Then we realized we were sinking in to the hot asphalt taxiway that was not built to handle heavy jets. We managed not to run off the runway, but while taxiing back in echelon we kept getting slower and slower. We were not scheduled to land there because the runway was only 5,000 feet or so, but our public affairs officer radioed us about the enthusiastic crowd so we decided to land.

There were probably ten or twenty thousand people in Mason City, so it was obvious that they had drawn people from all over the state. We flew over the field for our opening maneuver and it looked like a million people. We flew out of a base around Minneapolis on one of those crystal clear days. As a result an appearance of the Blue Angels was a major event. They didn’t see a lot of Navy planes and in those days didn’t see many military aviators at all. I like the Midwest most because of their enthusiasm. 'Did you have a particular place that you liked to perform? We recently came across this interview with a former Blue Angel pilot from the late 1950s, Bob Rasmussen.

Closest major airport to mason city ia