Parrothead Jeff

I was checking out my own blog to make sure things were working OK and looked right when I took a good look at this pic:

Yep, that’s one of the random header pics for this blog and I immediately thought about how that was one of the good times and it don’t get much better than that You see, if you look on the left side of the pic there’s a whole row of F-14 Tomcats from VF-101 - the “Grim Reapers” and just beyond on the taxiway is an F-22 Raptor taxiing back after a flight.

This picture was taken back in November of 2004, just a couple of weeks after I moved from San Diego to Las Vegas. The 2004 airshow at Nellis - Aviation Nation 2004 - was the last airshow where the mighty F-14 Tomcat strutted its stuff anywhere but at Oceana NAS. It was one of the first times the F-22 flew for the public.

I sure do miss the Tomcat, but at least I got to see one of her last flights - see the post Tomcat’s Last West Coast Hurrah for a video of that flight

Last time, Baby :thumb: ! Tomcats and Raptors - it don’t get much better ‘n that

One other pic that just came up was this one:

Yep, that’s the mighty F-4 Phantom passing in front of the tower at Nellis in full earth-shaking, soul-quaking, ear-breaking afterburner Add a Double Ugly to the Tomcat and Raptor and I’m pretty much set for the day

PS - Click on the pics for full size