Not many people shared Snodgrass’s confidence that the Grumman F-14 and Grumman F7F Tigercat could fly formation aerobatics but, having seen at first hand what Snort could do with the Tomcat, Ellis believed in him, and no one who ever saw the routine will forget it. One such formation, led by former USN Phantom pilot John Ellis, would eventually lead to perhaps the most memorable sight of all – the ‘Flight of the Twin Engine Cats’. Over the years Snodgrass’s love of airshow flying grew and he learned to fly piston-engined warbirds himself, also flying the Tomcat in formation with aircraft like the F4U Corsair his father had flown during World War 2 before becoming an engineering test pilot for Grumman. ‘That’ Tomcat image – USN / public domain Suffice to say it has, but the image is now undoubtedly one of the most famous of its kind.

A third class petty officer was perfectly placed with his camera to capture the moment and when Snodgrass saw the image, he apparently exclaimed, “Holy cow! Make me 50 copies and burn the negative. Snort, as he usually did when flying Tomcat demonstrations at sea, made his first pass, and the turn that followed it, almost impossibly close to the flight deck and the watching crowd. The year was 1988 and it was the Dependents’ Day Cruise for families of personnel serving on USS America. Snodgrass was also responsible for one of the most famous images of the Tomcat ever taken. Snort’s enthusiasm and expertise is more than evident in this excellent video: Everybody (normally) did two, three years.” “I started doing the demos and I liked it so much that I stayed connected to the airshow circuit by hook and by crook from 1985 to 1997-12 years, which was unprecedented in military demo flying. On his F-14 demo flying, Snodgrass is quoted as saying: The navigation and bombing system was developed during the two years that Snodgrass was in command and made its operational debut in Bosnia when Tomcats deployed with USS Enterprise. It was during this posting that Snodgrass was praised for the part he played in acquiring the LANTIRN weapons system for the F-14. The mighty Tomcat © John Higgins – Global Aviation ResourceĮventually he would amass almost 5,000 hours on the F-14, making him the most experienced Tomcat pilot in history, a total that included 34 operational sorties in the Gulf War as a Squadron Commander, and he continued to display the aircraft throughout his career, even when he became ‘Commander – Fighter Wing Atlantic’ and was responsible for all the F-14s in service.

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