Blue Angels final 2008 show

My brother and I went to Pensacola Friday for the first day of the Blue Angels Homecoming show, the end of their show season. The show is put on Friday and Saturday, with Saturday having about 54 times as many people in attendance. This was my first chance at going on Friday, and I recommend it highly! They've also added in the last coupla years or so a dusk/dark show on Friday evening, and that was really worth the trip!

Wandering some static displays. Pensacola NAS has one of the largest aviation museums around, and it's dedicated almost entirely to naval aviation. They tow some of their aircraft onto the flightline for the show, and they have others fly in from all over.

German Tornado (not from the museum):


Vietnam-era Skyraider. These are just cool, very nice big, high-performance, high-payload ground attack plane.


A display Blue Angel, no engines, kids get to climb in and get "lessons" on flight control:


Business office of a KC-10 aerial tanker:





This guy went into this attitude immediately on takeoff, and ran the length of the field before climbing out.


Shockwave jet truck, twin 6000-pound thrust engines, over 300 miles per hour. It "raced" the plane above, and "won."


A Stearman and Otto the Helicopter doing a transfer. Guy climbed onto the chopper's skid from the Stearman.


F/A-18F Super Hornet.
Flat pass, just under sonic:


A little stick-yanking


Joined up with an F4-U Corsair for the Navy "Tailhook Legacy" flight. Picture doesn't look real, but the Super Hornet is that much bigger than the Corsair, and the Corsair is closer.


Another one to prove it. I'd forgotten to slow the shutter down; prop doesn't go very far in 1/1000th of a second.


The he made a close turning pass. just enough g to lightly fog the wing.



Air Force F-16, also showing pressure drop over wing surfaces.






This Stearman and the biplane above ("Prometheus") joined with the jet truck and some fuel-oil pyro for a "Masters of Disaster" show.




Not only did we feel the concussion, but it got real hot for about a second:



Blue Angels C-130 "Fat Albert." Did a high-performance take-off with a 45-degree climb, but not JATO. Apparently the JATO bottles are getting scarce or expensive, no longer manufactured.


Only three planes in the diamond. The #4 pilot (married) was sampling an administraive officer's (yes, female, but unmarried) stuff. Both removed from duty pending further administrative hearings.


This is just cool-looking, and about the best shot I've ever had of it.


Closure rate of over 800 miles per hour.


As the diamong exited to the right the announcer asks the crown to observe the manner in which they reposition for the next pass, blah blah blah, while this guy comes in at 50 feet and 700 miles per hour on burners, demonstrating "tactical surprise."


Followed immediately by the other solo from behind the crowd.


There was a break of about 90 minutes after the Blues landed, then they started the evening show. Here's a wide shot of the Prometheus biplane making crooked smoke.


Then the Super Hornet took off again, with afterburner flame clearly visible in the darkening sky. You also see the navigation lights clearly in several shots.


A little motion blur, wasn't ready for this, but thought I'd post it anyway.




He didn't land, it was just a slow pass in carrier configuration, and he cleaned up, lit up, and did a split-S to return.


This was freaking loud!! And yes, he was at close as it looks.


Julie Clark in her Chevron-sponsored T-34:




Now the cool stuff!!!! Night JATO!!!!!!!





A team of 5 skydivers made a 4-chute diamond while a single chute spiraled around them.
Pictures are severely pushed for exposure, as my lens is only f-5.6!!! The "as-shot" shows sparklers only.




Fireworks display. Notice the silhouetted Blues parked in their space on the flightline.




And finishing up, the "Wall of Fire"

Awesome shots!

wfooshee

As the diamong exited to the right the announcer asks the crown to observe the manner in which they reposition for the next pass, blah blah blah, while this guy comes in at 50 feet and 700 miles per hour on burners, demonstrating "tactical surprise."

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Ah, the age-old "hey, look over there!" trick .

Great pics! First one I've been to was when I was 8. Loved it. Been to several others since then.

I was about 9 or 10 when I went to Queenslands Amberly air show. Those pictures are absolutely amazing. Wish I was there Ahh well...

