The Team’s Performances Were Lower, Faster, and Louder Than Ever During This Tour
The United States Air Force Flight Demonstration Team, now known as the Thunderbirds, was first formed in 1953. Beginning in 1956 the team went supersonic when they began flying the North American F-100C Super Sabre. Each time the team switched aircraft their routine changed to showcase the strengths of their latest jets. The Hun era brought lots of low-level, high-speed flying to crowds around the world. One of the maneuvers the team began flying during their F-100C days was the Crossover- essentially the four jets converging on a pre-arranged spot with just enough offset to avoid occupation of the same piece of sky simultaneously. The video, entitled “Crossover”, highlights the 4520th Air Demonstration Squadron performing the Crossover and more during their 1961 Latin American Tour. It was uploaded to YouTube in two parts by Periscope Film.
Part 1
The Latin American Tour began in November of 1961 and came to a close during January of 1962. The tour was even given a code name: Operation Long Legs II. Although supersonic flight by the Thunderbirds over the United States in those days had to be prearranged and preapproved, there were no such restrictions in Latin America. As a result the cheering throngs of fans were often treated to booming zooming airshows- and many had never seen one before. Even more of the fans hadn’t seen an airshow anything like the Thunderbirds’ performance. And remember- it wasn’t until later in the 1962 show season that the two opposing solo jets (5 and 6) were added to the routines.
Part 2
The film, produced by the 1352nd Photo Group (part of the Military Air Transport Service- MATS), contains some beautiful color air-to-air footage of the Thunderbirds flying their Huns. The use of recognizable backdrops for some of the footage definitely establishes the location of the shots. There’s plenty of crowd footage and quotes from the Chilean, Guatemalan, Brazilian, and Paraguayan fans in attendance. Crowds were massive. And the Crossover maneuver was a crowd favorite. Nowadays the Thunderbirds (and the Blue Angels for that matter) don’t get anywhere near as close to the ground when performing converging maneuvers like the Crossover. It’s truly a different, and probably safer, time…just not quite as impressive.
Thunderbirds Trivia
During their 1959 Far East Tour, which took the Thunderbirds to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Hawaii, the team parked their F-100Cs and flew F-100Ds instead. Why? Because the C model had no inflight refueling probe- a required piece of kit when transiting the vastness of the Pacific Ocean in single-seat-single-engine fighter aircraft. The team’s travels across the wide expanses were supported by Boeing KB-50J tankers. Refueling probes were added to the team’s F-100Cs in 1960. The team didn’t fly F-100Ds again until after the short (and disastrous) F-105 experiment in 1964.
Bonus Thunderbirds Trivia
1960 was also the years the team did away with the laborious and time-consuming practice of scrubbing the exhaust soot from vertical stabilizer on the number 4 (slot) jet. It wasn’t painted black. It was just not thoroughly cleaned after every show. On 6 April 1961 team commanding officer Major Robert Fitzgerald and narrator Captain George Niel perished when the F-100F Fitzgerald was flying, with Niel as a passenger in the back seat (AF serial 56-3875) crashed 50 miles north of Nellis AFB during a training flight.