US Navy's "Yellow Beetle Bomb" ...

[Mark Allen M]

... your saying "What is a Beetle Bomb?" ... well everybody knows it was the US Navy Blue Angels yellow #0 F8F-1 Bearcat of course. lol

Below is a nice profile of 'Beetle Bomb' in it's hayday. Just think 'yellow' with blue lettering.


US Navy Grumman F8F-1 95187 Beetle Bomb

and below is the currently airworthy example with the colors flipped. (Last I heard this one was still for sale?)



They both looked something like this rendering below.

[Mark Allen M]

A couple of not so wonderful photos of 'Beetle Bomb' ...

[Mark Allen M]

The 'blue' version.

[Mark Allen M]

and some random photos of the Blue Angel Bearcats. They basically flew from around 1946 to 1949.

[Malo83]

A couple of not so wonderful photos of 'Beetle Bomb' ...

Those are very wonderful photo's of 'Beetle Bomb'

[p51]

So, what's the story here? Painted in opposite colors with a "0" tail number?
I'd never seen nor heard of this before now, but then again I'm not very well-read on Blue Angels history...

[Lon Moer]

The first "Beetle Bomb" was a SNJ;



And it flew against the Blue's when they were flying the F6F Hellcat's



And they were serviced by a Connie!

[Mark Allen M]

The first "Beetle Bomb" was a SNJ

Correct indeed

[Dan K]

So, what's the story here? Painted in opposite colors with a "0" tail number?
I'd never seen nor heard of this before now, but then again I'm not very well-read on Blue Angels history...

As Lon posted, "Beetle Bomb" was originally an SNJ. Compared to the F6F Hellcats of the original Angels, the SNJ was slow...an also-ran.

Listen to Spike Jones' musical parody of "William Tell Overture", and you might get part of the joke about "Beetle Bomb".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aupQysNpMzk


"...And Beetle Bomb..."

[Mark Allen M]

More "Bearcat Blues" ...

[Badman]

So, what's the story here? Painted in opposite colors with a "0" tail number?
I'd never seen nor heard of this before now, but then again I'm not very well-read on Blue Angels history...

As I recall, I think the Beetle Bomb started off representing Japanese/enemy aircraft during the immediate post-WWII shows that the Blues would "shoot" down. I believe they even had a dummy with parachute rigged up in the T-6's back seat they would drop as part of the shoot down routine (I'm not sure how that worked mechanically?).

I think when the Blue's switched to the F8Fs they felt they needed a faster Beetle Bomb for safety reasons and used a F8F-1? At some point I think a pilot of one of the F8F-1 Beetle Bombs attempted a roll on take-off at a show that ended very badly.

[Tulio]

I'd never seen nor heard of this before now, but then again I'm not very well-read on Blue Angels history...

May I suggest this:

http://www.amazon.com/Reflections-blue- ... 0933424248

It is a little dated, but I enjoyed reading it when I bought mine, 20 plus years ago.

Saludos,


Tulio

[Lon Moer]

And just as an FYI, there really is a color "Blue Angels Blue".

[Snake45]

And they were serviced by a Connie!

The Hellcats and Bearcats? The cars in this picture are at least '68s, and I think they're a '69 Chevy wagon and a '69 or '70 Ford. (Others might know more.)

[shrike]

And they were serviced by a Connie!

The Hellcats and Bearcats? The cars in this picture are at least '68s, and I think they're a '69 Chevy wagon and a '69 or '70 Ford. (Others might know more.)

According to Wikipedia at least, they had the Connie from 69-73.Replacing the R5D Skymaster, and being replaced by the C-130