"Spirit of Alliance" Northrop T-38 Talon
"Spirit of Alliance" getting towed out to the flight line. I don't think there's been an Alliance Air Show that I haven't gotten a bunch of shots of this bird. The first time I saw the Thunderbirds as a kid was their last season with the F-4 Phantom but most of what I remember was the Talon show. It didn't have the roar of the Phantom or the glitz of the Fighting Falcon, but the Talon was a sleek jet and the stylized "stinger" scheme on the underside accentuated that. Given the Talon's small wings, the usual stylized Thunderbird motif wasn't used again until the team converted to the Fighting Falcon. The amount of fuel used by the six-jet Talon team was equal to the fuel used by a *single" Thunderbird Phantom during a show. Given the fuel prices of the early and mid-1970s, the conversion to the Talon was quite a boon to the bottom line not to mention the ease of maintenance for the Talon compared to the Phantom.
"Spirit of Alliance" Northrop T-38 Talon
"Spirit of Alliance" getting towed out to the flight line. I don't think there's been an Alliance Air Show that I haven't gotten a bunch of shots of this bird. The first time I saw the Thunderbirds as a kid was their last season with the F-4 Phantom but most of what I remember was the Talon show. It didn't have the roar of the Phantom or the glitz of the Fighting Falcon, but the Talon was a sleek jet and the stylized "stinger" scheme on the underside accentuated that. Given the Talon's small wings, the usual stylized Thunderbird motif wasn't used again until the team converted to the Fighting Falcon. The amount of fuel used by the six-jet Talon team was equal to the fuel used by a *single" Thunderbird Phantom during a show. Given the fuel prices of the early and mid-1970s, the conversion to the Talon was quite a boon to the bottom line not to mention the ease of maintenance for the Talon compared to the Phantom.