The Blue Angels performed and served as the main attraction in the annual air show in Vidalia, Ga. last weekend.
The Blue Angels perform every two years for the Vidalia Onion Festival while they complete their annual air show and demonstration circuit to represent the Navy and Marine Corps.
“We’re just lucky enough to represent the 650,000 sailors and marines out there week in and week out, taking the Navy and Marine Corps to places like Vidalia, Ga. where we can’t bring an aircraft out here and show people what the Navy is about,” said Lt. C.J. Simonsen, the Advanced Pilot and Narrator, as well as Blue Angel Number Seven for the Blue Angels. “It’s our way of bringing the Navy and Marine Corps to small town America.”
The Blue Angels are scheduled to perform 68 air shows at 35 air show sites in the year 2010, taking up a total of nine months out of the year.
The U.S. Navy’s Flight Demonstration Squadron consists of six F/A-18 Hornets as well as a seventh for backup and a C-130 also known as Fat Albert that begins the show with a 10-minute performance. The Blue Angel pilots are Number One: Cmdr. Greg McWherter “Boss,” Two: Lt. Jim Tomaszeski, Three: Lt. Rob Kurrle, Four: Maj. Christopher Collins, Five and Lead Solo Five: Lt. Cmdr. Frank Weisser, and Opposing Solo Six: Lt. Ben Walborn.
“The solos—Five and Six—will pull eight Gs every time they fly while the diamond demonstrates the precision flying of Navy and Marine Corps pilots. They normally pull about seven Gs, so they pull a little less, but it’s usually more graceful flying,” said Simonsen. “When they’re in the diamond flying, they’re only a foot and a half (18 inches) apart.
“The solo demonstrators though, they’re the ones who really show what the F/A-18 is built to do,” he said.
Before the Blue Angels are permitted to fly in an air show, they must complete a three-month training process in a remote location in El Centro, California.
“We will fly 2-3 times a day, 6 days a week,” said Simonsen. “We’ll go out to the desert, where no one can see us except our Maintenance Officer and our Flight Doc out there watching us, grading every single flight; and we basically do the same thing every single day.”
The pilots train through a habit pattern in order to properly learn the demonstration.
“The human body really likes habit, so if you keep doing things over and over again, it’ll just become second nature for you when you’re up there flying,” Simonsen said.
The Blue Angels fly 15 times a week from Jan. 4 through March 13 as a training period before beginning the air show circuit.
“It’s a very rigorous, grueling training, but it’s definitely necessary so we can put on a safe demonstration for everyone,” Simonsen said. “We’ll fly 120 training flights before we even go public with our demonstration.”
Even though the members of the Blue Angel team practice the demonstration 120 times before flying in air shows, there have been fatalities. However, Simonsen said that they take those bad circumstances and learn from them in order to make a safer demonstration for years to come.
“The air show industry is a very unforgiving business,” he said. “You make a little mistake, and it can turn into something bad quickly, but we train so much so we can put on a safe demonstration for everybody here in Vidalia and throughout America.”
The F/A-18 Hornets are equipped with ejection seats and parachutes for cases of emergency. Each pilot also has emergency procedures memorized.
“We have folks on the ground, our safety observers who will have an emergency book so if things happen they can talk us through stuff so we can get the jet on deck as safely as possible,” he said.
The Blue Angels cannot complete their show circuits without the support of the C-130 Transport Aircraft for the Blue Angels, also known as the Fat Albert.
“Our primary mission is logistical support for the team so we take 30,000 pounds of parts and equipment as well as 40 maintainers, we load up on the airplane and we travel from show site to show site,” said Joe Alley, the navigator for the Fat Albert. “The jets can’t put on a show without that support, so our role to them is very critical. So that’s our primary mission, but in addition to that, we also put on a demonstration that we open the show with.”
