Thunderbirds show off for crowd
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
The six Thunderbird pilots even took off their Air Force sunglasses and kneeled for photographs in precision cadence yesterday.
Thousands came to see the Thunderbirds' first flight over Hickam Air Force Base yesterday.
They're better known for their meticulously choreographed flying. And the Thunderbirds showed their moves above Hickam Air Force Base and Honolulu International Airport yesterday, sometimes crisscrossing one another at ear-splitting speeds just 150 feet above the flight line.
They're officially known as the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron. And they're job is to display the skills that every Air Force pilot has to know.
The Thunderbirds just do it much closer together and with far less space between the ground and their F-16C Fighting Falcon jets.
An estimated 45,000 people watched the six red, white and blue Thunderbirds fly for the first time over Hickam as part of the base's Friends and Neighbors Weekend, which continues today. The Thunderbirds will perform again today from 4 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free.
Five-year-old Chancelor Renteria had camouflage paint applied by Marine Cpl. James Schiele, as Marines showed off some of their unloaded weapons to Chancelor and other children. Like the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard and Marine exhibits, the guns were great, Chancelor said. But it wasn't the main reason he came.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
Chancelor stuck out his neck and swept his arms behind his back.
The Thunderbirds perform their signature move, the High Bomb Burst, over Hickam Air Force Base.
"Watch the planes fly," he said.
The Thunderbirds did more than just fly.
For half an hour all other air traffic out of Honolulu International Airport shut down as four of the jets kept their trademark Thunderbird Diamond in tight formation, and the two solo pilots pirouetted around them, choreographed to music ranging from Van Halen to Joe Satriani to Faith Hill to the score from "The Right Stuff," and finally ending with "God Bless America."
The pilots are capable of pushing their F-16s to 1,200 mph, or twice the speed of sound, but keep their show maneuvers below supersonic levels.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
They do, however, twist their planes and bodies, sometimes into 9-G turns.
Two of the Air Force Thunderbirds fly in a belly-to-belly formation. Pilots are capable of pushing their F-16s to 1,200 mph, or twice the speed of sound, but keep the show maneuvers below supersonic levels.
Before they even climbed into their jets yesterday, the Thunderbird pilots were busy fulfilling their main mission of Air Force recruiting. They posed for pictures with the 30 family members of Staff Sgt. Carey Yamaguchi, a 1990 Waipahu High School graduate who has been assigned to the Thunderbirds as a jet engine mechanic for the last year.
"I'm still kind of holding back my tears," said Yamaguchi's mother, Joy Muranaka, who hadn't seen her son in three years.
The Thunderbird pilots helped take some of the sting out of the long separation, she said.
"They said, 'You sure you're his mother? You look like his sister.'"
As the F-16 engines whined in the background just before the start of the show, the Thunderbirds' commander, Lt. Col. Richard McSpadden, Jr., recited the Air Force enlistment oath to 20 Hawai'i recruits — each wearing Thunderbird T-shirts.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
The six pilots wearing form-fitting, flashy red flight suits and white ascots marched in front of the group of recruits. On command, the Thunderbirds then seamlessly removed their sunglasses and kneeled in sequence before smiling for pictures.
The four main jets that make up the Thunderbirds diamond for much of the performance took off in unison, followed by the lead solo and opposing solo planes.
Then it was time for the show.
The four main jets that make up the Thunderbird diamond for much of the performance took off in unison, followed by the lead solo and opposing solo planes.
They flew belly to belly. Wingtip to wingtip. In precise, eight-point rolls. And in the Thunderbirds' trademark bomb-burst that left four planes spinning off into opposite edges of the sky as a fifth plane cork-screwed up the middle, leaving a trail of smoke in its path.
Flame McNorton, a retired and disabled Navy senior chief, watched the show from his wheelchair.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
"They've got it together, don't they?" he said. "I hope this makes people have more pride for people in uniform."
People at the Friends and Neighbors Weekend visited a B-1B bomber at Hickam Air Force Base yesterday.
Derek Chan, an 8-year-old, third-grader at Kapolei Elementary School, had a far simpler reaction.
"Those airplanes," he said, "just beat the sky like thunder."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
