Back in the early 1960s Kodak partnered with the US Navy Blue Angels to create a massive billboard photo mural to appear in Grand Central Station in New York City. This effort was documented in a short film that explained how a special aviation air-to-air photographer travelled to Naval Air Station Key West in Florida to meet up with the Blue Angels to conduct the special photo shoot.

At the time, the Blue Angels were operating the Grumman F-11 Tiger as their demonstration aircraft for their airshow season, which even back then was comprised of some 80 airshows during the summer period. For the photoshoot, a US Navy Lockheed P-2 Neptune was used as the chase plane and photo platform. The Neptune departed Key West ahead of the much faster super sonic F-11 Tigers, and they met up with the Neptune over the Atlantic ocean close to Cuba.

The F-11s did not have a lot fuel capacity or range, so they only had enough fuel for a few break way formations from the Neptune chase plane. So the photographer had to get it right without a lot time and room for error. This film documents this interesting assignment along with the post photo shoot production of the film poster at Kodak’s Rochester facility.