@ Watsonville, CA
August 2025
A visit to the 2025 Watsonville Airport Day brought me face to face with this Bearcat for the first time. Surplused in 1959, one of the postwar owners began racing this aircraft for almost ten years. The became part of the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum (Michigan) collection from 1977-2009 before changing hands again. First flown in 1944, the war was over by the time Bearcats came into service. This was the first aircraft type flown by the newly formed Blue Angels (1946). They were used by several countries other than the US and were flown by the South Vietnamese Air Force until 1961.