Airshow Pics

The Blue Angels had their 60th Anniversary this year. It was the main event of the air show. For those who have never been to one of these, they are quite an experience. You'll see machines you'd never thought you would get close to... and people you only thought existed in Jeff Foxworthy Books. Anyway, the amazing thing is that the Blue Angels (the blue F-16's with eh yellow trim) fly with the nose of one and wing of the others 18 inches apart!!!! It is unbelievable that these guys don't crash! I mean really, we have fender-benders in our cars while gravity sticks us to the road beneath the tires and we're driving a mere 30 MPH. These guys are in air and going just a tad bit faster. Unreal...

This is a picture of a C-5. It's a cargo plane that can hold up to 7 Greyhound buses. It is the plane that moves the Hubble Telescope (sp?). We actually got to fly the C-5 simulator during our residency and had a private tour of the plane from 2 pilots. The nose of the plane (cockpit) is 6 stories from the ground. For those of us who REALLY enjoy hearing about specs, here are some more: Four turbofan engines mounted on pylons under the wings power the C-5. Each engine pod is nearly 27 feet (8.2 meters) long, weighs 7,900 pounds (3,555 kilograms) and has an air intake diameter of more than 8 1/2 feet (2.6 meters). The Galaxy has 12 integral wing tanks with a capacity of 51,150 gallons (194,370 liters) of fuel - enough to fill 6 1/2 regular-size railroad tank cars. The fuel weighs 322,500 pounds (145,125 kilograms) and permits the C-5, carrying a 204,904-pound (92,207-kilogram) payload, to fly 2,150 nautical miles (3,440 kilometers), off-load, and fly another 500 miles (800 kilometers) without aerial refueling.