The last couple of days the Blue Angels have been practicing for their air show right over my house. Today was the first show....we're going to the show tomorrow (Sunday).
But the flight path for many of the maneuvers took them right over our roof. Way awesome!
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Awesome! (https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1081.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fj349%2Flongblade%2FSmilies%2Fplanepilot.gif&hash=300e6427b654055536718e4cf0b1a70e669c3c6a)
Gives me the chills every time. Fantastic.
I grew up in Pensacola and when we would go the beach you see them practice sometimes. Awesome stuff!
Quote from: bbmike on September 28, 2014, 07:50:42 AM
I grew up in Pensacola and when we would go the beach you see them practice sometimes. Awesome stuff!
My folks winter slightly north of Key West and they have sometimes seen the Angels practicing down there as well, presumably out of Boca Chica.
that's pretty damn cool
Quote from: bayonetbrant on September 28, 2014, 09:12:25 AM
that's pretty damn cool
+1 Nothing like your own personal airshow.
Quote from: mirth on September 28, 2014, 10:12:21 AM
Quote from: bayonetbrant on September 28, 2014, 09:12:25 AM
that's pretty damn cool
+1 Nothing like your own personal airshow.
I know, RIGHT? My daughter and I saw them at Offutt AFB this summer. That and the F-22 demo team made my day.
Alright so we went to the airshow at Hickam yesterday and saw the Blues up close. My wife bought us box seats and we were, literally, front row about 50 yards from Blue Angel #6. You want to talk about totally freaking epic! They taxied right past us and when they turned onto the taxiway the exhaust was blowing right on us...that close!
My favorite part was the very beginning. They all get in their cockpits, snap the canopies down in unison and then Ted Nugent's Stranglehold comes on just blasting through the loudspeakers and then they kick on their jet engines...it was just completely visceral. I thought my wife got video of it, but sadly she didn't which bums me out. Worst airshow ever, but the Blue Angels were epic.
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its a sad thing to acknowledge that air shows across the board have been getting worse and worse over the last decade.
I haven't been to that many as an adult, but when I think of them as a kid I remember there being lots of airplanes to walk around and see, and it was pretty much non-stop flying the whole show.
The Kaneohe airshow 3 years ago was ok. But this one on Hickam was horrible. First, it occurs to me that you can't exactly fly out a WW2 fighter from the mainland to Hawaii, so whatever you have on island is pretty much it for vintage birds. Then, it turns out that Hickam has to "buy" blocks of time from the FAA to fly during the show because they have to restrict all civilian traffic while someone is flying. I was wondering how they sorted that out. So the flying portion consisted of, literally, an F-22 demo (very cool), a C-17 demo that did about 3 passes over the field (lame), and the Blues (fucking epic). The show started at 10am and went until 5pm so you can do the math...there was a lot of downtime.
The static displays were an F-22, Hunter (they use them for OPFOR out here), an old Aggressor A-4E (cool), B-52 (cool), P-3 (lame), C-17, KC-135, Grand Caravan, C-130, one old Cessna-looking plane, CH-53, CH-47, Huey...that was about it. I seem to remember spending hours looking at all of the planes. And where the hell were the F-16s? F-15s? Hell, I've seen more planes flying around surfing off the end of the runway than I did at that airshow!
/rant off.
I vividly remember the days of B-1, B-52 and virtually everything operational doing flight demos. I almost got in a car wreck watching a B-1 turning and burning over I-95 on the way to Opalocka for the annual show. motherfucker was about 500 feet in a 90 degree bank and just had me fixated on it. today I might as wells stay home and watch a decade old episode of Top Gear and browse Gus porn.
and I still have all the patches I got from talking to flight crews. 8)
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on September 29, 2014, 11:13:39 PM
and I still have all the patches I got from talking to flight crews. 8)
Sweet!
The Offutt AFB show is still pretty good. Here is the link to the website for this summer's show.
http://offuttairshow.com/
I can understand the logistics at Hickam must be a nightmare. Offutt always seems to have a very good static display and quite a number of the planes are open for "tours" by the public.
Offutt just started a "VIP" seating thing this year (I guess the same as your box seats). I did not take advantage of it this year but it is tempting.....
I remember growing up on AF Bases and seeing the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels. It was always great.
One year at RAF Mildenhall, there was SR-71 sitting on display. It was early the first day and there were ropes around here. I walked underneath her and ran my hand down the length of her belly.