Today was a grey and muggy day in southeast Michigan, so I was concerned at how much of a show we’d even see. And for the second year in a row we left my wife’s good camera at home due to the threat of rain.
But the rain did hold off and we got a good show. Some of the acts, mainly high performance military acts, did switch to their “low” shows. On the plus side, high-G maneuvers in high humidity means lots of highly visible shock waves!
A fun look at some of what we saw fly today. F-18 demo team at left, F-22 demo team on the right, and eight Breitling Albatrosses lined up behind.
This year’s land battle included a pair of Sd.Kfz 231 armored cars, both 6-rad and 8-rad models. Cool!
I saw the Breitling Jet Team for the first time. They really put on a terrific show! They fly a tight seven ship formation with Czech Albatross trainers. We also saw good performances by a MiG-17, F-18 and F-100. There was a noticeable absence of World War Two aircraft this year, bummer. But the highlight was spectacular, an F-22 Raptor demo. It is fast, powerful and unbelievably nimble. Seriously, it can twist and tumble in ways that aerodynamics should never allow; the benefits of thrust vectoring are obvious!
I have no idea what this was doing there…
Heritage flight. P-51 and F-22.
I apologize for not many pictures this year. That’s why you should all go for yourselves!
Plane Dave 