If this was any other year, General Aviation News would be chock full of stories and photos from EAA AirVenture Oshkosh right about now. Of course, it’s not any other year and the COVID-19 pandemic has cancelled all the big shows.
With that in mind, we decided to give you a rare look at a classic air show from an earlier era.
Slip back in time to 1976. Gasoline cost 57 cents a gallon. That January saw the first commercial Concorde supersonic transport flight. The Winter Olympics were held in Innsbruck, Austria. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs started a new company called Apple Computers. And in Harlingen, Texas, the Confederate Air Force gave an air show for the ages.
Many Americans know the CAF today as the Commemorative Air Force, an organization with 85 units around the country that have, collectively, 175 aircraft with which to tell stories of military history at air shows. The legacy of the CAF includes its era at Harlingen, Texas, where the group honed skills in flying diorama presentations and pioneered the use of spectacular pyrotechnics to punctuate the action during their air show.
Between Oct. 7 and 10, 1976, the skies over Harlingen were filled with warplanes from the Second World War, modern military jets, air show performers including Bob Hoover, Art Scholl, Duane Cole, and others, the Blue Angels, and a six-helicopter Army demonstration team, the Silver Eagles.
Events that have become staples of air shows, like the CAF’s Tora! Tora! Tora! reenactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor, had their roots in Texas.
In 1972, CAF fliers began flying replica Japanese aircraft that had been converted from AT-6 and BT-13 trainers for the movie “Tora! Tora! Tora!” By 1975, pyrotechnics were a part of the act, and the calamities of that fateful attack have been seen by millions of air show attendees as the team takes its show on the road.
Salient impressions linger from that 1976 gathering in Texas: The CAF was populated by can-do aviators who extended a hearty Texas welcome to visitors. That spirit can still be found in today’s Commemorative Air Force.
The CAF’s B-29 and B-17 flew below the group’s Liberator, from which the photo was made, on Oct. 8, 1976, during the big annual air show in Harlingen, Texas. Forty-four years later, all three historic bombers continue to share their history with the public at air shows. 
Lefty Gardner’s P-38 “White Lightnin'”, in vintage CAF paint scheme, leads a silver P-47N and the former “Miss Mennon” P-39 on a low pass. 
The ramp at Harlingen during Airsho ’76 hosted rare and exotic warbirds. This deHavilland Mosquito, previously flown in the movie “633 Squadron,” was acquired by the CAF. Changing hands over the decades, with a return to England for awhile, it is now displayed at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Ohio, in the paint scheme of an Army Air Forces reconnaissance Mosquito. The Douglas A-20 Havoc parked behind it was lost in a 1988 crash. 
Fresh off a victory at the 1976 Reno Air Races, Lefty Gardner and his P-51 prepared for a flight at Harlingen. Gardner, a founder and early proponent of the CAF, was perhaps best known for his exciting aerobastic performances in the white P-38 Lightning he often flew. 
It was the only one flying in 1976, and remains so today. This is the CAF SB2C Helldiver, a large presence at any air show. The organization is rebuilding its R-2600 engine as of this writing, an expensive undertaking to keep the Helldiver available for future air shows. 
During Sunday’s show, the B-17G rolled along the runway as the B-29 passed overhead. Until the restoration of a second B-29, “Doc” in 2016, the CAF had the only flying B-29 in the world. 
This CAF P-39Q sported Soviet markings. 
This P-39 was previously groomed by Mira Slovak as a Reno racer under the name Mr. Mennen. It carries a nonstandard windscreen from a P-63. After its stint with the Confederate Air Force, this fighter became part of the Kalamazoo Air Zoo collection in Michigan. 
Retired Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbetts, who flew the B-29 Enola Gay that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, came to Harlingen and flew the CAF B-29 during the 1976 air show. Pyrotechnics that resembled a mushroom cloud caused a diplomatic ruffle in some circles. The CAF said the story of the simulated mushroom cloud was picked up by media without placing it in the context of the entire air show, beginning with the attack on Pearl Harbor. 
CAF Col. Jim Thixton listened attentively during an air show pilots’ briefing. Thixton’s Fieseler Storch was a rare treat at the show. 
The CAF air show had star power, including Art Scholl, master of aerobatics in his highly modified Super Chipmunk. Scholl was seen at the pilots’ briefing. 
The CAF’s F6F Hellcat still had a nonstandard cowling, from an earlier owner’s idea to modify the fighter for air racing. Since this photo was taken in 1976, the Hellcat has been extensively restored to original condition and is a crown jewel in the current CAF fighter collection. It is based with the organization’s Southern California Wing at Camarillo. 
A U.S. Navy Grumman F-14 Tomcat provided coutnerpoint to the CAF’s vintage members of the Grumman cat family, which included a Wildcat, Hellcat, and Bearcat during other parts of the show.
The CAF was an early victim of the cancel culture before it had a name. Too bad, I’ve always thought it was an appropriate name.
Having grown up in Harlingen, I saw many of these airshows when I was young, but usually only from a distance, watching the planes as they circled the area from the roof of my parents’ house that was just a few miles south-southwest of the airfield. But in 1976, I was there in person as a member of the Harlingen High School Band. We played patriotic music from our seats on the tarmac, in front of the grandstand, so we really had front-row views of all the action. The “diplomatic ruffle” referred to in the caption of the photo of Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbetts involved a photo of the mushroom cloud pyrotechnic making the front cover of a Japanese magazine who ran an article criticizing the display. The photographer was standing right behind the band when the shot was taken, so you could clearly see the Harlingen High School Band (from the back side) on the cover of that magazine. My sister was selected as “Miss Rebel Days” that year in the annual beauty pageant held each year in conjunction with the show, and she served as an ambassador for many PR photos and events to promote the show in the days leading up to the big event. She got to sit in the grandstand and got to meet Paul Tibbetts. Lots of great memories of those airshows. On the rare occasion that I get to visit an airshow that features CAF aircraft these days, I still get chills hearing the engines on Fifi and the B-17s spool up, and watch them once again take to the skies. Long may the continue to fly, honoring the memories of all the brave men who served aboard those great planes so many years ago.
I am a life member and joined in Harlingen member is #279 and sponsor on B-29 B-17 and Navy B-25 and have a 1937 Ryan STA hanging in the San Diego musem that I sold and delivered and Mr, Ryan signed my log book. Delivered to Lindberg Field April 12th 1979 am now 78 years old and that was the best day of my life.
What a show it was! That was the first time I saw a twin mustang as it was taxied across the ramp. I saw my first Harrier demo too. The pearl harbor reenactment included hand cranking down only one main gear on a B-17. It landed with only one gear down and rolled down the runway as it was being strafed by Japanese aircraft. You felt the heat, the earth shook as explosions took place. The airplanes were very close and loud. I also noticed many Japanese people there and as the enactments when on some were crying. I did ask one person why there were so many Japanese people there and he told me it was because Harlingen was the only place to see “their” aircraft fly and to remember their loved ones lost. I also remember standing in line to have Ensign George Gay sign my photo of a TBM Avenger, which I still have. Harlingen back then WAS the greatest show ever!
Opps, it’s a photo of a Douglas TBD Devastator, Ensign Gay signed for me. I had a brief senior moment.
I remember attending a CAF airshow in Norman, OK when I was at Vance AFB in 1973. I couldn’t believe I was seeing all the WWII aircraft that up until then I had only seen in magazines. The CAF has done a great service over the years by keeping these aircraft operational and demonstrating them in public so that we can see and hear them in action.
BTW, the P-39 is described as being named “Miss Mennon” with an “o”, and then “Mr. Mennen” with an “e”…………?