USN Blue Angels in Melbourne

This weekend, the Blue Angels returned to Melbourne for the Great Florida Air Show. This is the first season that the Blue Angels are flying the newer F/A-18 “Super Hornet” jets. A few weeks ago, they were in Fort Lauderdale and they were being live streamed by air.show. The weather was a little low and cloudy and, for some reason, the Blues looked a little sluggish. I was wondering if it had to do with the fact that the newer jets are 20% larger than the older jets. Bigger objects appear to move slower than smaller objects.

Yesterday was an off Friday, the skies were mostly blue, the temperature was around 80 degrees, and the Blue Angels were flying in Melbourne; I couldn’t ask for a much better combination. Susan dropped me off at the Northeast side of the airport after dropping Andrew off for Biology class. I walked through the crowd of like-minded people and stood next to the fence. I had my scanner charged and tuned to all the air channels. I could see “Fat Albert”, the Blue Angels support C-130 flown by the Marines, parked nearby along with the number 7 media plane. Eventually, I realized that the other six jets were parked behind “Fat Albert”. It wasn’t long before things started to get interesting.

“Fat Albert” started its engines and taxied to the far end of the runway. After a few minutes, it came rolling toward me. In what seemed far too little distance, it was off the ground and climbing steeply. It leveled off, then performed a few low steep turns over the airport. After one pass, it continued West at about a thousand feet, then started turning back to the East. It was far too high to land, so I assumed it was about to do another pass. But then it pointed its nose down steeply and dove towards the runway. It rounded out, flared, and touched down in an amazingly short distance, then backed up. Yes, I said “backed up”. Pretty cool.

After “Fat Albert” returned to the ramp, it was time for the Blues to start their show. After all the pre-flight preparations, they started taxiing, in numeric order, toward the runway. Numbers 1 through 4 stopped on runway 27L while 5 and 6 taxied to the other end. The group of four took off as one to the West, then the two solos, one after the other, roared off the the East. The practice show was on.

The first half of the practice was low maneuvers and formations. But as the practice continued and the few clouds departed, the show got higher. After about 45 minutes, the planes returned in a united formation for their signature breaking return to landing.

It had been a few years since I last saw the Blue Angels perform up close. The concern about sluggishness that I had after seeing the stream from Fort Lauderdale was completely erased. The Blues are as tight and amazing as ever; always a treat to behold.

Today, Susan, Andrew, and I went back to the airport and parked East of the railroad tracks. We set up chairs in the back of the truck and waited for the show to begin. We were treated to some incredible flying by an F-16 before the Blue Angels started their show. The view was somewhat blocked by a row of trees, but it was still a lot of fun to watch.

Below are some pictures from the show.