Here's an e-mail I received this morning ... sorry that I can't link it, so have just done a copy and paste job on it ...
I'll get the exact date(s) of the big flyover and post it here ... there may be some on-base (MCAS Miramar and NAS North Island) displays of these aircraft as well ...
Boy howdy, this could make a great 'What If' GB ...
I'll be heading home to San Diego for the festivities and would love to meet up with anyone else that can come ... if not, pictures galore, for sure ! ...
Navy planes taking trip back in time for centennial
By Jeanette Steele
Wednesday, December 15, 2010 at 8:35 p.m.
Are your eyes deceiving you, or is that a dark-blue Korean War-era Navy helicopter flying over San Diego Bay? In mint condition?
It is. And it isn’t.
About 25 modern-day Navy aircraft are getting special paint jobs as part of the Navy’s celebration of 100 years of aviation, a yearlong party that kicks off in February with a massive military flyover of San Diego Bay.
The MH-60S Seahawk flying out of North Island Naval Air Station has been painted to look like helicopters flown during the Korean War.
The Navy captain behind the project calls it “illustrating” history.
“In my 25 years in the Navy, every aircraft I’ve ever flown has either been orange and white or gray. Most people don’t even realize that we painted airplanes like this,” said Capt. Rich Dann, a helicopter pilot and historian for the Navy’s centennial of aviation project.
The Navy’s winged heritage has deep roots in San Diego. The first naval pilot came here for flight training in 1910, and the three-star admiral who oversees the Navy’s air forces does it from a desk at North Island.
Today’s jets and helicopters are being decked out to look like the Navy’s earliest floatplanes, like its first fighters to fly off World War II aircraft carriers, and like the 1950s helicopters that helped save the wounded during the Korean War.
About half are already complete, and they are being dispersed to air stations across the country. Most will come to San Diego for the Feb. 12 aerial review and the accompanying flight line display at North Island.
It’s a bit of a steel-and-exhaust-filled trip through history.
And it shows the quirky looks that military aircraft used to have, compared with today’s homogeneous gray palette.
“If you go back and look at the history of naval aviation to the current day, you’ll see it goes through distinct phases and it’s punctuated by periods of extremely bright color schemes,” said Mark Aldrich, a 20-year volunteer in the San Diego Air & Space Museum’s archive department.
But the modern era isn’t one of them.
Starting in the 1960s, Aldrich said, the military has tried to camouflage its planes against the sky to give pilots every possible edge over enemies.
“Since 1970, the airplanes are pretty drab, there’s no question about it,” he said.
So, seeing the newly painted F/A-18 Hornet jet at North Island recently was a thrill for an aviation buff such as Aldrich.
The jet, painted in dark blue to resemble a Korean War Corsair fighter, looked a little funny compared to its standard-issue-gray brothers on the tarmac.
To Aldrich, the son of a Coast Guard seaplane pilot, the look wasn’t odd. It was more like “racy.”
“I thought it was the sexiest thing I’ve seen on wings in awhile,” he said.
The heritage paint project carries no extra price tag, since these planes were due to be repainted, or painted for the first time, Navy officials say.
An aviation artist and author, in addition to being a Navy reservist, Dann used his talents to prepare most of the designs, with input from aviation enthusiasts from across the country.
Feedback from today’s Navy pilots has largely been good, he said.
Without prompting, one helicopter squadron asked for its aircraft to be painted Vietnam War olive drab because the unit was formed during that era.
“It’s their roots,” Dann said.