I should mention that back in the days when the Blue Angel was wining the world championships the landing gear setup was very important and trike retractable landing gear was a key element of all pattern designs. The gear setup often included a wheel brake. In those days, take off (this required a timed engine start up, taxing to the end of the runway, line up for take off and make a full stop. The scoring including part of the departure), landing pattern approach, landing and roll out to a procedure stop were all scored. I don’t remember if taxi back to the hanger was still scored by 1973. The top pilots consistently and coolly made these maneuvers look simple and that’s why none of the top pattern aircraft were tail draggers. I’m building my Blue Angel with trike gear the way Kato intended it to be and the way it deserves to be built. To me it is painful to see one of these beautiful classics built any other way because the stance and look of these designs sitting and moving on the tarmac is such a large part of their beauty.

It always amused me that some of the local club “hot dog” pattern flyers spent all their time practicing rolling circles, top hats, etc. and would totally blow their points on take off and landing. I’m sure you’ve all known at least one “hot dog”, most every club usually had at least one. It seems like when the pressure was on these were the maneuvers that separated the top flyers from the “hot dogs”. The funniest part is that the “hot dogs” always argued that these maneuvers were not acrobatic maneuvers and should not be scored because they took up too much time, my engine wont idle, my aircraft wont stop, the runway is too short, I normally don’t fly off tarmac and my aircraft is bouncing, it’s too windy, the judges aren’t fair, etc. Those maneuvers were done very close to the judges so it was pretty hard to hide a poor landing.

Our local top pilot and world champ was Ralph Brooke. See image below. I remember watching him fly his Crusader and then later on his Gladiator. His take off and landings were spectacular, almost like the aircraft was being guided on invisible rails.

OK, so much for the nostalgia, back to the Blue Angel build.

To be continued…