The Fireball aerobatic team was formed at 3 (F) Wing Zweibrucken, West Germany in April 1954. The OCs of the three squadrons selected two pilots each to try out for the team. The team was formed just as 3 Wing was converting to Sabre 5s. so the decision was made to hold back six Mk 2s for the team. There were several reasons for this, but the main reason seemed to be that the slotted leading edge wing was preferable from a manoeuvring and safety popint of view at lower speeds during our performances. This idea probably stemmed from a desire to stay with something more familiar, rather than get into a new airplane whose performance we were unfamiliar with.
Our first training flight took place on April 9th. The next two weeks consisted of a lot of flying on my part with each member of the team. The first few trips were about an hour of close formation with the wingman flying various positions - left, right and line-astern. In this way we determined which position eachman was best suited for. Following the tryouts, team positions were assigned as follows: from 434 Squadron - myself (leader) and F/O Syd Burrows (right wing); from 427 Squadron - F/O Jack Frazer (left wing) and F/O Bill Grip (spare); and from 413 Squadron - F/O Rick Mace (slot). F/O Nick Nixon ended up being transferred before the workups were completed. By April 23rd we were ready for our first four-plane sortie. Unfortunately, this commitment was only a secondary duty from Squadron Ops and Training, therefore time available for the team was very restricted. In fact, a lot of sorties were flown after normal hours throughout the summer. Only six four-plane formation sorties had been flown by April 27th when Syd and I departed for Rabat, Morocco for gunnery training. We were gone for a month.On our return from Rabat, we were met at our aircraft with a message to refuel and get the team airborne over Air Division Headquarters in Metz for a review of our performance for a possible show in Rennes, France on the anniversary of D-Day. No practice, just get there! We weren't exactly in prime shape after three legs and almost four hours in the air from Rabat. However, off we went.
The first roll over the HQ was wonderful. When I rolled out, there were no aircraft with me! Talk about rusty.. About four manoeuvres later we returned for a landing at Zweibrucken to await our blast from the AOC 1 Air Division, A/V/M Hugh Campbell. To our surprise, we got the green light to prepare for the 6th of June. This was the 27th of May! With regular squadron commitments. we managed only two practice sessions before the show. One of them was on the way there!
Our set routine of manoeuvres lasted for 12 minutes and consisted of an opening silhouette pass in a tight diamond, a loop, roll, cloverleaf of four loops, a change of formation (diamond to line-astern to diamond) followed by a vertical bomb shell. We found the best power setting to be 80 RPM, which I maintained throughout; all manoeuvres were entered at 360 knots. Takeoffs were always made in a finger-four formation and landings in a box.
On one of our occasional visits to the USAF base at Sembach, we befriended a pilot, Lt. Russ Tanzy, who happened to fly an RF-80 photo recce aircraft with a side mounted camera. After much arm twisting and a few mint-juleps, we pursuaded him to come along on one of our practice flights on July 12th and fly a wing position suitable for snapping close-ups of our super formation. The resulting pictures are now part of the team history. Tragically, Russ was killed later that summer in a mid-air accident. We were greatful for his help and missed his visits.Because of our part-time employment as an aerobatic team, there seemed to be little direction or interest from Air Division HQ to give us a standing in name, or a colour scheme. A name was originally tagged on us by F/O Fred Allport who did an amazing job composing a video of our show on his 8mm movie camera. (Unfortunately they were all from the ground so there were few good close-ups). His title page dubbed us "The Four Aces". However, it didn't seem to catch on and over much discussion and a few beers one Friday night, F/O Bernie McComiskey yelled from the bar, "Why don't you guys paint your airplanes fire-engine red and call yourselves the Fireballs? It stuck!.
A large number of our shows were put on for visiting dignitaries from the Department of National Defence, AFHQ and other countries. These included A/V/M Frank Waite, Sir Basil Embry, the Hon George Drew, A/M Wilf Curtis and the Hon Ralph Campney. Besides these and the D-Day show, the team also performed shows at: the 86th Fighter Bomber Wing in Landstuhl, West Germany (July 10th); Vichy, France (August 22nd); Volkel, Holland (September 3rd); Nancy and Sedan France, 2 Wing; 3 Wing; and 4 Wing (all on September 5th).
The French had an organization known as Le Meeting National de l'Air, whose job it was to organize airshows throughout France and North Africa in order to interest the populace in air power. It was this organization which had hosted our first show in Rennes. In all, the Fireballs performed in four French airshows, at Rennes, Vichy, Nancy and Sedan. These were great occasions. The towns were in a holiday mood and huge crowds converged on the aerodrome to witness the feats of the French, British, Canadian and American aircraft. The shows usually included aerobatic teams, parachutists, stunt fliers and occasionally high-speed demonstrations by the latest types of French fighter aircraft. In the evenings, a banquet and gand ball were usually held, to which all participants were invited, and which was attended by the mayrs, air attaches of various countries and French military personnel. The dinner was abound with speeches and toasts and all the participants were presented with silver cups, cut glassware or medallions in memory of the occasion.
The largest show of the summer was at Vichy on August 22nd. We were based at Lyon, along with the USAF Skyblazers (flying F-86Fs), the French team with their Ouragans, the RAF Meteor team and a flight of RAF Canberras. Our busiest day, by far, was September 5th when we flew five shows in one day! The last show of the day at 4 Wing was at dusk. Our next scheduled show would also take place in Baden, this time for the Chief of the Air Staff.
Reprinted from "A Tradition of Excellence - Canada's Airshow Team Heritage" courtesy Dan Dempsey. - Web Site -
This page is located at
http://www.marville.org/other/maother-23.html
Updated: April 20, 2003