Confessions of a US Navy Blue Angel

[+MigBuster]

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/confessions-of-a-us-navy-blue-angel-1689568343/+AnnaleeNewitz

 

 

The first time I was in a Tomcat ("Tom") I remember looking back over my shoulders at altitude seeing the wings swept back and thinking "Holy crap, I'm in a freaking Tomcat!" Pretty cool. I was flying with "Heavy D" Burke and we were on our way to Kingsville for a demo weekend. "Popeye" Doyle was flying the Demo bird that weekend and Heavy D and I got to take the spare out there. My first intro to the fighter pilot culture. We landed and Popeye came up to me and said "Here, you're going to need this this weekend" and ripped off my "Tomcat" patch and replaced it with an "F-14 Demo" patch. For that weekend I wasn't just a lowly RAG student, I was a Tomcat guy.