THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170383
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PENSACOLA, FLA. LENGTH: Long : 180 lines
The light banter around the table abruptly ends as ``the Boss'' begins his chant.
``We're clear for takeoff,'' he sings.
``Let's run 'em up. Smoke . . . on. Off brakes. Now! Burners ready now. Gear! A lit-tle drive. Up . . . we . . . go!''
Around the table, six men in blue and gold are in a Zen-like trance, streaking down an imaginary runway, climbing into the blue.
``A little pull,'' Cmdr. Donnie Cochran croons, and with the smallest movements of their hands the listeners ease back on imaginary throttles.
``A little more pull . . . adding power . . . coming left . . . smoke off .
The concentration in the room is electric, as if the participants were athletes visualizing a series of muscle movements in an intricate dive or a dismount from a balance beam.
As if they could feel gravity forces pressing on their lungs and chests.
Now the six are donning helmets, marching solemnly past a crowd of onlookers. Don't get in their way; don't get in their faces with cameras.
They're in the zone.
Saluting crew chiefs, climbing into cockpits, wagging flaps and rudders, roaring down the runway, they rip into the cool April dawn.
They are the Blue Angels, the stuff of legend, an elite, seemingly dauntless Navy flight demonstration team about to begin another day of pirouetting through the air in impossibly close formations. Wowing yet another audience.
But they are as human as anybody on their 100-member ground crew. They are very, very good at what they do - they have to be when performing aerial acrobatics at 600 miles an hour with wing separations of sometimes less than 36 inches - but perfection is not in their vocabulary.
This was painfully evident last fall when the team abruptly canceled its show at Oceana Naval Air Station because a training flaw pointed to a possibly dangerous situation.
This weekend, just one month into the team's 50th anniversary performance schedule, the Blue Angels return to Hampton Roads with shows Saturday and Sunday at Norfolk Naval Air Station.
Cochran, the flight leader, says this year's pilots - three of the six change every year - have been buoyed by optimism as practice has honed them into a team.
``The team had to stop last year because we felt that if we continued in the route we were going we would increase the potential of a mishap,'' Cochran said.
The team killed the Oceana show and one the following week in Alexandria, La. The pilots went back to Pensacola for more practice, then resumed the schedule.
``We essentially took that learning experience and applied it not only to the remainder of '95 but also applied it to this year in terms of how we go about preparing ourselves.''
No fewer than 120 practice flights are necessary before the Angels can put their show on the road. Even now, just a few weeks into their eight-month show schedule, perfection is a long way off.
``There's no such thing as a perfect air show,'' Flight Surgeon Andrew Nelson says after the morning practice. It's his job to keep the pilots healthy - including, of course, not running into each other.
From his communications pod on the tarmac, Nelson watches each show with a critical eye and stays locked in radio contact with the fliers.
Even with pilots who have thousands of hours of flight time and hundreds of night-time aircraft carrier landings, it is possible to fly too close, to each other or the ground, especially when one of them is upside down, 200 feet from the runway, watching the terrain go by at 500 miles an hour.
``Low bottom!'' Nelson may call out to the plane closest to the ground.
The team leader, who flies at the front of the diamond, can't see the others, so it is up to the ``slot'' pilot in back to provide a running critique.
The Blues, who start their year in January with practice at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro, Calif., begin with two pilots flying together, then four, then six, wide apart at first, then gradually sliding closer to each other. ``As you develop confidence, the bonding process takes place,'' says Cochran.
Debuting in mid-March in El Centro and running through Nov. 9 at Pensacola, the team is on course to fly 70 air shows at 36 locations.
They perform two shows every weekend, each one of them physically and emotionally exhausting.
Says Marine Maj. Pat Cooke, who flies the right wing position of the famous Blue Angel diamond, ``You get in your airplane and taxi down to the end of the runway; you can feel your head beating with the adrenalin. It's the same feeling you get doing arrested landings at night on a carrier.''
The intensity has not changed since 1946. That's when Adm. Chester Nimitz decided the Navy needed to compete for the limelight with the newly formed Air Force.
In searching for a name, the team came across an ad for a cafe in New York inspired by The Blue Angel, a movie starring Marlene Dietrich. That was it. To the consternation of Navy brass, who were mulling over quite different names, the team announced it to the press and the name stuck.
