Blue Angels homecoming in November

Each November the Blue Angels come home to roost. After a hectic show schedule, they come to their home town to close the tour. This year’s homecoming event is November 13 and 14 at Pensacola Naval Air Station.

The Blues fly over the Pensacola area twice a year, once at Pensacola Beach in July and then at the Pensacola NAS in November. The latter is my favorite. There is something about watching the show from the tarmac of the base that makes me really feel involved.

Admission is free. The gates open at 8 a.m., the show starts at 9:30 a.m. and the Blue Angels are scheduled to fly at approximately 2 p.m. With thousands of people converging on the base, you would think it would be a traffic nightmare. But, with military personnel directing the traffic, it flows very smoothly.

According to a recent press release, this will be the last year for Fat Albert and the JATO demonstration. This saddens me. For those of you not familiar with the Blue Angles, Fat Albert is a Lockheed-Martin C-130T Hercules. The plane is operated by an all-Marine Corps crew of three officers and five enlisted personnel. Fat Albert has been thrilling spectators since November of 1975 with its jet-assisted takeoff (JATO) capability. Eight solid-fuel rocket bottles, four on each side, thrust the enormous plane skyward. The JATO bottles allow the aircraft to takeoff within 1,500 feet, climb at a 45-degee angle and propel it to an altitude of 1,000 feet in about 15 seconds. It is absolutely amazing to watch.

he team is researching several alternatives to the JATO. I guess we will have to wait and see what the 2010 team prepares for us. But, for this year, I plan to be on the base to bid farewell to Fat Albert’s JATO November 14.