Blue Impulse History
The first, unofficial, Japan aerobatic team is created in 1958 at Hamamatsu airbase. The team use F-86F Sabre planes, which don't have special color scheme. After four demonstrations, this team is disbanded.
On the next year USAF Thunderbirds flying at this time on F-100, visited Japan, inspired Japan's Air Self Defense Force (JASDF) commanding officers to establish an official aerobatic team.
In 1960 the new team is created in Hamamatsu airbases flying with five F-86F airplanes, as three of the pilots are from first Japan's team.
The first demonstration of the new team - Tenryu (Tenryu - nearest to the base river), is on 4 March 1960 in Hamamatsu. However this name is hard to pronounce from western languages, so the team renamed to Blue Impulse. Planes are equipped with smoke generators using five different colors for each plane - white, red, blue, green and yellow. The planes are painted in silver, light blue, blue and pink, while on the leader's plane blue color is replaced with gold color. In the next year all five Sabre's received special demonstration paint scheme in white and blue colors.
In 1964 Blue Impule performed at the opening of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, painted with smoke in the sky, all five Olympic circles.
In February 1982, after 545 air demonstrations Blue Impulse stop to use F-86F Sabre and become to explore six Japan built Mitsubishi T-2 airplanes. First airshow with these planes is on 25 June in team's new home Matsushima aibase. On 14 November during down bomb burst maneuver at Hamamatsu air display, #4 doesn't succeed to pull its plane on time and crashed onto building, killing pilot and 11 peoples on the ground (Watch crash video here). This accident stops team's performances for a year.
Again bad luck follows Blue Impulse, while #2 and #4 crashed during training flight on 4 July 1991 over the Pacific Ocean. And again this disaster stops team's performances for a year.
Team's last performance with T-2 is on December 1995, after 175 displays with these airplanes.
The new Blue Impulse plane is becomes Japan built training jet Kawasaki T-4, while first show with these planes is on 5 Apr 1996.
In 1997 the team made its foreign debut in Nellis airshow, USA.
On 4 July 2000 during training flight, #5 and #6 crashed taking three pilot's life. Incident occured about 25 km east of Matsushima Air Base.
Who are Blue Impulse
The team consists of a seven Kawasaki T-4 Training aircrafts, but only six performed in airshows, 11 pilots and about 30 people ground crew. Team's home base is Matsushima airbase.
Till now Blue Impulse hasn't English version website.