It was a fitting move for a squadron that is more show business than fight business. Its mission is to inspire young people to want to fly for the Navy.
Members of the Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, as they're officially called, are picked from among the Navy's top fighter or attack pilots.
They have been in continuous operation since 1946 - with one exception. In 1950, the team was ordered into combat in Korea, where one of the pilots was shot down and killed.
There have been 22 deaths in the 50 years of Blue Angel history, but none since the team began flying light, maneuverable F/A-18 Hornets 11 years ago.
It is all pure, stick-and-throttle flying, none of it computer-controlled. Those precision rolls and banks are executed simultaneously on voice command. When the flight leader sings out a command, hands are already moving the controls.
The normal 36 inches of wing separation in close formation can shrink to quite a bit less when things get bumpy.
``What we're trained to do is not get excited when we're too close, but to calm down and ease it back,'' says Cooke.
``The intensity level in just about everything we do is beyond anything I've ever done,'' says pilot Ryan Scholl, who played football and wrestled at Princeton.
``It's unbelievable the teamwork and the discipline that goes on 24 hours a day.''
Watching them, an observer would have to agree.
A cool breeze whips the runway as the Blue Angels take off, four of them in formation. Then the soloists' planes leap into the air at heart-thumping attitudes.
Among the ground crew, Lt. Scott Beare paces back and forth, practicing his narration for the show: ``Each pilot having accelerated his aircraft to 500 miles per hour . . . ''
He's describing what's coming next. The soloists are swooping around at opposite ends of the runway and seemingly flying directly at each other, closing at a combined rate of 1,000 mph - faster than one mile a second. Three miles, two miles, one.
In the last half-second, they do an opposing knife-edge pass that makes it seem as though they miss each other by inches. Actually, there's about 20 feet between them.
``There are times I sit there and say to myself, I'm living right on the edge,'' says Scholl.
``We have contracts with each other,'' he says, smiling. ``My contract is not to hit him, and his is not to hit me.''
Occasionally, as the Hornets go into a low, hard bank, their wingtips leave ribbons of mist in the moist Gulf air. A sudden burst of smoke - nothing more than oil sprayed into the exhaust stream and vaporized - adds to the effect.
One of their climbs seems impossibly steep. At the apex, like cascading fireworks, they fall backwards in a giddy arc and point at the ground, recovering just in time to fly straight at each other and pass at only slightly different altitudes.
Everything about the show - the timing, the climbs, the passes - seems perfect. But when the pilots return, several are shaking their heads. It was OK for a Monday in April, some of them say; there's a long way to go.
They'll get it all straight by November. Maybe.
``You're not done learning 'til the last day and the last show and you walk out the door and you're no longer a Blue Angel,'' says Marine pilot Cooke.
That's a day he and most of the other pilots wish would never come. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by LAWRENCE JACKSON photos/The Virginian-Pilot
Blue Angels are always striving for perfection. At 500 mph and 36
inches apart, the tiniest mistake can be lethal. Ground crew members
record and judge each performance.
Members of the precision flying team always shake hands at the end
of their shows or practice sessions. The team has been flying since
1946, except for a year of active duty during the Korean War.
B\W photo
Cmdr. Donnie Cochran flies the lead jet in the Blue Angels' diamond
formation. A ``slot'' pilot in back watches their form.
Graphic
AIR SHOW
Norfolk Naval Air Station plays host to the Blue Angels flight
demonstration team Saturday and Sunday. The air show, which also
includes stunt flying by civilian aviators, begins at 10 a.m. each
day, ending with Blue Angels demonstrations at 4:38 p.m.
The event is a salute to the International Azalea Festival, which
recognizes NATO's importance to the area. The show is free and open
to the pubic. Visitors are encouraged to bring lawn chairs or
blankets. Not permitted are pets, glass containers, skateboards,
Rollerblades or bicycles.
The air show will disrupt traffic along I-564, which will be
closed between Terminal Boulevard and Taussig Boulevard at the
following times: Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; Friday, 1:45 to
4 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 2:45 to 4 p.m. each day.
KEYWORDS: BLUE ANGELS by CNB