I thought not. Too hot. The F-4 was really too hot, and the F-14 was hotter still.
I saw the Blue Angels at that 1970 air show. The venue was Quonset Point NAS.
I'll be darned. Where were you? I was on Coddington Point with the rest of the OCS regiment. Third Battalion, Lima Company. When you got the duty, you got the duty. Think it was a holiday weekend -- not Memorial Day?
You probably had liberty parties come over from the destroyer piers across the cove from us (I hear they're no longer used.....at least Clinton didn't lease them out to the damn PLA, like he did Long Beach). Might have seen some OC's, too, and Marines of course.
Every now and then we'd see a CVA run up Narragansett Bay to Quonset. I was wondering why they were going up the bay, but then we didn't know what was up there. Couldn't see, of course, because of the interposition of Deer Island.
We stayed on the Point, and Coaster's Harbor Island (where the O-Club and the Naval War College were -- and our YP-Boat pier, where we pulled guard duty). Got a cruise or two in the YP's, but we were pretty busy and didn't have much time for touristing -- head down over the radar and plot table, or flag hoists, or what have you. One class about a year ahead of us got to take a run out into the Sound, down past Newport, and they got to watch the New Jersey practicing with her main batteries, which was beaucoup impressive, we heard the stories -- a lot of OC's out of those classes, when they graduated, pulled battleship duty, the first since Korea. We were a year and a half late, about.
Re: the F-14...
The Tomcat was a fine aircraft, but it was a maintenance hog. The A-4 was much easier handle in close and was not as complex an aircraft. The F-18 is in between the A-4 and the F-14. It is closer to the F-4, in my opinion, for jet aerobatics.
Re: Quonset Point...
I can’t remember the holiday. It could have been July 4th as it seems it was in the middle of the summer. If I ever find the slides, I’ll post them.
I think Quonset Point was an ASW base and I think they housed some S-2F Tracker squadrons in that era.