Pensacola Beach Blue Angels airshow July 12th. Watched with a couple hundred thousand of my closest friends.
Before the actual show starts, there are several flybys by privately owned historic and specialty aircraft, most of them actually out of Pensacola! A trio of A-6 Texans:
Beechcraft T-34
A
bunch of Stearmans
Zenith CH750 STOL
Icon A5 amphibious
North American Navion, a 4-seat trainer
The Coast Guard did a rescue demonstration. Here's the helicopter dropping a swimmer into the water, and he pops smoke to mark his position as the helicopter backs off so he can work.
Then we had a B-1B make a couple of passes, very loudly!
That's a
bomber, folks, throwing vapor like a fighter!
The official show started with a Bellanca Decathlon, an aerobatic trainer. 150-HP engine, rated for +6/-5
gs.
The Titan Aeronautics Texans. This is the same team that until 2023 flew as Aeroshell
Red Bull was there with Aaron Fitzgerald in the aerobatic helicopter. It's been modified with special rotors to allow loops, rolls, dives, and things helicopters have no business doing. He even takes it over backwards from a hover!
The Blue Angels C-130, Fat Albert, makes his appearance.
And of course, the jets!!!
I actually forgot to set my faster shutter after shooting the prop planes at 1/250th, but it kinda works here!
For this, the solos come side-by-side from behind the crowd, then actually roll
away from each other, 270 degrees, to make this crossing turn.
After the opposing solo passes, they pull pretty hard to exit the show line
Another opposing pass, this time at 1/2000th. Still has motion blur in the plane I wasn't panning with.
The fastest and lowest pass of the show, the #5 sneak pass. The announcer is describing what the diamond formation is doing as they exit to the right, and if you don't know this is coming, it's loud and fast, 50 feet and Mach .94.
I think he's a bit higher than 50 feet for this show because he has to clear the pier just west of show center.
The guy with the big lens on the pier has a long history of shooting the Blue Angels. He's not actually associated with them officially, but is friendly with the team. He got special permission from them, and from the FAA, to be on the pier for this pass, as it's absolutely closed to the public. His name is JK Adams, and you should find him on Facebook, where he's posted the shots and videos he got out there.
After #5, we have #6 from behind the crown, just as fast but at 500 feet, and pulling vertical.
It's not just the solos that pull
gs!
The solos in their high-alpha pass
As their almost-final maneuver, all 6 jets are in a loop, and as they are downward vertical they break to 6 different directions
Then each does a half-Cuban-8 and they cross at the center from those six different directions.
