Smyrna Air Show

It's been a long time since I went to an Air Show, despite the fact that one of the country's best air shows had been occasionally held just a county away in Smyrna, TN all the years I was growing up. About 15-20 years ago, I went to the Smyrna show with my buddy will and his dad. Then, a couple of years later I went to an Air Show in Waco, and that's it. From there, I went a decade without really thinking about it. About 5 years ago, on a day I didn't even realize that the show was going on, my wife and I were at Percy Priest lake and in the mid afternoon I kept seeing all these military planes fly over. Then, the next time there was a show, I was busy that weekend.

Now that I live in Smyrna, I live about 3000 feet from the end of the runway. Thanks to my new photography hobby, I wanted to be there and had the date marked in my mental calendar ever since the date was announced. Then the Blue Angels flew into town. I work late nights and sleep late into the day. On Thursday, the Blue Angels were there to awaken me from my day's sleep before work. I ran outside and got this picture:



Now I really wanted to go to the show. I drove to work and saw two of the Blue Angels pass each other above the Wendy's in town. On Friday, it rained early in the day, while I went to town hall to buy my advance ticket. In the afternoon the skies cleared and they were back at their practice. I spent about 20 minutes in the front yard and took these pics:



Now, I can't wait. Saturday gets here. By my own standards, I wake up four hours early to go to the airport that's so very close, but they haven't built a road directly from my driveway to the airport entrance and it takes me 45 minutes to get somewhere that's less than a mile away. At least I wasn't one of the poor souls who came in from the interstate.

Six hours and a nasty sunburn later, I have taken 1300 pictures on my Canon camera. 93 of them are online-worthy and many of my favorites are shown below. If you would like to view all of the photos, Click Here to see the thumbnails, or Click Here to view the Slideshow, which will take about 8 to 10 minutes. Or, you can click on any of the thumbnails below to view larger versions.

This B-25 vintage military plane might possibly be the prettiest plane I've ever seen. For $5 you could go in to the plane and see the cockpit and sit in the front bay and pretend to shoot the gun. I like the plane but I wouldn't pay to get in.



This is the first time I've ever described a picture with the words "Children exit through the plane's lips"



Red Eagles:


Gene Soucy



Shockwave, a three jet-engined powered truck, was a real crowd pleaser. Using up 120 gallons of fuel, it can go about 300 MPH.



The Skytypers are vintage World War II planes.



Julie Clark has a patriotic theme with Red, White & Blue smoke coming from her plane.



Air Force's F-16 demonstrates it's flight capability.



Gene Soucy brings out Teresa Stokes, a wingwalker. This seems to me to be an insane thing to do. In the first picture, she turned upside-down on the top wing.



Then the Blue Angels do their thing. They stretch out their performance by having their C-130 ("Fat Albert") fly around for a bit.



Now the stars of the show, the six F/A-18 Hornet Blue Angels:

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