Vintage Aircraft Weekend/Bremerton Blackberry Fest Fly-In

[spookythecat]

Sept 3rd was a busy day of aviation in the Puget Sound area. My plan was to meet up with my friends at Vintage Aircraft Weekend being held at Historic Flight Foundation and fly over to Bremerton Int'l Airport to show some support for their Blackberry Festival Fly-In. The flight included 3 Navions and an IAR 823 in the first element and 3 CJ-6's in the second. We went over and intermingled with the traffic for a few passes and stopped in for lunch and to check out the planes and classic cars on display. We returned to Everett mid afternoon and gave a few passes there before settling in for the remainder of VAW flying. The highlight was easily Addison Pemberton in the Boeing 40c & Clay Lacy in the DC-2 giving us a couple formation passes. Okay, i'll shut up and get to the pictures.

Thanks to my friends for another great day in the air and to HFF and the other supporters of Vintage Aircraft Weekend. It's a great way to wind down a season.

My friend Bob Hill with his wife and father over the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. This is one good looking plane and it's not just because I helped with the design and printing of the markings.


The Navions with the fire in the Olympic Nat'l Forest just getting started.


Bremerton Naval Shipyard


CJ-6 flight making their pass.


Our flight in the echelon for break.


Largest T-6/SNJ/Harvard flight i've ever seen in the NW


WOW!!!!


A little Grumpy action




Mustangs


262 on static diplay


A-26 came up from Oregon


Classic airliners


Tiger Moth from Canadian Museum of Flight


HFF's Waco


Skyraider & T-28


And finally an overview of the event

[Sasquatch]

Great job as usual, Al! Thanks for sharing your photos with us.
--Tom

Last edited by Sasquatch on Tue Sep 06, 2011 5:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Sasquatch]

Bremerton Naval Shipyard

For those interested, the carriers at Bremerton in Al's fabulous photo are (front to rear):

CV-62 USS Independence (reserve fleet)
CV-63 USS Kitty Hawk (reserve fleet)
CV-64 USS Constellation (reserve fleet)
CV-61 USS Ranger (reserve fleet)

To the left of the Ranger is an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate, name unknown.

In the distance, in drydock: CVN-68 USS Nimitz (active fleet, undergoing maintenance)

The hull beyond the Nimitz is ex-USS Long Beach, CGN-9 (America's first nuclear missile cruiser, now just a hull awaiting scrapping)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Long_Beach_(CGN-9)

And next to the hull of the Long Beach (to the left) are several decommissioned nuclear submarines (mostly early Los Angeles class) awaiting scrapping.

Great photos Spooky!

--Tom

[The Inspector]

They cut the hot stuff out of the middle, weld the two ends together and the dive planes from the sails are being used as a very interesting and novel 'steel whale pod' artwork in Magnuson Park (ex Sand Point NAS) on Lake Washington.

The Ik really does look a lot better out of the quasi Mooney paint scheme! Really like your hillside shot of the 247 and it's eventual victor, the 2. It's hard to comprehend that about 6 years separate the 40c from the DC-2.

[TimAPNY]

Bremerton Naval Shipyard

For those interested, the carriers at Bremerton in Al's fabulous photo are (front to rear):

CV-62 USS Independence (reserve fleet)
CV-63 USS Kitty Hawk (reserve fleet)
CV-64 USS Constellation (reserve fleet)
CV-61 USS Ranger (reserve fleet)

To the left of the Ranger is an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate, name unknown.

In the distance, in drydock: CVN-68 USS Nimitz (active fleet, undergoing maintenance)

The hull beyond the Nimitz is ex-USS Long Beach, CGN-9 (America's first nuclear missile cruiser, now just a hull awaiting scrapping)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Long_Beach_(CGN-9)

And next to the hull of the Long Beach (to the left) are several decommissioned nuclear submarines (mostly early Los Angeles class) awaiting scrapping.

Great photos Spooky!

--Tom

Thanks for the carrier Grouping ID

Hard to believe I spent so much time on the Kitty and some brief meetings here and there with the Indy and Conny and now all three are all but gone.

Tim

[darrenvox]

nice shots, lots of wonderfull vintage aircraft...whats the t-6 texan/hjarvard doing with golden hawk painting?

just curuous

[K5DH]

Spooky: Great photos, as always! (are you sure you're not a professional photographer?)

Sasquatch: Thanks for the rundown on the ships. I once strolled on the deck of the USS Kitty Hawk (very early 1960s, I was about 2 or 3 years old, and my Dad was in the Naval Reserve).

[The Inspector]

The gold T-6 belongs to Bud Granley, and he's had it for lots of years. It's done up in Canadian GOLDEN HAWKS markings (predecessor to the Snow Birds) who Bud flew with while in the RCAF. It's based @ KPAE.

His son flew with the Snow Birds and watching the two of them go anywhere is a real lesson in just how good you can get @ holding a very tight formation, they fly whatever Bud is going to demo @ an airshow he's accompanied wing within wing by his son in a Yak 18 (Russian Bonanza) and they never vary more than 6 inches during the entire transit.

Bud does a lot of flying for FHC and HFF as well as doing chase in his golden Fouga with the Me-262, he's a real gentleman, a true professional, and a consumate airman.

[Brad]

The gold T-6 belongs to Bud Granley, and he's had it for lots of years. It's done up in Canadian GOLDEN HAWKS markings (predecessor to the Snow Birds) who Bud flew with while in the RCAF.

Bud never flew with either the Golden Hawks or the Snow Birds.

[Taylor Stevenson]

Great photos, Al. You got a great eye. Love the flight of T-6s... Anyone know what the cruise speed of the old Boeing? I bet the DC is pulled way back.

[hercules130]

Those shots are just beautiful, thanks for posting.

Gary

[Stoney]

Bud had two sons fly with the Snow Birds

[Brad]

Bud had two sons fly with the Snow Birds

That is true, Chris and Ross.

[Sasquatch]

Thanks for the carrier Grouping ID

Hard to believe I spent so much time on the Kitty and some brief meetings here and there with the Indy and Conny and now all three are all but gone.

Tim

My same thoughts about the Indy and Connie, Tim...hard to believe front line supercarriers of our day are now mothballed. I took my Dad on a tour of the Connie in Everett while she was still active, and somewhere in my slide archives I've got a couple of photos of a freshly shopped Indy with a full deck of Phantoms, Intruders, Corsairs and the like taken a couple of days before she shipped out of Norfolk for a Med cruise. Hard to believe she's cold iron now.
Someday when I come across those photos again I'll post them here.

--Tom

Last edited by Sasquatch on Wed Sep 07, 2011 10:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

[The Inspector]

Yeah, you're right I got Chris and Ross and Bud mixed up, sorry for the bogus info