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Blue Angels |
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The Chance-Vought Retiree Club supplied the two colored photos above. |
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A pair of new and unusual aircraft joined the Blue Angels briefly during the 1952 season to augment the solo and high performance portions of the show, as well as fly with the Diamond during selected maneuvers. The Chance-Vought F7U-1 Cutlass was a dramatic change in naval aircraft design. This unusual flying machine was the first swept-wing aircraft flown by the team. With a combination of an oddly shaped fuselage, an oversized wing from which two vertical stabilizers protruded and two extremely noisy after-burning engines, the Cutlass gave air show spectators a real thrill and a preview of the future of aircraft design. The two F7U's assigned to the team were taken from an initial batch of 14 dash-1 Cutlasses ordered by the Navy for research and development purposes. None of those initial 14 ever got into regular Navy service. The two Blue Angels Cutlass pilots were LCDR Whitney Feightner and former Blue LT Harding C. 'Mac" MacNight, who had flown with the team during the Bearcat era. |
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Bureau Number were 124426 and 124427 |
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