Warbird Information Exchange

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45-47=-2

Well actually it would be "Legacy Flight 1975," since Heritage Flights are Air Force, but this is definitely a pre-cursor of the Navy's Tailhook Lecgacy flights that came out about 25 years +or- later. Great shot of an F-4 and SNJ from those days. Thanks for sharing.

In 1975 there would have been some great active Navy aircraft available for Legacy Flights if they had been flown in those days. In addition to the F-4, there was the F-14, F-8, A-4, RA-5C, A-6, A-7, etc. Nothing like that today unfortunately. Seems like the only active Navy aircraft type you see in Legacy Flights today is the Hornet or Super Hornet......

Awesome shots! Thanks so much for sharing.

Chunks

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Jack McDonnel

T-6/SNJ Hoarder

Back in the 1980s at the Kalamazoo Airshow they had a "Flight of the Cats" F-14 Tomcat would go up with the Hellcat, Bearcat, Tigercat. Someone posted this a while back on this site.

The best "Flight of the Cats" ever made was the one that added a 6th aircraft to the 5 shown in the photo. The YouTube here from 1993 shows the F9F Panther added to the Tomcat, Bearcat, Tigercat, Hellcat and Wildcat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GJ_1BYVf-o

Unfortunately Art Wolk's Panther was severely damaged on takeoff in September 1996 when departing from Kalamazoo for Oceana and has never flown since. I missed out seeing a great Cat flight with the Panther that year at the Oceana show.

Of course the F9F/F-9 Cougar and F11F/F-11 Tiger would have been needed to make a complete 8-ship Flight of the Cats, but there have not been any of those flying for a LONG time........

Those Cat Flights were some of the best airshow memories I have of growing up in Kalamazoo. I've also seen an F-18 with FM-2, FG-1D, F6F, F7F, and F8F and two F-18s with the F7F and FG-1D at the Warbirds Over Kalamazoo shows. Those were incredible to witness.

One year at the airshow, the Cats were supposed to have been joined by the old Lone Star Flight Museum F3F. Unfortunately, the F3F didn't make it- that could have been really special.

The Panther will likely never fly again. The wreckage was sold to a static museum in New Hampshire- can't remember the name unfortunately.

The T-6/F-4 formation is awesome! Any more information on what the occasion was? I wonder how close to stall speed the F-4 was...

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Matt

How bout the Six of Diamonds/F-14 formation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7192dg_zis

Yes, sad but true regarding that Panther. I am sure that the F9F-2B Panther at the Cavanaugh Flight Museum in Texas could be put back in the air again without too much difficulty, but UNFORTUNATELY there is no inclination to do so. Would have been great to see it in the air again for the Centennial of Naval Aviation and 60th Anniversary of the Korean War.........Oh well, maybe some day!

My dad ran form on two A-4's approaching El Toro one day in our Staggerwing, we were wide open at 200mph and they were all dirty, but just crossing the coast into 31 or 33 whatever it was.

Looks like the same area.
Chris...

Spotted by a friend in North Kingstown, RI the other day....



The airplane has the tail number of the one Art Wolk used to fly in the area prior to his 1996 landing incident.

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"Hindsight is usually 20% off!"

That does look like Art Wolk's old Panther. Sad to see what has become of it since the crash. When the Air Zoo had it there was talk of making a Korean War crash diorama, but obviously that never happened. It's going to take a ton of work even to make it a respectable static airframe again.

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Matt