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The Blue Angels, based at Pensacola Naval Station, were not scheduled to practice today, so we went birding down near Fort Pickens on the other side of Pensacola Bay. Boy! Did we get a surprise. Normally, 4 or 5 F-18 Hornets fly in formation while a couple entertain the air show crowds with opposing low passes, often upside down, close to the ground.
My Canon lens on automatic does an excellent job of grabbing focus on these planes traveling faster than their sounds. But, you really have to keep your lens moving when they are close. I've shot a lot of birds with shotguns and cameras, but none as fast as these!
Thanks for stopping by and view this photo. The reason for posting this photo on Flickr is to learn so if you have constructive feedback regarding what I could do better and / or what should I try, drop me a note I would love to hear your input.
View on Black the way it should be seen!
-- Let the sound of the shutter always guide you to new ventures.
© 2019 Winkler
Remember to follow me on Twitter @BjarneWinkler and @NewTeamSoftware
IAPP Member: US#12002
Thanks for stopping by and view this photo. The reason for posting this photo on Flickr is to learn so if you have constructive feedback regarding what I could do better and / or what should I try, drop me a note I would love to hear your input.
View on Black the way it should be seen!
-- Let the sound of the shutter always guide you to new ventures.
© 2019 Winkler
Remember to follow me on Twitter @BjarneWinkler and @NewTeamSoftware
IAPP Member: US#12002
What's in a name? When it comes to the "Double Farvel", your guess is as good as mine. Even the name of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels Flight Demonstration Team is a bit esoteric. They changed their name from Navy Flight Exhibition Team to the Blue Angels after seeing an advertisement for the New York nightclub The Blue Angel, also known as The Blue Angel Supper Club, in the New Yorker Magazine. They made their debut as the Blue Angels in July of 1946.
This maneuver, displayed at the Wings Over Wayne air show at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, is known as the Double Farvel, where Blue Angels 1 - 4 sweep by the crowd in a diamond formation with two upside down and two right-side up, at better than 400 knots. I have figured what 'farvel' means, though not how it relates... probably something I'm missing about Navy pilot humor. Sounds cool, nonetheless. One issue of note here in this image is that Blue Angel 3 is being flown by the team's first woman fighter pilot, Lt. Amanda Lee, callsign 'Stalin'. Equal opportunity may soon become a thing of the past.
Update: Thanks to Norman Graf Aviation Photography, the mystery of the "Double Farvel" is solved. He states, "The Farvel was introduced in 1962 by Boss Lt. Cmdr. Ken Wallace. Nestlé's chocolate had a TV commercial that featured a dog named Farvel. The name appealed to him and he named the maneuver on a whim. They later added the second inverted aircraft, making it the Double Farvel." I'm old enough to remember those commercials. That ventriloquist dummy dog was actually named 'Farfel', not Farvel. Perhaps misspelled by the team, it made research about it somewhat difficult. What Farfel, who resembled a long-eared hound, was known for, aside from saying "Chawwwclate" after the N-E-S-T-L-E-S song by Danny O'Day, was putting his ears over his eyes in stressful situations. Seems appropriate for this maneuver.
A young male belted kingfisher flies past. These birds are the little blue angels with their breathtaking turns and dives.
Especially fun when they play kingfisher tag and chase each other around.
Thanks for stopping by and view this photo. The reason for posting this photo on Flickr is to learn so if you have constructive feedback regarding what I could do better and / or what should I try, drop me a note I would love to hear your input.
View on Black the way it should be seen!
-- Let the sound of the shutter always guide you to new ventures.
© 2019 Winkler
Remember to follow me on Twitter @BjarneWinkler and @NewTeamSoftware
IAPP Member: US#12002
Here's "Fat Albert" of the US Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron the "Blue Angels" heading towards me from Seafair Sunday 2015 with Major Dusty Cook and Major Mark Hamilton at the controls with help with many wonderful enlisted personnel. This Lockheed-Martin C-130T Hercules is entrusted to haul around the team's gear, do emergency parts runs and also perform for audiences both outside and inside the Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Also on FineArtAmerica.com for printing.
I did want to get four good prop disks out of this image and consider this my second best aviation photograph of all time. Feel free to ask me about the photo...
Special thanks to the US Navy Blue Angels for the Seafair Friday C-130T flight in "Fat Albert". Here is a Seafair Sunday photo from the logboom of the Lockheed Martin C-130T the Blue Angels use. I did a write-up with more photos for the Whidbey Daily on my Seafair experiences and am posting to an organized Flickr collection my developed Seafair photos.
PHOTO CREDIT: Joe A. Kunzler Photo, AvgeekJoe Productions, growlernoise-AT-gmail-DOT-com
Blue Angels, US Navy flight demonstration team, flying in airshow during Sea Fair Fleet Week, in Seattle, Washington, USA.
Heather and I are very fortunate to travel as much as we do. We rate most of our trips as very good or excellent. Very rarely do we have trips that are busts or not very good. This one was one of them. It seemed like everything went wrong.
Background: the Blue Angels over winter at the Naval Air Facility El Centro in California, close to the Mexican border. They practice their demonstration flights 2-3 times a day. At the end of the winter season, usually in mid-March, the NAF hosts an air show featuring the Blue Angels and other airplanes. We try to make it down to El Centro for the 2-3 days before the air show to catch the Blues up close and personal. We usually fly into Las Vegas or San Diego, rent a car, head to El Centro and then to Nellis AFB outside of Las Vegas to catch Red Flag - a USAF military exercise with a large number of fighters, bombers, and support aircraft. For two airplane geeks, this is like Heaven.
Well, things changed this year. The first one was these events happened during Spring Break, so car rentals were going at about $800-$1,000 a week. That was insane, so we decided to drive. Star to El Centro is about 1,000 miles but we could do it.
Then shortly before our trip, a certain US President decided to start a useless, stupid war in Iran. On top of the obvious fallout, there were side effects. Gas prices really went up. Yuck. Then security issues kicked in. While we driving down to El Centro, the air show was canceled. We didn't hear about this until we arrived there. The Navy decided to skip El Centro and take part in an air show in Yuma. As part of this, they also practiced in Yuma, only taking off and landing at El Centro. So, instead of seeing the Blues do a full practice 6-7 times during our stay, we caught them one time. That sucked, but it was better than nothing, but driving 1,000 miles to see one practice session wasn't a good deal.
We headed to Las Vegas on Sunday and ran into bad news there too. Red Flag was also canceled. We couldn't win on this trip, but we did have a good drive. Better luck next year.