In the fleet, the pilots use the C-130 for aerial refueling and troupe resupply. It allows them to go into very obscure locations. The C-130 can hold a maximum gross weight of 170,000 pounds. The plane weighs 80,000 pounds and can hold 42,000 pounds of fuel, leaving an extra 53,000 pounds for cargo.
Alley said that the crew has even dropped three Humvees from a height of 1,000 feet out of the back of a C-130. The vehicles were placed on corrugated cardboard platforms which absorb all the energy upon impact. The parachutes which were attached to the vehicles slowed the rate at which they dropped.
“We’re very utilized in the Iraq and Afghanistan theatre so there’s a lot we can do in carriage just because of the nature of the airplane. It can get in and out of really tight places,” he said.
Although Simonsen has never personally flown in an air show, as he is the seventh Blue Angel, he will next year. He served as the Narrator and Advanced pilot for two years, beginning with last year, and then will be in the demonstration for the next two years.
Weisser and Walborn, the pilots flying Five and Six, were previously Number Sevens. After Seven, they moved to Six, then the next year Five, as that is normally the way they move up through the ranks.
“I could go to number Three next year-the team will vote in September where I go-but normally it’s been Seven, then you go to Six, then you go to Five,” Simonsen said. “The guys that fly in the diamond, One through Four, they have only been on the team for two years, and then Five and Six will be on the team for three years.
“Number Five is actually our Operations Officer; he’s basically our number two ranking officer besides Boss, whose number one,” he said. “And typically we do everything in number order, one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven, that’s pretty much the ranking system.”
As Blue Angel Number Seven, Simonsen’s job is to give people rides in each town they visit. Number Seven is the only plane with two seats and therefore, is the only one that can serve as that position.
“I flew the principal at one of the schools here and I flew a Delta pilot, he basically works with kids in education,” he said. “Number Seven is basically the spare jet in case something breaks.”
Simonsen was initiated to the team after completing the “rushing” process that all the members must go through.
“It’s a process where any Marine Corps and F18 pilot can do what we do, the thing is you rush the team the way you rush a fraternity or a sorority,” he said. “Basically how it is, is you’ll see how well you get along with the current team members because we select the people that are coming in next year, so we’re the only organization in the Navy that will—no kidding—see the people, meet them, and invite them onto our team.
“It has nothing to do with skill, we’re all average pilots at best,” said Simonsen.
When finding new Blue Angel members, the biggest thing they concentrate on is personality since they are together 300 days a year. The pilots need to be able to get along with the others they accept to be on the team. The pilots will also need to be able to interact well in situations where people will ask them questions, as they constantly deal with fans and the media. They will need to answer and say what is on their mind in a good manner.
“We’re just a bunch of guys and gals that get together and we make a demonstration happen,” he said. “And we do it because: a) we trust each other, which is huge, and b) we all love what we’re doing, we all love that we’re representing the Navy and Marine Corps.”
In addition to flying air shows and representing the Navy and Marine Corps, the Blue Angels also spend their days recruiting kids at schools who might want to join the Navy or Marine Corps as an option of employment.
“We also realize that not every kid wants to be in the military,” said Simonsen. “So if we can inspire that kid that doesn’t want to go to the military to stay in school and do math, science, go out there and be engineers, be pilots, be scientists, to make this country better than what it is today, that’s really our number one goal is just to inspire kids.”
Simonsen said that when he was a little kid, he always heard the words Blue Angel and never thought he would be able to do something like that.
“I never thought I would be able to fly an F/A-18 let alone be a Blue Angel,” he said. “You set a goal high and you achieve it, set it higher than what you think you can make because that way you know what they say, you aim for the stars and you hit the moon.”
“So I always tell kids, never let anybody tell you something you can’t do because you can do anything in this world you want, which is why this country is such a great country because we do have the privilege and honor to choose what we want to be, as long as we work hard and stay in school we can do anything we want,” Simonsen said. “Being a Blue Angel is a dream come true and it’s something that’s very humbling for me to put this suit on everyday and to go out there and represent the Navy and Marine Corps.”