Pay very close attention. This is actually two Blue Angels
I am in love with the heat blur
Awesome shots!
Gonna have to do that next year if they offer it again.
Amazing photos.
But why are the pilots wearing Vaultsuits?
They don’t wear traditional G-suits because the rubber bladders that inflate around the legs would interfere with all the minute adjustments they have to do with the flight stick.
So they do a helluva lot of lower body exercise. And they do special breathing and clenching to force the blood back up to their brains.
The result is that these pilots pack a lot of cake.
That, I did not know. But I was just joking about how the suits are about the same color as Fallout Vault suits, really. But TIL some cool stuff at least!
They do it every year! You have to park at a certain parking lot and buses take you to the airfield. We mentioned to our bus driver that we hoped they do it next year and she said, “They do it every year.” And we were like, “BUT THE WEBSITE SAID FOR THE FIRST-TIME EVER” and she laughed.
Posting some more before I head out to watch the airshow proper today. I know a good vantage on Seward Park that gets you a great view over the lake.
This is zoomed in at 600mm. Rivet counters rejoice!
The flight line
And for a bonus photo, I present to you one of the stars of the movie Battleshit… I mean, Battleship. USS Samspon. It was actually really cool to be on a DDG.
Cool pix man, keep 'em coming!
I’m still at the air show, but I have the absolutely sickest photos of an F35 thrust vectoring and popping flares.
Dear Lord. I probably shot somewhere around 120GB of RAW images this weekend. I’m taking my first look at these on my PC and it’s going to be like trying to pick your favorite child.
The north end of Seward Park is one of the very best places you can watch the air show from. The Center Point is directly in front of you, and there’s nothing but you and water. The Coast Guard keeps all pretty much everyone out. The jets are literally going directly overhead all show. The only downside is that it’s about a mile hike from the parking lot (if you have mobility issues) and getting out of there after the air show is a nightmare. It took me over two hours to get home when it only took me 35 minutes to drive there.
The full-size versions of these are amazing. It’s too bad Discord shrinks them down.
Here’s what I’ve found through a cursory look through.
F-35A popping flares. This was a wild sequence, because you can see the previous flare is going the other direction! He thrust-vectored the hell out of those descent. And you can see a fresh flare glowing almost like a light in a video game, illuminating the undercarriage.
The new 777-900. All doors accounted for!
EF-18 Growler flirting with it
Oh, this one is wiiiiiiiild. I didn’t figure out what was going on until I saw the photos.
It’s hard to see, but that’s the Army Black Knights jumping from their plane. First out is a guy in a wing suit!!! And the other jumpers just exited the plane.
On the way down, you could tell that there were two in freefall and one was flying around them, almost like he was circling them. I couldn’t figure out what was going on until I saw the wingsuit in the photos. But it was crazy because it looked like some of those high-speed passes were really close.
Awesome stuff @Woolen_Horde. Thanks for sharing your photos with us.
Awesome pics, @Woolen_Horde! I was about to dig into the my photos but maybe I’ll just appreciate yours. 
Gotta try Seward Park next year. I was at the pits at Genessee, and I think they fly closer to you. I’ll just bring a book and wait for the crowd to leave – took me as long to get back on Friday.
They had the wrong address listed on the pass for parking, so I was a bit later than planned getting there and I missed getting shots of the Hellcat with the Growlers. At least I saw it as I was walking in!
And looks like the F-35 got a lot closer to you than to the “main” crowd at Genessee.
The vapor on that Growler shot is epic!
I miss when they’d close I-90. Great view from the bridge and they’d fly right over you. And pretty easy to get out.
Someone even put center point on Google Maps.
I think the issue is the grandstands are over by Genese. But that means the planes generally will fly across the field of view. Which means they are either flying at or from my perch on Seward Park. But they basically used the channel between Seward Park and Mercer Island as a main egress and ingress route, particularly the Blue Angels.
I should have used this photo of the 777. It gives you an idea of the airshow maneuvering they were doing. You will (hopefully) never experience an airliner banking this heavy, nor this close to the ground.
Another angle of the F-35 with the burners above me. I actually found both F-35s to be far more interesting than the Blues. I’ve shot the Blues a ton of times now, and I know their routine fairly well. But those damn Lightnings! They were not predictable at all! They would disappear behind me and instead of popping out on the other side of the island like any other reasonable aircraft, they just thrust-vectored their asses and reappeared from whence they came, like Grandpa Simpson walking in-and-out of the restaurant.
This is basically how a lot of shots started or ended. Yeah, exit stage directly above me.
This Growler shot reminds me of Growler Ball! VAQ129, same squadron!
Fucking awesome.
Now for a few bits of plane pedantry:
The undercarriage is the wheels and stuff, not just the belly of the plane. F-35 has a fairly interesting belly, with all the shapes and doors and such, but only when the gear is deployed would you call those shots 'showing undercarriage '.
The F-35 doesn’t have a thrust vectoring nozzle like the F-22 has. Well the -C does, but that’s different and only used for landing, not for manoeuvring. So those impressive bat turns you see are all tail, wings and smartly programmed computers!