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I Spent The Day With The Blue Angels, and Here Are the Photos

US Navy Blue Angels C-130 Hercules, Fat Albert
John P.

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Cali Lewis, Dave Curlee and I had the good fortune to spend a day with the US Navy Blue Angels at the Alliance Air Show last weekend (thanks to our friend Rachel Medley). Among the highlights was the invitation to actually ride along with the Blue Angels – but not in their standard F/A-18… instead in their C-130 Hercules cargo plane (crewed by an all-Marine Corp staff)!

US Navy Blue Angels C-130 Hercules, Fat Albert

Now, when you first hear this you might be like – that’s awesome! Of course I’d do it! At least that is what I thought. But then I learned that they were going to fly that C-130 the same way they fly those fighter jets! Seriously. Like crazy takeoffs and landings and 60 degree banks, etc. They described it as “worse than a roller coaster”, even though the plane, affectionately named “Fat Albert” weighs 100,000 pounds!

I Wussed Out

I know you’re all going to give me a lot of crap for this, but I didn’t do it. Dave and Cali went on the plane, but knowing my own limitations I opted to forego the experience because I was certain it was going to make me sick. And frankly it just wasn’t worth it to me to be sick for the rest of the day.

So instead, I hung out with them, and crawled all over that C-130 and took a bunch of photos – and most importantly, mounted three Contour HD camcorders strategically in the plane before they took off! So that even if I wasn’t going to ride along, I’d get to see what I missed out on!

I don’t quite have the video ready for you guys yet, but it’s coming. So look for it in the near future here on the blog. But in the meantime, here are a bunch of photos of the US Navy Blue Angels F-18s, C-130, and the crews that run them. I hope you all enjoy!

The Photos

Here are a few I uploaded directly to the server.

And here is what is featured in my Blue Angels Flickr gallery.

Comments

  2. I love the Blue Angels. It’s amazing the maneuvers they can do in close proximity with each other. They come to the Hillsboro Air Show (Oregon) every other year. So they should be coming in 2011.

  3. These HDR photos are AWESOME! You are so lucky to have hung out with the Blue Angels. I’m a Seattle wedding photographer and used to shoot for a newspaper, I would have killed to shoot that. At least you got to install a few Contour cameras. Looking forward to the video!

    -Kirk

  4. So so so thrilled to have you ‘back in my space’, John! Bwahahaha! See – I thought we were buds, you know, cool and all. Then you go around out-bad-assing me all over the place! And I’ve just been spent! A wuss in my corner – while John has all the fun. However, this, this pleases me to no end – to know that you, as I, would not have been able to handle it.

    “You can’t HAAANDLE it!”

    Pleased as punch, signing out!