I just read this topic for the first time a few weeks ago.
I read it from start to finish.
What really got my attention was some posts by Mike Keville and Dick Sarpolus.
They both mentioned the 1953 Willow Grove Nationals and it triggered a revelation.
I WAS THERE! Not as a pilot but as a nine year old spectator!
We lived about an hour and a half away in South Jersey and a few days earlier I had made my first successful control line flight.
So, my Dad decided to take me to a real live contest.
We spent one whole day there and I was amazed.
Things I never imagined.
There were so many spectators that the Navy erected bleachers.
The Blue Angels did a show, flying F9F (at least that's what I recall) Cougars.
The military entertained us with a B-25 Mitchell doing a JATO takeoff.
Jim Walker flew three Firebirds at once.
I don't know how Dad did it but we somehow got to meet Jim.
He was doing amazing things with hand-launch gliders in one of the hangers.
We witnessed one model aviation tragedy: A fellow built a scale Cutlass with TWO Dyna-Jet engines and unfortunately crashed, causing quite a fiery mess.

In later years, we were in the Skokie, Il area for a medical procedure. Turns out, Glenview is a neighboring and we drove over to see the Glenview Naval Air Station, formal site of the AMA Nationals.
The base is GONE. Just a shopping site with the original control tower as part of a department store. (See my next post for photos of the store).
AND, there we visited a tiny museum, dedicated to the NAS Station.
Check out the photos- the original Nats posters!
I'm sure many of you flew at Glenview.

Ahhhhh - the memories.

Here's what's left of the Glenview NAS.
A street of shops     

Bob Z.

I was able to attend four Navy Nats' at Glenview and Willow Grove.

But don't foeget the Air Force Nats at Wilmington Ohio, Chiccopee Massachussets, Lake Charles Louisiana, and Riverside California.

Due to work, school and family, I didn't compete in every Nats.