10/23/2018 – Pensacola

Today we got our chairs and headed to the flight line behind the Naval Air Museum here at the Naval Air Station – Pensacola to watch the Blue Angels practice. It was a cloudy day but the cloud cover was high enough that it didn’t cause any problems for the pilots. There are 6 Blue Angel pilots and their average age is early to mid 30’s. There are no backup pilots….if one of he pilots is sick, they do a 5 jet show…..if 2 are sick, they perform with only 4 planes. The average assignment as a Blue Angel pilot is 2 years, with nobody flying as a Blue Angel for more than 3 years.  In order to even qualify, you need to have 1250 jet flight hours and 200 carrier landings. The selections are made by a group of high ranking navy aviators, many of whom are ex Blue Angels.

It was just unbelievable to watch them perform in such an intimate setting. There were about 200 – 300 people there to watch these “best-of-the-best” navy aviators perform some really impressive maneuvers…..the same manuevers they perform at air shows all year long. In one particularly impressive stunt, one of the jets did a low pass (looked like maybe 50 ft off the runway) flying 700 miles per hour. It was so cool, to see, even though it only lasts 2-3 seconds as it flies by. There were other maneuvers….for example, flying upside down, doing rolls where the pilot stops the  roll every 90 degrees for a few seconds, flying side by side just above the runway with one flying right side up and the other upside down, flying tight formations and then breaking off simultaneously in different directions, etc.  Watching them perform really gives you an appreciation for just how skilled these pilots must be. I’m playing golf tomorrow but I still hope to see some of the flyovers above me in the early afternoon. Nancy is going to watch from the beach area behind the RV resort. We won’t be as close as we were today, but I’m sure it will still be awesome to see.

We decided to wait and do the Naval Aviation Museum on Thursday.  There’s no way pictures do justice to an event like this….but we tried anyway.

The next 3 pics show a close pass by two of jets…

The jet that did the low pass at 700mph was even lower than this. It only lasted 2-3 seconds but I thought it was the highlight of the show Z

Safely back home. What a show!

Got some great video’s. Here’s a sample….

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