This afternoon at 3:30 p.m. the Navy will take on Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. And the good news is the Blue Angels will be there for a flyover. Yesterday the flight demo team left Pensacola and are now in the South Bend area.
If you are nearby, here are the frequencies to monitor from our exclusive, annual air show guide.
Blue Angel Aero Frequencies
The premier U.S. Navy/Marine Corps military flight demonstration team on the air show circuit is the Blue Angels flying the F/A- 18 Hornet aircraft. The team is based at Forrest Sherman Field, Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. However, the squadron does spend January through March each year training pilots and new team members at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro, California. The other major piece of flying hardware in the squadron is their C-130T Hercules transport aircraft, affectionately known as “Fat Albert Airlines.”
237.800 Solos outside the show box (Solo #2) and cross country air/air [Channel 8]
251.600 Air/Air nationwide and at NAS Pensacola – Start and taxi
255.200 Circle/arrivals discrete and cross country air/ air [Channel 17]
265.000 Diamond formation secondary
275.350 Diamond formation outside the show box, cross country air/air and their Pensacola squadron common [Channel 9]
284.250 Show box (center) for diamond, solos, delta and cross country air/air [Channel 16]
289.800 Air refueling during cross country trips
305.500 Fat Albert “Bert” primary, solo aircraft (west coast) and maintenance officer [Channel 10]
305.900 Fat Albert “Bert” and solos/“Ernie Demo” Blue Angel 9
333.300 Diamond formation/Delta show box (Fleet Week in San Francisco)
346.500 “Checklist Freq” – Pre-show checklist, ground start/roll out and maintenance [Channel 18]
The Blue Angel ground maintenance crews have their own set of communication frequencies in support of their mission. They carry with them a communications cart (comcart) for their ground maintenance net. The two confirmed frequencies used by this cart include:
139.8125 Ground maintenance crews/equipment checks NBFM 67.0 Hz PL tone
141.6125 Ground maintenance crews/equipment checks NBFM 67.0 Hz PL tone
142.6125 Tower Observer NBFM 67.0 Hz PL tone
We have now had several reports that the Blue Angels have the capability to operate on 380-400 MHz Navy trunk radio systems. In the Southeast Region, the ground maintenance team (aircraft ground handlers) and tower-to-comcart communications have used talk group 29529. Talk group 29530 has been used when the team conducts comm checks and at the start of their performance.
If you attend an air show this year at a base that has one of these new DoD 380-400 MHz trunk radio systems, be sure to program these systems in your scanner. You might be treated to some interesting ground communications on
talk groups 29529 and 29530.
Now that Monitoring Times has ceased publication, we will be publishing our annual air show guide and exclusive frequency list in e-book format through Amazon before the end of the year. We will announce the availability of that publication as soon as it is available online.