This past weekend Jay and I attended the 2012 Cleveland National Air Show in Cleveland, OH. It was my second year of attending this air show. I had never been to one until Jay took me last year, so I was really looking forward to it this weekend. A lot of that had to do with the fact that the Blue Angels were going to be there this year and I was promised that they are a lot better than the Thunderbirds. Keep in mind that I’m dating a former Navy pilot. lol

In fact, my dearest was so excited that he had a hard time sleeping. This was the pretty sight that greeted me when I went outside to sit with him on the patio at 4:30 a.m. Isn’t it pretty? It was a blue moon so I had to take a picture of it. We also took a couple of pictures through the telescope, but I can show those to you another day.

We took another guy from the club with us and bought box seats when we got there. They are extra, but are definitely well worth it. You don’t have to jockey for a good spot or worry about losing your place if you have to run to the rest room. Also, our seats were just right of show center and it was great! A lot of the action happened right in front of us.

One of my favorite acts this year was Sean D. Tucker. He does acrobatic moves in his biplane that absolutely stunned me. It is my goal to fly 3D R/C planes, so I was trying to watch his demonstration to see if I could maybe pick up a few moves. He had a couple that I still don’t know how he did them, but I’m definitely going to give it a try when I am able to fly 3D!

You really need to take a look at Sean in motion. You don’t have to watch the entire video, but you might get sucked into it:

Unfortunately, my camera battery died a lot sooner than I expected so I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I wanted. Here are a few that I did take, though:

Last year they had the school bus with the jet engine on the back that I absolutely loved. This year they had a Dodge truck with a jet engine. It was okay, but I wasn’t nearly as impressed as last year.

The Army Golden Knights always do some fancy parachuting stuff, and this is what it looks like when they are way up, before deploying the chutes, and all you see are the streams of smoke that they set off. The Navy also had their Leap Frogs there.

When they jumped the first time (with the flag as the National Anthem played) they misjudged the wind a bit so they were off of their marks. And one of the Knights landed in Lake Erie! If it had been a Leap Frog he could have just swam to shore. 😉

They had a B-17 and some other warbirds that flew, but I was disappointed because they just did laps. *sigh* Not very exciting. It was on static display later so it was neat to walk up and get a closer look at it.

This is obviously not a picture that I took, but it shows you just how exact and precise these guys have to be. I gasped a couple of times when they were doing their maneuvers because I thought for sure that they were going to hit. These are some of the best pilots in the world and I loved every single second of the show. I can’t wait until I get to see them in person again! I highly recommend going to see them if you ever have the chance.

After the Air Show was over we walked around and looked at the displays. They had a P3 Orion there, just like last year, and so Jay managed to sweet talk his way onto it. He had ulterior motives (which didn’t work out), but I snapped this picture so that you can see how it would have looked if you had happened onto one of his planes when he was still in the service. These guys were anxious to get us off of the plane so that they could go enjoy some after-show activities at the Velvet Dog. Actually, I’m not sure if that’s where they were going, but I like the name of the bar so that’s where I’m pretending that they went.

Thus ends my tour of the Air Show. I can’t believe that I have to wait an entire year to go see it again. I was never in the service, but I definitely love seeing military things. Especially guys in uniform. 😉 Ladies, that alone is worth attending the air show with your other half! 🙂