At the end of the airshow season in 1959, the first year of the RCAF Golden Hawks, the first ever joint North American formation in Canada took place at the Canadian International Airshow as part of the Canada National Exhibit. The formation was led by Fern Villneuve decorated hero and the first leader of the Golden Hawks.

That is sexy.

The "Hun" is probably the best looking AC the early T-Birds ever flew as they did not paint the entire craft, and left some of it bare steel. However, the steel was VERY shiny and good looking!



It is 2nd of course to the best AC to ever wear a tuxedo, the good ole F-4, which wore both Blue and Gold, and Red, White, and Blue! There was never a better airshow aircraft! (Loud, made the ground rumble, and smoky!)





Interesting 7 ship takeoff?!

I have to agree. I think the best looking AC ever is the F4. Would love to have seen an airshow with them in it.

Something I've always wondered though is why the #4 tail is not painted like the rest?

I'm sure someone here knows why.

pbrad wrote:Something I've always wondered though is why the #4 tail is not painted like the rest?

I'm sure someone here knows why.

When the #4 was in the diamond, the tail was constantly being hit by thick, black exhaust by boss' aircraft, and the exhaust would somehow solidify and cling to the tail. I think they tried cleaning it off to start with, but after a while it got to be too much and they just left it.

As you can also see by this lithograph, they had the same thing with the F-100s.

Ah, makes sense. Thanks Rhino.

As interesting as all this is about dirty vertical fins and nostalgic memories of loud Phantoms, I think the intent of my post got lost. The picture I stumbled on while researching Canada's Golden Hawks conveys the cooperation and longstanding goodwill between national aerobatic display teams, particularly North American teams.

The Golden Hawks were the pre-cursor to the Canadian Snowbirds who perform at over a dozen locations in the USA every season and are one of the most respected and sought after display teams in North America.

Since that picture was taken in 1959 there have been many other joint photo ops of North America's display teams. That same cooperation and goodwill is something for the virtual community to continually strive for.

Here is another fine example. In 1986, Major D.F. (Yogi) Huyghebaert led an historic five plane flypast at the Abbotsford Airshow. The other aircraft came from the U.S., Italy, France, and Brazil.