The Antennas

Everything took place during the Second Naval Week in Santander, when the Spanish Air Force was participating for the first time with a formation of 12 F-104.

One of the aircraft had mounted underneath the fuselage the catamaran to take films of everything that was in front.

The take off was from runway 23 with a separation of 3 to 4 seconds for each take off and the reunion was to be on direction Mostoles-1.

The day presented instability and was cloudy, for that reason the reunion, the climb and the cruise to Santander was uncomfortable and also, without doubt, due to the inexperience of flying in a formation unusually large.

The protagonist of this story was the pilot the right interior wingman of the right diamond in the wedge of the three diamonds. He remembers with fright how the shacking would move the airplane that he had to his left, as if it was a cocktail shaker, he was trying hard to maintain his position in the formation.

When they got to Santander and started to go lower to do a few passes at the Fleet, it was not where it was supposed to be and with the mist and fog and the fact that it was further that anticipated, made difficult to fin the Fleet. At that moment, the sacking of the airplane on the left were tremendous, although he was able to maintain its place, the one who no longer keep his position was our protagonist, who finally threw in the towel.

With the engine at bottom, he left the formation and desperately was about two or three fuselages behind his diamond, at that moment the one who was in the dog position took his position and without a word the protagonist took the dog position.

At that moment they found the Fleet and they gave them a pair of passes, like God would have it. Since the weather was clear under the clouds, they took the opportunity to also give Santander a few passes and film the event with the camera that they had.

And the moment came, when the renegade wingman that had gone to be supper dog of all the dogs, had to pay for his faults with comfortable howls, since the formation was placed in a column of diamonds and it was our protagonist’s turn to be the number 5 dog of the formation, as a just punishment for his earlier astonishing act. Because in that position, a light movement by the Leader of the formation,  meant an instantaneous jump of about two meters to him.

They were about to take some photos of a causeway and lining up with a building located on the side of a hill but that its roof was full of antennas, it was Santander Radio, when the formation was approaching and at point of charging the antennas, since he could not go up one centimeter because he had the tewel of his Leader above his cockpit, he screamed on the radio:

!!!LAS ANTENNAS!!!.

The scream scared everyone in general, thinking that maybe they had taken some of the antennas, the second pass was at a few meters higher and everything turned out o.k. they headed for home and returned to the Base more calmed and relaxed.

Days later after developing the photos and film, they could see that the first pass was a few meters higher than the highest antenna.

The scream of  !!Las Antennas!! was to remain for some time as a symbol of some one who was having a hard time and was about ready to throw in towel.