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The Greatest Show On Earth!
By Marc "Devil Dog Of The Web" Iseli / Updated Dec. 2025
Back in 1950, El Toro’s air show was just a little open house with maybe 15,000 folks wandering around for an hour, probably wondering where the beer tent was. Fast forward a few decades, and suddenly you’ve got 300,000 to 400,000 people crammed in over a weekend, 200 planes parked on the ramp, and enough air show acts to make your neck sore. The Blue Angels, doing their usual 'look how tight we can fly' routine, always stole the show. They were still rocking the A-4F Skyhawk back then, before they upgraded to something with more bells and whistles like the F-18 Hornet. The last El Toro Air Show in 1997 drew a million people, just in case Orange County forgot that the Marines had been running the show for decades.

1980. I’d barely unpacked my sea bag at MCAS El Toro and got tossed into VMFP-3. First air show I’d ever seen, and I was on the inside looking out, pretty high-speed for a boot. The Blue Angels rolled in a day early, still flying those A-4F Skyhawks, and did a practice run on Friday. With the squadron standing down, we basically had VIP seats, diamond formation flew right over the line shack. We had an RF-4B parked out for static display, and guess who got volunteered to babysit it on the weekwend? That’s right, yours truly, the new TME. There’s probably a photo somewhere of me clinging to the side of the jet while a swarm of kids climbed in and hit me with, 'What’s that?' on repeat. It was like the 80s version of 'Are you smarter than a 5th grader,' except I was definitely not. I just pointed at random levers and told them it dropped bombs, hoping none of them actually knew what an RF-4B Phantom was.
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Photos of Airshow, MCAS El Toro, CA.

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F/A-18 Pilot Soaring Again
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By Los Angeles Times / Updated Dec. 2025
A few weeks after his fighter jet smashed into the ground in a crowd-silencing crash before 350,000 horrified onlookers at the El Toro Air Show, Marine Corps pilot Col. Jerry Cadick weakly whispered to those around his hospital bed that one day he would fly again.

Korean War-Era Jet Crash
May 03, 1993
By Los Angeles Times / Updated Dec. 2025
Before hundreds of thousands of stunned spectators, a Korean War-era jet fighter crashed in a tumbling fireball Sunday at the El Toro Air Show, instantly killing the pilot and scattering wreckage for almost a mile down the runway.

Alright, you glorious Rat Phixers and Phlyers, if we ever survived a TAD, a Det, or a BOHICA, who haven't, and you didn’t think I was the biggest gaff off in the squadron. Got a sea story, or some grainy photos your ex didn’t set on fire, and they’re only slightly illegal? Send ‘em by email, snail mail, or safety wire it to a carrier pigeon. I collect ‘em all, just nothing that would incriminate me.
80svmfp3@gmail.com

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