Historic World War II Flying Squadron to Appear September 16-17 at NAS Oceana Air Show in Virginia Beach

Before there were F-14Tomcats and F-16 Fighting Falcons, there was the venerated North American SNJ-2 that served as the trainer for most of the Allied pilots who flew in WorldWar II. A squadron of these historic World War II planes will demonstrate lowlevel precision formation flying at the NAS Oceana Air Show in Virginia Beach,Va., on September 16-17. The squadron, also known as Skytypers for its unusual sky messagingcapabilities, features the SNJ-2s, originally designed as a transition trainerbetween basic trainers and first-line tactical aircraft. GEICO Gecko named honorary squadron member GEICO is sponsoring the exhibition flying of the Skytypers Air Show Teamat the event. Skytypers has named the GEICO Gecko an honorary member of thesquadron and he will be appearing at the weekend event. The Skytypers Air Show Team delivers a form of aerial messaging known as"skytyping." During skytyping aerial exhibitions, the pilots fly theiraircraft in a line-abreast formation, and a computer in the lead aircraftsends signals to the smoke systems in each of the other aircraft in theformation to create a dot matrix pattern. Individual letters are up to 1,200-feet tall and complete messages may be up to five miles long.