Superiority Through Airpower IX

The grand finale of the airfest was a performance by the USAF Thunderbirds. For most of the day, their planes sat out on the tarmac, eight of them all in a row, just hinting at what was to come. Around noon, they fired up all of the planes just to give a little tease of the demo that was coming. Not long after the checkout, they towed a few of the planes off, leaving only the six below. You can see the cockpits are now open, waiting for the pilots to climb back in.

The photo below is a closeup of one of the planes on the ground. I don't know why the plane number is upside down...

Finally, the planes made it into the air, and what a show. When you see a show like this, it's easy to understand why America is still the greatest country on Earth. The sheer power and grace exhibited by these planes and their pilots is amazing. Look closely at the photo below, and you'll notice that one of the planes is right side up, while the other is inverted. (I took lots of pictures of single planes flying inverted, but it's not impressive since it looks like I flipped the picture over...)

The biggest part of the Thunderbirds show was their tight formation flying. They did passes with 2, 3, 4 or all 6 of the planes flying together. They sometimes had planes flying straight at each other at speeds over 600 mph, only for them to turn at the last second and fly straight upwards.

All in all, it was an amazing show, and one I can highly recommend. From a photographer's point of view, it's tough to get good shots. You have to be super quick on the shutter, and even then you won't get a lot of shots. From the ground, these guys are always backlit, and moving at speeds that mean they can move in and out of focus in an instant. I caught plenty of blurry images, as well as shots of empty blue sky.