Blue Angels Practice Airshow | Pensacola, Florida

We were so excited to find out that the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team would be practicing while we were in Pensacola! They typically practice on Wednesdays and fly at airshows during the weekend. Sarah and I grew up going to the Blues' Homecoming airshow at NAS Pensacola every year in November, until about 10 years ago. The Blues came to the airshow at Keesler AFB here on the Coast 3 years ago, but we hadn't seen them since then. My dad used to be in the Navy, in aviation (he wasn't a pilot), so we've always had a great love for the Blues.

It was a windy, chilly day, but we all had a great time. A special side note: Brian Shul, a friend of a dear friend of ours, flew with the Blue Angels for the 1994 season, taking (beautiful!) pictures and writing all about the team and their experiences. He published a book, Blue Angels: A Portrait of Gold, of which we are thankful to have a copy! I know the names of these maneuvers only because I spent hours reading the book and looking at the pictures years ago...and yes, I had to look most of them up again. :)

Enjoy!

The water in the bay was so choppy!


A Navy training jet takes off...


A fisherman and his catch.




These little girls were sitting near us on the seawall. They were so cute and excited to see the airshow!

Telephoto lenses don't like to focus in a hurry...so this picture of the Diamond Formation (planes 1-4) on takeoff isn't clear. ::sigh::


Aaaand one of the solos takes off! (They're numbers 5 and 6.)














The solos practiced the Inverted-to-Inverted Pass several times.

It takes precise timing, and to the crowd, it looks like they're going to fly right into each other.






The solos come together for the Fortus maneuver, with landing gear and tail hooks out.


Fort Pickens is across from NAS Pensacola, so we were almost at show center!


The pilots rendezvous "behind the crowd" to get ready for the next maneuver...


...the Diamond Dirty Loop. Dirty meaning their landing gear is out.




Mr. Shul describes this as "the very graceful Diamond Tuck-Under Break, requiring precise timing and consistent roll control by everyone."


Echelon formation.




Echelon Parade Pass over the historic lighthouse on NAS Pensacola.

Tuck-Away Cross.






One of the solos breaking off from the Delta formation.

 
(Not sure what this was, but it looked cool.)






The solos in Section High Alpha.


It's a little hard to chase a very fast F/A-18 Hornet across the sky with a camera.


Diamond Tuck-Under Roll, differing from the Tuck-Under Break only in that they start the maneuver inverted. (Sorry I'm being so technical. I just had to figure it out. :))


The solos, together for the Double Tuck-Over Roll.


Delta Formation.












The name for this is either Vertical Break or Fleur de Lis. It's so cool.






One by one, they all break off from the Delta and head for home.

The small crowd gathered at Fort Pickens cheers!

And then we're all a little sad because it's over, and the air is once again quiet (6 fighter jets together are really loud!).

For the love of...the Navy, and aviation,

Rebekah

Pensacola Beach | Spring 2014

The middle of April this year, my family had a week where we didn't have anything going on, so we packed up and headed for Pensacola Beach! We hadn't ever camped there, and hadn't been to the beach since the November after 9/11 when the annual Blue Angels Homecoming airshow was flown over the beach (instead of NAS Pensacola).

Pensacola Beach, on Santa Rosa Island, is known for its beautiful white sand and crystal-clear water. It was a bit chilly and rained a lot the week we were there, but we made the most of it. (Blog posts coming soon with pictures from a Blue Angels practice show, and the two days we spent at the Naval Air Museum!)

We camped on the western end of Santa Rosa Island, and one day, when the weather was nice, we drove out to Fort Pickens. It's another Civil War-era fort that was built around the same time as Fort Morgan in Gulf Shores, and it looks much the same - we had fun exploring in it. You can read more about the fort here.

(Notice the different colors of the water!)










































































One afternoon we stopped by Blues Angel Music in Pensacola, because music stores are one of my favorite things.

And also because this store is home to a real drum set turned into an aquarium that was featured on the TV show Tanked!














I have never seen that many ukeleles in my life.






I got to play around on this Eastman T386, which is equivalent to a Gibson ES-335. Nate Dugger of Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors plays a Gibson, and it sounds so cool that I wanted to play something at least similar to it. Check out the second part of the video below to hear what it sounds like!


At the music store employees' recommendation, we ate a scrumptious lunch at a local Mexican place - Vallartas. Go there if you're ever in Pensacola! It's wonderful.

These last few shots were taken on my iPhone, and I didn't edit them at all (in terms of lighting)...for some reason they look like HDR/super-saturated pictures! The skies weren't really quite that blue, but that's how the pictures turned out. It looks cool, though. :)

And....here's the video! Enjoy!

For the love of the beach, and music,

Rebekah