Ever since I lived on an Air Force base my eye has been drawn to the sky when I see an airplane flying overhead. Today, as I returned from the west side on I-90 I saw what looked very much like a fighter jet making an approach to Burke Lakefront Airport and sure enough as I was heading east at 65 mph he was heading into a missed approach or go around heading west at 180 mph. When he broke to starboard and headed out over the lake for the go around I could see the solid blue body that only the Blue Angels flaunt and as he made his final approach I could see it was #7. When I got home I did some online searching and found that they were in town to coordinate the Blue Angels first return to Metropark Centralis since 2018.
I kind of miss driving up 163 or I-15 and I-5 and watching the F-18s and their predecssors flying overhead. The A-7s vanished even while I was at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. They used to come in so low over the golf course I thought I could hit them with a chip shot. The same thing almost at NASNI where one crosses the road over to the beach holes at Sea & Air and finds signs that warn of low flying aircraft and recommend cars stop and let them pass as everything comes together right where the runway begins and the aircraft are given an opportunity to merge with auto traffic.
Next year and it's going to be super hornets.
7 comments:
My cousins and I were playing Sunrise Vista at Nellis AFB in early April one year, and the Thunderbirds came out for practice over the course.
Pretty cool to be playing golf and getting a free air show.
I was a member at Rock Creek CC then, and a few years later the Angels were in town for the Hillsboro Air Show. I was on the 2nd Tee when they flew over me in a tight diamond, as you said, within a chip shot (maybe a sand wedge).
The first time I saw the Blues, after my father went to school at NCTC Corry Field in Pensacola, they were still flying F-11 Tigers. The next year, they were flying F-4 Phantoms. Many times I watched them practice (from a distance) from the playground when they were in Pensacola. Though I did see one from pretty close that must've had an in-flight emergency since he landed at the municipal airport. I miss living on or near military bases, and the planes. Navy or Air Force (my own branch). Even the sound of P-3C Orions (or WC-130Hs)running up their engines for minutes at a time before long patrols, as familiar a sound as that of a train at night in recent years.
I was deploying a C-141 load of my gear and people out of NASNI. What with one delay and the other we finally got to take off at around 2200 after a full day of futzing around. We aborted the take off roll about half way down the southbound runway and went to full reverse and stop and then taxied back to the SeaBee building to unload while the USAF did some more tests. They spent the next 2 or 3 hours running those engines up to full power on the brakes while they the plane was pointed due south and the engines were blasting into downtown San Diego. They were aimed roughly at the Country building and since I happened to live about 8 blocks behind the county building it's probably just as well I wasn't home. They had a fuel pressure drop across one or all the engines that they couldn't or needn't bother to explain and we finally checked into NASNI billeting at around 0300. They wanted us back for an 0600 departure and as SO present I just told them "sure. Be ready when we are." We mosied in after breakfast. As I recall, it was uneventful after that until we got to Bahrain where events happened pretty fast. But the sound those engines made run up to full power for test after test was blasted into Little Italy and the neighborhoods around it for hours. It was a still night....
Our JAG had a party at her house for her little one's birthday. She lived about a half mile due south of Miramar and we got to see the full weekend airshow flying over her house the whole time. It was a very good party as you might expect with a JAG who'd spent the previous tour in Hawaii and was Hawaiin herself. A very good time was had by all but one.
Here in northern Middle Tennessee, about once a month, I get fighters coming over on the weekend, I presume getting their flight hours in. I'm at the northern limit of their track, & they come over turning to go west. Heard them overhead today, but they were above the low clouds.
--Tennessee Budd
Ah, from Selfridge days, those were alert fighters. They sat 24 hours at the end of the strip and I suspect they were given leave once a weak to bolter and yeah, they went nearly straight up before coming back. I’d love to sit down for a few beers with those ANG pilots from the near metro park centralis, please drop me a line I’ll buy.
One of the cool things about fishing the lower chesapeake was watching the jets coming and going from langley
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