2008 Airshow

Hey everyone! It has been a very busy, loud, and exciting weekend for us. MCAS Miramar hosted its annual air show from Friday through today, and as always... it was a blast. Jess had to work at the air show all 3 days, but still managed to have a great time as you will find out in a second. I went to the air show all day Friday and then again for the afternoon and evening shows on Saturday. I took the day off today! :) We took over 580 photographs, which I doubt would all fit on this blog... nor do I have the patience to sit here and put them all in. So I picked out some of the best ones to share with you. This was hard because there are soooooooooo many awesome ones. I will also be making a video compilation of music/videos/pics, which will include many more pictures, along with the videos we took. Hopefully I will get it done this soon and posted on here for all of you to see!!!

This year’s air show was a "Salute to Marine Aviation", and featured the return of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels (last year the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds performed). The Miramar air show is the largest military air show in the United States, and consistently receives awards for best air show, amongst other recognitions. Above you will see Hartly Folstad (flying), and Margaret Stivers (wing walking).

Here is The Patriots flying the L-39. They are a group of (now) civilian pilots, who are awesome to watch!

It is funny that Jess and I enjoyed the air show so much. You would think that after years of being around these LOUD machines that we would much rather do something else with our weekend. However, that is not the case. Here you will see an F/A-18F Super Hornet doing a high-speed fly over at just under the speed of sound, or Mach-1 (approx 767 miles per hour). The white halo is formed by condensed water droplets which are thought to result from a drop in air pressure around the aircraft.

This was the U.S. Navy legacy flight of the F/A-18F Super Hornet, and the F4U Corsair.

My favorite part of the show, and maybe Jess's too, was the F-22 Raptor. This thing is awesome, you name it and it has it. Stealth, supersonic cruise, thrust vectoring.... It is one awesome jet. Above you will see it flying overhead with its bomb bay doors open. In order to fly stealth it must carry its ordnance internally.

Here is the Raptor doing a high-speed fly over. During a test flight on 13 January 2005 an F-22 Raptor exceeded Mach 1.7 without afterburners. With afterburners, the top speed is "greater than Mach 2.0" according to Lockheed Martin, but the actual top speed is not known to the public.

Here is a picture of the U.S. Air Force Heritage Flight. The aircraft from left to right are: P-51 Mustang, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and the F-22 Raptor.

Here is "Fat Albert", the Blue Angels C-130T. This is flown by an all Marine crew. Fat Albert is equipped to carry 8 JATO (jet assisted take off) rockets. As you will see on my video, it is fun to watch. Now I have flown on C-130's, many times.... but none like this one!

But Jess has!!! That's right! Jess got the opportunity to ride along on "Fat Albert Airlines" during the Saturday afternoon show, and she was ALL about it. She later described it as a "super rollercoaster"! She also had the opportunity to meet the crew, and take some neat pictures in/around the aircraft! How cool is that!

The Blue Angels. I think that this picture speaks for itself.

The pilots fly these aircraft only 18 inches apart while they are flying over 400mph! Now that is precision!

Something unique... and strange. Here the Patriots team was flying in formation with a 747 double-decker owned by Fry's electronics! Wait until you see the video, the 747 came by solo and did a low fly by literally about 10 feet off the ground! Holy cow!!!

In this picture is Sean Tucker flying the Oracle Challenger. This is a custom built plane that does all sorts of things that planes are not supposed to do, like fly backwards. But look closely at this picture... Not only will you see the plane flying less than 25 feet high below a rope between two poles, but you will see that the Marine on the right that is holding the far pole is none other than my amazing wife!!! That's right :) Jess got to go out on the runway beneath Sean Tucker as he performed his show. On three occasions he flew within just feet of Jess. On the high resolution photo you can tell that Jess is standing there with her mouth open (probably thinking in her head "holy cow he's close"!!!).

Like I said, these are only a few of the hundreds of photos that we took. I will post the video that I make when it is complete, which should be fun for everyone to watch!
Coming soon: Jess and I will be headed to Indiana in less than 3 weeks for Anne's wedding. In the meantime I am still job hunting and bored out of my mind. That's all for now! Until next time.

Josh and Jess----->