NHRA

Hight to fly with US Navy Angels

After Flying On The Ground, Hight Gets Airborne With The 'Angels' POWERade points leader Robert Hight, who's been figuratively flying this season at the wheel of the Automobile Club of Southern California Ford Mustang, gets to go literal Friday ...

Edited: Mar 2, 2007, 7:00 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

After Flying On The Ground, Hight Gets Airborne With The 'Angels'

POWERade points leader Robert Hight, who's been figuratively flying this season at the wheel of the Automobile Club of Southern California Ford Mustang, gets to go literal Friday when he climbs in the cockpit of a F/A-18 Hornet, one of the aircraft used by the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels precision flying team.

Hight will fly out of the Naval Air Facility at El Centro, Calif., the team's pre-season training facility.

Among the maneuvers for which the elite team is best known are the four-plane Diamond Formation, enhanced by the individual maneuvers of two solo pilots, and the six-plane Delta Formation.

Although the Blue Angels are stationed at Forrest Sherman Field NAS in Pensacola, Fla., the squadron trains from January through March in El Centro.

The Blue Angels are scheduled to fly 66 air shows at 34 air show sites during the 2006 season as goodwill ambassadors for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marines. The team this year is celebrating its 20th season flying the F/A-18 Hornet. Last season, more than 15 million spectators watched the Blue Angels perform.

Hight originally was to have flown with the team last season, but scheduling conflicts forced a postponment. The 37-year-old native Californian was the winner of the Auto Club's 2005 Road to the Future Award as the NHRA Rookie-of-the-Year. After finishing second in points last season, he leads the standings this year after consecutive runner-up finishes at Pomona, Calif., and Phoenix, Ariz.

Hight's Ford Mustang is the quickest full-bodied race car in the world, having accelerated from zero-to-330 miles per hour in 4.636 seconds.

-credit: jfr

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Phoenix: SAMAX Motorsport preview

Next article National Hot Rod Reunion: Fast Five - Jeg Coughlin

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Barcelona set to host IndyCar race in 2027 under multi-year deal

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 7 h

Barcelona set to host IndyCar race in 2027 under multi-year deal

Winners and losers from a Chase-altering NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Phoenix II

9 h

Winners and losers from a Chase-altering NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix

Heart of Racing rules Valkyrie GTP step next year ‘too soon’ for IMSA standout Barrichello

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 9 h

Heart of Racing rules Valkyrie GTP step next year ‘too soon’ for IMSA standout Barrichello

Sergio Perez: Debut Cadillac season "without a doubt one of my best years"

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

9 h

Sergio Perez: Debut Cadillac season "without a doubt one of my best years"

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts