re: Best flyover or military aircraft experience

Not a flyover story:

The first thing you have to know is how rag-tag Marine aviation - and rotary wing aviation, in particular - was in the 1980s and early 90s. Soundproofing missing. Panels didn't always line up. Hydraulic fluid leaking everywhere. The troop seats in the helo (I flew Ch-53Es) were half torn out. My troops while I was flight line officer were pushing parts out to the birds on the flight line in stolen shopping carts. They were also issued one set of work coveralls and when the zippers inevitably tore out or broke, they would keep them together with baby pins. No one not in the Marine Corps at the time believes me when I tell them these things, but we looked like the Confederate Air Force. The actual Confederate Air Force, not the airshow outfit that flies restored WWII planes.

So, anyway, we did a deployment to El Centro (the winter home of the Blue Angels). We do our fly-in and our enlisted guys start unloading the birds and setting up shop. One of the other pilots, Oz Irvine, and I look across the flight line and we can see the Angels crews working on the F-18s. They have guys with their boots off waxing or polishing the planes! Every one of their planes shined like a new penny. Ours, ummmmmmmm, didn't appear that nice. We turned back to our guys and we looked like the Clampetts go to war. I said to Oz, "If you want to know where we fit in the food chain of life, there you go."