BRUNSWICK – After 16 performances since 1962, the Navy’s Blue Angels are poised for what could be their last at the Brunswick Naval Air Station.

The show, a major recruiting tool for the military and a must-see for aviation buffs, will be this weekend at the base that’s due to be closed in 2011.

The Blue Angels will headline the Great State of Maine Air Show, which also features the Army’s Golden Knights parachute team, stunt pilots, skywriters and even a wing walker, as well as a jet-powered truck and freestyle motocross riders.

The Navy hopes to win over a few recruits along the way.

“An air show of this magnitude with the Navy’s Blue Angels … helps bring awareness to the general public about the Navy in a unique way that, quite frankly, has a very big ‘wow’ factor,” said Chief Petty Officer John O’Neill, spokesman for Naval Recruiting District New England.

Rick Tetrev, former second-in-command at the Brunswick base, recalls being inspired by a performance of military aircraft as a young man in South Carolina.

“I came into aviation because I saw an air show in Charleston. I’ll never forget the excitement. Seeing that – it brought me in,” said Tetrev, who became a naval flight officer and moved up before retiring at the rank of commander.

Whether it’s the last air show in Brunswick remains to be seen. Base officials originally said it would be because of the closing timetable. But they decided to try for another show next year, said spokesman John James. The base will learn in November whether it will happen.

There’s a lot of history at Brunswick.

The first air show featuring the Blue Angels, the Navy’s flight demonstration team, coincided with a visit by President John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy, a decorated Navy torpedo boat captain during World War II, met with the six pilots and the maintenance crew before departing for an island where he was vacationing off the Maine coast in 1962. The Blue Angels presented him with a scale model of an F-11 Tiger, the fighter they were flying at the time.

On the final day of the show, the Blue Angels made a couple of passes over the island at the president’s request, said retired Navy Capt. Ken Wallace, then head of the team.

“I could see him on the lawn in his barbecue apron,” Wallace recalled from his home in Pensacola, Fla. “He was running around waving utensils and waving at us.”

Brunswick was famous for the lobster bake the Navy League held for the pilots. Wallace recalls eating plenty of lobsters, and then leaving with more packed on ice.

He and the other Blue Angels introduced many in the Brunswick community to flaming hookers, a fiery drink featuring brandy. The idea was to drink the brandy without getting burned, and then set the glass down with the flames still going.

“We drank. It was no secret,” Wallace said, recalling a favorite pastime of fighter pilots. “We’re not like they are now. We didn’t know any better.”

This year, there will be an “Afterburner Blast” open to the public the night before the two-day show, which begins Saturday. There will be Blue Angels pilots, members of the Golden Knights, concessions and beer, but no “flaming hookers.”

All told, planning for the air show began in January and it’ll take 800 volunteers to pull it off, said James, the base spokesman.