I ended going to the Traverse City Air Show yesterday. I actually got up early enough so that I could get there early enough. Even with picking up my dad, we got a good spot there. It was almost right on the water.
This time the Buckthorn was performing the duties of being the air show center. She was flying a big flag that I presume you could see from the air. It was a little choppy though but that wasn't much of a deterrent to the air show.
One of the Sheriff boats making sure that the air show area was clear.
I think they have a Coast Guard demonstration every year at this air show. The bottom helicopter is stationed in Traverse City and the top one is stationed in Detroit but it's not too far from its area of operation.
This is the Coast Guard version of Black Hawk known as the MH-60 Jayhawk. It is painted in an old Coast Guard scheme and looks pretty cool. This helicopter was chosen to replace the HH-3 Pelican and entered service in 1990.
This is two of the three MH-60s that operate out of Traverse City. The Dolphin comes out of Detroit.
Another pass.
Then they did a demonstration of a rescue.
It's amazing how much water gets kicked.
The Dolphin was also showing a rescue.
I kind of like this picture with the Buckthorn in the backgroud.
They dropped the basket in the water.
Picking up the person.
I think this is a frogman too.
The helicopter lifts up and starts to fly away.
I love the looks of this bird.
Since I don't often get pictures of it, I took quite a few.
turning towards us.
The Dolphin passing by.
The frontal shot.
One more shot of the Jayhawk.
Oops, I guess one more as I get a frontal shot.
The Manitou taking people out to watch the Air Show.
I should look to see how much this costs and maybe do it next year. It seemed like they were in a pretty good spot.
One more shot.
This is stunt pilot Michael Goulian. He is a stunt pilot and won the National Aerobatic Championship at the age of 27.
The plane is an Extra 330C produced in Germany.
It is a fairly lightweight plane, which makes it fairly maneuverable.
In a dive.
Another dive.
I love watching them do this maneuver.
It is really cool to watch these guys.
It's amazing how loud these planes are.
Kind of going into a slide.
And upside down.
Next up was a MiG-17. The MiG-17 was an improvement of the MiG-15 that was used in the Korean War.
The MiG-17 added an afterburner and could go faster.
It was a fairly nimble jet.
The Sikorsky S-76B belonged to North Flight Aero Med out of Traverse City. The S-76 was based on the design of the S-70 which was the basis for the Black Hawk. It first flew in 1977 and is used in offshore drilling among other applications.
Another highlight for me was seeing the A-10 go through it's paces.
Not a view I would like if I were an enemy.
The light was just about right after being cloudy all morning.
With landing gear down.
Doing a simulated bomb run.
A pass by.
And one more shot.
This is RJ Gritter and he flies an 8KCAB Decathalon. It is built by Bellaca out of Oklahoma.
I thought this was a Piper Cub.
Guess I was wrong.
But he was putting it through its passes.
Sort of a pass by the Buckthorn.
I kind of like this.
One more shot of that plane.
The next group came from the Michigan National Guard. First up is the Eurocopter UH-72 Lakota. It first flew in 2006 and became operational in 2007. It came out of the LHX program which was used by the army to replace the UH-1 Huey (not one you can really replace, but you can try). It was developed from the Eurocopter EC145. Close to 500 were built.
The UH-60 Black Hawk. The Army has several of them. There are variants that are used by all of the military services. It was made famous in "Black Hawk Down".
One of the coolest helicopters is the CH-48 Chinook. It is a heavy lift helicopter.
It first flew in 1961 and has seen several upgrades since then. I suspect it will see several more as it seems to be more capable than the Osprey.
I tried to slow down the shutter speed to get some rotor blue.
But I lost some clarity.
Unfortunately, I couldn't slow it down enough for the Chinook.
But that's okay, because the Chinook looks pretty cool on its own.
The Chinook getting hit by some light.
The Lakota again.
Even though they are both blurry, I love the fact I got both of them in.
Another of the Black Hawk.
One more Chinook. It looks like it is smiling.
Next up is the UH-1 belonging to the Michigan State Police.
It is based out of Lansing but will be used anywhere.
This is a DeHavilland Chipmunk and is used by a person that does skywriting.
I kind of like this shot.
The Manitou heading back to her dock.
A seagull.
And then there was the main attraction of the Show, the Blue Angels. I like this picture because the two birds in the lower right look like they belong in the formation.
One of the opposing solo planes. We didn't get to see the other one because apparently there was bird strike the day before. Plus, I think it was windy enough that they weren't going to do the normal opposing solo displays.
The diamond. I was glad to see this.
One of the formations.
The opposing solo with landing gear deployed.
The dirty diamond.
I like this shot.
The opposing solo doing a turn.
The inverted diamond.
I think this was the echelon formation.
This might have been line abreast.
The opposing solo doing a high speed pass, only I missed getting pictures of the shock diamond.
Because I like this one so much.
In a turn.
Number 6 again.
Probably my favorite.
A pair of Blue Angels in a turn.
The diamond again.
Another of the diamond in better light.
They must have gotten the 6th one fixed because they were able to finish with the diamond.
I like this shot.
As they break up before one more pass.
And the final pass before the end of the shot. Earlier this year, I watched a movie about the Blue Angels. It was showing in IMAX theaters but I also saw that it was on Amazon, so I watched it. It was pretty cool and was a behind the scenes look at the Blue Angels. If you have time, you should watch it.
