Blue Angels @ Hickam AFB - 09/27/2014

It was 5 years ago in 2009 when I last saw the the Airshow at Hickam AFB with the Thunderbirds. The Blue Angels always perform at Kaneohe Marine Base and I could never go to those shows. This was a great opportunity that they would perform in the Honolulu area. I was really excited when I first heard of the news last year and I totally forgot about the challenges of the traffic and crowd. This year, the added challenge was the humid and heat. It was an endurance test to survive but it was all worth it.

I was able to see the F-22 flying over the Salt Lake area for their noon performance prior to going to the base.  It was really awesome so I was even more excited to see the Blue Angels.  

After getting on base, I followed a highly organized line of cars and was able to park without problem, just like going to Disneyland.  I was also able to get in w/ my medium sized camera bag holding my camera w/a 70-200mm lens and my Lumix P&S for wide shots of large planes.  I got there just in time for the 1:30pm fly over by the C-17 plane.  It was huge, even looking from a distance!

We walked around and I could see the row of the Blue Angels parked on the runway.  I took a panoramic w/ my iphone.

I didn't realize how close it was to the Honolulu Airport runway and I saw many airliner landing on the runway.

It was HOT and HUMID and we  had an hour of wait so we decided to take a tour of the Coast Guard rescue plane.

We waited almost 45mins in the hot plane and was wondering why the long wait..then found that you get to check out the cockpit.  The cockpit seats 4 people in a pretty tight space.  hmm.. they use a Garmin GPS?

As it got closer to the 3:30pm show time, I squeezed my way into the crowd that had gathered in front to get the Blue Angels crew prepping for their takeoff.

Then they were off!  The announcer would say which direction they were coming.  After turning left and right so many times and I started to get confused. 

The lighting was challenging since the sun was getting low so there was glare depending on which way they were coming.  There was also some whites cloud that made the sky really bright and would throw off my metering so the Blue Angels would be really dark.

They did a inverted pair fly by.

When the sun hit the plane the right way, it was perfect!

It was cool when he came out of a cloud, I think.. it's like cotton candy.

There were lots of kids sitting on their parent's shoulder..

This was the closet shot I got.  I'm not sure if it's the lighting but somehow, the plane came out looking like a toy.

After a 40 minutes show, they finally landed...right in front of the crowd.

The crowd started to head for their cars, which gave me a change to jockey closer to takes shots of the deplaning.

It took a while for the pilots to get checked out after deplaning.

With a 70-200mm I am able to shoot thru small gaps in the crowd.

The pilots came to give autographs and all the kids in line got a cool pamphlet about the Blue Angels.

We stayed till around 6pm for the crowd to dissipate, but when we got to the car, there was a huge traffic jam.  This was worse than getting out of the Aloha Stadium after a UH football game during the June Jones era.  Since my car was stopped right in front of the famous Hickam tower used in the Pearl Harbor movie, I took a shot w/ my P&S.  It was already 6:40p when I got closer to the exit of the main parking lot.  Although it took me an hour to get out of Hickam, stood in sweltering heat, had to shoot thru the crowds, I was still glad I made it out to see the Blue Angels perform up close.  I hope I won't have to wait another 5 years for the next air show.