A Tornado. What a treat. 👍 Size comparison between the Corsair & Hornet's interesting. Used to think it was such a light, lean jet, but compared to a WWII fighter....

Great pictures, too. I've tried taking pictures at a Blue Angles show before, but it was a failed attempt with my bottom-of-the-line camera.

The sound of a Hornet (a "normal" one) at full throttle and low level is something really moving, both physically and emotionally. I can only imagine how a Super Hornet sounds. 👍

About the Hercules and the JATO, are you sure it wasn't RATO instead? Surely looks more like rockets.

My roommate was showing me videos of JATOs on the Hercules yesterday and it looked like that...

The Blue Angels are really cool. I've only been to see them once at Seafair, but that was quite the experience. I'll never forget how awesome and loud the supersonic passover they did was. I've always liked those F-18s. Very cool planes.

It's rockets, but they still call it JATO.

From another show this past March, the Air Force "Heritage Flight," a P-51 leading an F-4, an F-15, and an F-22. There's you a size difference, too!

Nice. What camera?

That F-22 looks so bad ass.

Nikon D50, 55-200 f4-5.6 lens. 6MP, very basic stuff, but it's what I have fundage for. I shoot this kind of stuff shutter priority, usually at least 1/500th, this day was 1/1000th, and down to 1/250 or 1/125 for propellors. I also use manual focus, but this lens gives me fits with that, as its physical range of motion in the adjustment is so small. I shot 299 frames on the day, and most of the 198 I deleted that night at home were because they were out of focus. I almost kept the 70-210 from my n8008 just for that familiar feel, but I needed the eBay money towards this outfit. As it got dark, I'd bumped the ISO from auto to 1600, and was down to 1/60th of a second and still 2 or 3 stops underexposed. A big f2.8 would be nice, but I gots to eat!

Heritage thing at the show I went to, if I remember correctly, was just P51 and F15.

I love that Phantom. One of my favorites, if not the #1 favorite.

Yeah, depends what's at the show. I've seen it with a Korean-era F-86, too.

Several years ago there was a P-38 at the show here! It didn't fly during the show, but a few weeks later there were pictures on the Internet of it flying with a P-51 and an F-15, and the background in the pictures was local. I never saw it airborne, and I wish I had!

I've never seen a P-38. While I'm not a big fan of Army fighters, P-38's are just badass. 👍

Beautiful pics man. Thanks for posting!! 👍

Great pics, I bet that truck gets good mileage

Nice sets of photos wfooshee. 👍
Love the Super Hornet shots and that JATO shot.

we get a free-show up here every now and then. I sit a couple miles from the regional airport, and the local reserves are in and out all the time. the real treat is when someone flies a Mitchell in. loud bugger for a prop plane. we have a Kadette show up on a regular basis, too.

btw, anybody check those f's for Decepticon logos?

I noticed that Mustang has D Day stripes.

a6m5

I've never seen a P-38. While I'm not a big fan of Army fighters, P-38's are just badass. 👍

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I've sat in one many times as a kid. Lex DuPont had a P-38J (?) 'droop snoot' reconnaissance version at his airport, which had a bombardier-like glass nose. It was complete but not in flying condition at the time, and I used to climb all through it.

He sold it to a guy who cleaned it up, replaced one of the Allisons, and flew it out of a 2,000-ft runway. We went up to see it go. The guy and Lex made a bunch of formation passes with Lex in his Wildcat - the sound was incredible.

I heard a few years later that the guy and his wife got killed in the P-38 when it suffered some kind of mechanical failure.

Excellent pictures! Thanks for posting them.

That is so sad. I almost wonder if a plane like that is tricky to fly in such situation. They also don't have a stick, right? It's a unique plane, in & out.

a6m5

That is so sad. I almost wonder if a plane like that is tricky to fly in such situation. They also don't have a stick, right? It's a unique plane, in & out.

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If you're talking about the P-38, it has a yoke, like a Cessna or something.

That is unusual for a plane that size, and of such a character Ex. Aerobatics.