantastic - such a distinctive sound, well OK, growl, from the most powerful engines ever fitted to a USN fighter and no matter what it does, it looks like it's doing it quickly. If there's a finer looking Navy jet, I haven't seen it! Lt Jack 'Rocco' Tangredi and Lt Joseph 'Smokin' Joe' Ruzicka (incidentally, this crew were the display crew for 2004) did the Tomcat community proud with their two tacdemos over the weekend. I felt Sunday's display marginally edged out the Saturday display but I could be basing this on the fact that the Sunday display was done with the VF-101 retro jet, whereas the Saturday display was done with a VF-32 line jet. The Tomcat doesn't tend to create the same visual effects, vapour wise, as the 'new kid on the block' (or even the legacy Hornet for that matter) but, being honest, who cares - I'd go as far as saying that it was the finest fast jet demo I've seen in the last two years. At 14:52 on 18 September 2005, it was all over, and following the end of the display on Sunday, 'Rocco' and 'Smokin' Joe' were treated to a drenching from their Tomcat colleagues. It brings the US Navy one step closer to losing the Tomcat for good and Northrop-Grumman one step closer to losing their dominance of the Carrier Strike Group (the F-14, E-2 and EA-6B are all Grumman masterpieces - although they are Boeing's principal subcontractor for the Hornets so Grumman won't be leaving the carrier deck anytime soon). On the Monday after the show, AD-160 was flown one last time to its final resting place at Castle Air Museum in the San Joaquin Valley, CA, where it will, following a rumour to the contrary, retain its VF-101 retro scheme. AC-115, one of VF-32's jets, left Oceana for its last flight, flown by Lt Brian 'Beke' Hodges and Lt Ashley 'Ciao' Augostini, on 4 October and now calls the MAPS Air Museum at Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio its home. Just two days later, AC-101 left Oceana for the very last time when it headed 550 miles west to the Aviation Museum of Kentucky in Lexington. Four more are currently under the control of Titan Systems' SARDIP program at Oceana and are soon to become shreds of metal in a Chesapeake scrapyard. 1 November saw VF-32 officially become an F/A-18F Super Hornet unit with the accompanying name change to VFA-32. Since the show, rumours have been floating round about 'Snort' buying between ten and sixteen Tomcats to form a display team which will then choose from four jets prepared for flight at any one time - this would be fantastic news for the Tomcat legacy, but whatever happens, Oceana 2005 did see the last ever USN F-14 tacdemo.
So called
'Legacy' Hornet units were not forgotten with a very spirited display
from a VFA-131 Wildcats F/A-18C decked out in an extremely smart
full colour 'CAG bird' scheme. Whilst not quite as highly energetic as
the Rhino display, it is nevertheless a well conducted display and perhaps
just has the edge over the Hornet displays by On the subject of Legacies, like the USAF with their Heritage Flight, the USN have a 'Legacy Flight', which used to include the F-14 but is now an F/A-18C, F/A-18E/F and a suitable warbird. Saturday saw this warbird being an F4U Corsair, with Mr Snodgrass at the controls, whereas Sunday saw the warbird being one of the F-86s which the commentator claimed was to masquerade as an FJ-3 Sea Fury (with no mention of the fact that the F4U had gone 'tech'). Our own RAF could perhaps learn a thing or two about these historic flights as they do look good and the crowd seemed to love every minute of Oceana's two heritage displays - Typhoon F2 with Spitfire anyone? (Actually, this may happen in 2006 - Ed). Perhaps the most surprising display of the lot was the E-2C+ Hawkeye - ever seen an AEW platform produce wing-tip vortices in a turn? No, well, Oceana's crowds did! I really didn't know the E-2 was that agile - the display was very impressive for such an aircraft. The Hawkeyes, complete with the new NP2000 eight-bladed propellers, responsible for the two displays were from VAW-120 Greyhawks (the sole E-2C/C-2A Fleet Replacement Squadron, responsible for training all LANTFLt and PACFLt Hawkeye and Greyhound personnel) at NAS Norfolk on the morning of their displays and didn't stay overnight at Oceana - which is perhaps just as well really as the base got hammered by a large storm on Saturday night and it took many Navy personnel working at three in the morning under the intense thunderstorm (the lightning was more like a strobe!) to get fences and tents back up again for the show on Sunday. Sadly, Hawkeyes didn't feature in the static park.
