This color promotional film is about the U.S. Air Force Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Thunderbirds, making a tour of Latin America including Guatemala, Chile, Paraguay and Brazil. This is circa March 1961 to June 1963 when the Thunderbirds were flying the F-100 Super Sabre and led by Col. Ralph “Hoot” Gibson.
Chile. Spectators watch in awe as the planes fly by. A solider on horseback watches as well. Plaza Baquedano, Santiago, Chile :32. Organ grinder plays and a monkey dances. Thunderbird planes fly in formation. Children look up and laugh. Crew chief of the Thunderbird planes shakes hands (:06-1:43). Aeropuerto Internacional Presidente Stroessner in Luque, Paraguay (1:21). One of the men holds a gift, a model of the team’s support aircraft. The pilots meet with foreign dignitaries who may include Chile’s Augusto Pinochet and Paraguay’s Alfredo Stroessner, Guatemala’s General José Miguel Ramón Ydígoras Fuente, . The team walks in formation, the officer on the far right is team leader and Air Force Ace, Col. Ralph Duane “Hoot” Gibson. People on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil thrill to the sights of the Thunderbirds flying by. A man builds a sandcastle (1:44-3:08). Beaches are packed. The man continues to make his sand castle. People at an airbase watch planes. People look up, including a fireman, who marvel at the F-100s (3:09-4:22). A crowd of people watch the planes pass by. The planes do a cross-over above the crowd, low to the ground. Thunderbirds head home to the USA (4:23-5:50). End credits (5:51-5:59).
The Thunderbirds entered the supersonic era with the the F-100C Super Sabre in 1956. This switch was accompanied by a relocation of their headquarters to Nellis AFB, Nevada. An emphasis was placed on low, screaming flyovers and demonstrations of takeoff performance. For a time, if the show’s sponsor permitted it, the pilots would create a sonic boom; this ended when the FAA banned supersonic flight over the continental United States. In 1961, the team was compelled to discontinue the vertical bank maneuver due to an FAA regulation prohibiting aerobatics that pointed the nose of the aircraft toward the crowd. The year 1962 saw the introduction of dual solo routines, and the Thunderbirds went on their first European deployment in 1963, the year after the disbanding of the “Skyblazers” (see below). The team switched to the F-105 Thunderchief for the 1964 season, but were forced to re-equip with the F-100D after only six airshows due to a catastrophic structural failure of the No. 2 aircraft during a pitch-up maneuver that resulted in the death of Capt Gene Devlin at Hamilton Air Force Base on 9 May. The F-100D Super Sabre was retained through the 1968 season.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
