 | This article needs to be updated.(October 2015) |
The Lima Lima Flight Team is a precision formation flying demonstration team based in Naperville, Illinois.
Naperville is a city in DuPage and Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located 28 miles (45 km) west of Chicago, Naperville was founded in 1831 and developed into the fifth-largest city in Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 141,853, which was estimated to have increased to 147,682 by 2017.
Illinois is a state in the Midwestern and Great Lakes region of the United States. It has the fifth largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth largest population, and the 25th largest land area of all U.S. states. Illinois is often noted as a microcosm of the entire United States. With Chicago in northeastern Illinois, small industrial cities and immense agricultural productivity in the north and center of the state, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base, and is a major transportation hub. Chicagoland, Chicago's metropolitan area, encompasses over 65% of the state's population. The Port of Chicago connects the state to international ports via two main routes: from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois Waterway to the Illinois River. The Mississippi River, the Ohio River, and the Wabash River form parts of the boundaries of Illinois. For decades, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and, through the 1980s, in politics.
The name derives from the FAA identifier of the field where the team originated. Naper Aero Club (LL-10) is located in the western suburbs of Chicago. It is an airport community, with 100 homes connected to its two runways via taxiways behind the homes. The original flying club (Mentor Flyers, Inc.) which spawned the Lima Lima team is still based at LL-10, but the founding members who lived there have since moved on, and the team is now a truly national team, with members in Illinois, Ohio, California, and Florida.
The Lima Lima Flight Team flies the Beechcraft T-34 Mentor. The Mentor was the brainchild of Walter Beech and was the last airplane he designed. Beech developed the T-34 as a private venture, hoping to sell it to the military as a replacement for the North American T-6/SNJ trainer, which had trained thousands of military aviators during World War II. First flown in 1949, the Mentor was demonstrated for civilian audiences nationwide by famed aerobatic pilots Betty Skelton and Bevo Howard.
Beechcraft is a brand of Textron Aviation since 2014. Originally, it was a brand of Beech Aircraft Corporation, an American manufacturer of general aviation, commercial, and military aircraft, ranging from light single-engined aircraft to twin-engined turboprop transports, business jets, and military trainers. Beech later became a division of Raytheon and later Hawker Beechcraft before a bankruptcy sale turned its assets over to Textron.
North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer, responsible for a number of historic aircraft, including the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F-86 Sabre jet fighter, the X-15 rocket plane, and the XB-70, as well as Apollo command and service module, the second stage of the Saturn V rocket, the Space Shuttle orbiter and the B-1 Lancer.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
The Mentor eventually won a competition to determine the new primary trainer, beating out entries by Ryan and Temco. The T-34 entered USAF service (T-34A) in 1953 and Navy service (T-34B) in 1955. The USAF phased the T-34 out in 1959, but the Navy continues to fly a later version of the Mentor (T-34C) today. T-34s were built under license in Canada, Japan, America and Argentina. The Lima Lima Flight Team flies a civilianized and much-improved version of the original Mentor, with modern avionics and more powerful engines.
The Texas Engineering & Manufacturing Company (TEMCO), also known as Temco Aircraft Corporation, was a U.S.-based manufacturing company located in Dallas, Texas, USA. It is best known for eventually forming part of the conglomerate Ling-Temco-Vought.
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the aerial and space warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the five branches of the United States Armed Forces, and one of the seven American uniformed services. Initially formed as a part of the United States Army on 1 August 1907, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the U.S. Armed Forces on 18 September 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the youngest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the fourth in order of precedence. The USAF is the largest and most technologically advanced air force in the world. The Air Force articulates its core missions as air and space superiority, global integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U.S. allies or partner nations. with the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, and two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches. It has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force.
The military recognizes different levels of formation skills, from basic tactical formation flying to the air show performances of the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds. Lima Lima has evolved in the same way. Charter members of the team were at the forefront of the civilian formation certification program instituted by the T-34 Association in 1983, and eventually adopted by all civilian warbird organizations. The skills developed in this program have been expanded to include a series of formation maneuvers which mirror those of the jet teams.
The Blue Angels is the United States Navy's flight demonstration squadron which was initially formed in 1946, making it the second oldest formal flying aerobatic team in the world, after the French Patrouille de France formed in 1931. The Blue Angels' McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornets are currently flown by five Navy demonstration pilots and one Marine Corps demonstration pilot.
The Lima Lima Flight Team demonstration showcases the full range of the T-34 performance envelope. Though the T-34 is much slower than the jets flown by military teams, the turn rates are over double those of the F-16 and F/A-18. The result is a performance which has no “dead time”. There is smoke and action in front of spectators for the entire 20 minute demonstration.
The Lima Lima Flight Team celebrates its 19th year of professional air show performances in 2006. In that time, the team has traveled from coast-to-coast and border-to-border and beyond, performing in Alaska, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. The 2006 team is made up of professional airline pilots, retired military pilots, medical professionals, and successful businessmen. This eclectic mix of personnel provides a unique team personality.