Nancy Lynn's display, in an Extra 300L, is a typical aerobatic display with maneuvers that you think would clearly make someone ill but what makes the act unique is that Nancy's sixteen-year old son does the commentary - making the act the only mother-son act in the airshow world. The constant "give it up, my mom!" comments in the Saturday commentary became a bit tedious as the display went on and it seemed to drag on for longer than a display from say Will Curtis or Denny Dobson would have done; just when you assumed the display was over, Nancy would launch into more aerobatics. Impressive maneuvers, yes, but a Tomcat it ain't! The 'Red Baron Pizza Squadron' team of four Stearmans (all built sometime between 1941 and 1943 and now with modified engines which provide twice the power of the original engines and allow inverted flight), with eight pilots all having more than 2,000 hours to choose from, put on quite an admirable 'formation barnstorming' display although, being honest, they weren't really my cup of tea and I don't think they made me want to go and find the pizza outlets. To the teams credit though, they are the longest running non-military airshow act in history as they've been displaying at airshows for thirty-one years. The only helicopter team in the US, the 'Showcopters', also displayed - and though I wasn't expecting a great deal, after all, Robinson R44s aren't exactly the best looking helicopters around, but I was somewhat wrong… and the demonstration of 'auto-rotation' was impressive although the Royal Navy's 'Black Cats' have nothing to fear. Jim Leroy's Bulldog was another display I wasn't particularly bothered about (hey, I went for Tomcats!) although it was a fantastic display, especially considering the tiny size of the Pitts S2S and the massive runway of Oceana. At UK shows such as RIAT and Waddington, small aircraft are often lost in the mass of sky available to them but for some reason, the extra 2,000ft of runway available at Oceana didn't make the slightest bit of difference and the small aircraft seemed to be more 'in yer face' than at RIAT. As one would expect at a Navy airshow, the Blue Angels (or, giving them their full title, The United States Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron) were the closing item on the Saturday and Sunday. Having only seen them once before, way back in 1992 at RAF Finningley, I was just looking forward to watching them on their home turf and in decent weather. Their mission is to impress potential Navy and Marines recruits and based on what the crowds were doing when it was time for the Blues to display, well, they're doing something right. Cheering, shouting, arm waving, you name it, the crowds were doing it - they seem proud of their Navy's display team. Quite understandably I suppose. This show
also marked the first time I've seen a Fat Albert JATO display - phenomenal
is the only word I can think of! The C-130T, marked up with Marines titling
showing off the dual USN/USMC nature of the Blues (and in fact, crewed
by an all-Marine crew and the only Marine aircraft permanently assigned
to a Navy unit), looks fantastic in the blue, yellow and white scheme
and it only gets better when the eight rockets on the rear fuselage of
the Hercules are lit! Think of a typical C-130 'Khe Sahn' approach in
terms of the angles involved and Blues 1 through 4 are the first into the air in a diamond formation, leaving 5 and 6 on the piano keys - a formation loop later and Blues 5 and 6 depart in spectacular fashion. After a short take-off roll, #5 pulls up sharply leaving #6 to continue down the runway at only a few feet AGL. Right down the other end of the runway, #6 is stood on its tail and goes upwards. Vapour comes off the LERXs of this pair on their take off like it would on a Hornet doing a tight turn during a display - fantastic! In keeping with their reputation for getting up close to each others jets, the display itself was flown with very little aircraft separation in the formation maneuvers and aside from the odd gaps, it was a joy to watch - even if photography in the late afternoon was a bit of a pain due to where the sun was. Seemingly taking a leaf out of VFA-106's book, one jet came from nowhere and pulled off another of these darn sneak passes - very impressive but a swine to try to catch in a photo when you're not expecting it. The twilight show, following on from the Friday practice, brings another dimension to the show - parachute teams jump with 'spark generators' instead of smoke canisters strapped to their ankles, Shockwave could do a fine job as a lighthouse replacement and Fat Albert's JATO, well, the whole thing is one visual feast. I didn't get to see the fireworks show as the Oceana Officers' Club was too much of an attraction and the twenty-nine hour day on Friday meant I didn't even bother with the 'beach blast' (whereby a VFA-106 Super Hornet made a few passes of Virginia Beach's oceanfront with the burners on) on Saturday night so I retired to the hotel for some much needed sleep.
Like most US shows, entrance was completely free but on Saturday, I took advantage of the Executive Squadron Chalet and its free food and drink. A front row, next-to-the-fence, seat was claimed and the free drinks were perhaps the only thing that kept me alive to see Sunday - the 95-100ºF heat and 95%+ humidity just about finished me (and many others) off. Never before had I wanted a few clouds at an airshow - here in the UK, the wish is for sunshine and cloudless skies! In addition to the life-saving nature of the drinks the food was fantastic and basically an 'all you can eat' buffet. Without doubt, this is THE way to do the show.
Would I go back? You bet I would!! It was quite possibly the best show I've been to. I would
like to take time to thank the following people for their help and assistance:
Cdr Richard 'Corky' Erie, LCdr Norm Concho, Troy Snead, JO3 Amanda Robinson,
Lt Brian 'Beke' Hodges, LtJG Jay 'MJ' Consalvi. |
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