Blue Angels

We again got an invitation from Make A Wish to go to the pre-show of the Quad Cities Airshow. The Airshow is being set up when we are there and some of the planes, including Fat Albert and the Blue Angels, get a turn to practice their routines, but it is not the BIG Airshow that thousands of people go to. The booths are mostly set up, but not functioning, and there are some planes on the runway that you can go look at, but more will be there during the actually air show.
This year the event happened to be on the Friday that Simeon was at camp. We decided that the 4 of us would go anyways, and since Simeon was at camp that he'd be alright with missing it.
The weather for the day was hot with a chance of thunderstorms. When we got there it was blue sky all around and HOT.
We had a yummy lunch catered by Olive Garden. While we were eating we got to watch a man doing his routine. He was incredible. At one point he did about 20 spirals in the air. Later we got to meet him and Johann made the comment that all those spins made him dizzy just watching him, to which the pilot replied-"It almost made me dizzy too!"
We were told that because of a storm somewhere else that the Blue Angels would start flying later then planned-probably around 4:00pm, and it was about 1:30 at this time.
Since we had lots of extra time we went onto the runway to check out the planes. The area we were closest to had the Armed Forces planes. We got to see a few Warthog planes which are Johann's favorite ones, and some other planes.
Ammon LOVED seeing the missiles and the front of the plane where they shoot the bullets from. At first he was afraid to walk under the planes, but soon got comfortable enough to walk under them. Corrine on the other hand was nervous being on the runway the entire time and wanted to go back to the area where our chairs were and sit on dads lap.




While we were looking at the Warthogs we were watching the airshow people trying to fit a plane between 2 other planes. It was quite fun to sit and watch them pushing the plane this way, then turning it that way, then backing it up and going this way a little before turning it and trying another way to fit it between. After about 20 minutes of trying to get it through they decided that it wasn't going to work and it would have to be parked somewhere else.

About this time they announced that Fat Albert was going to take off. Fat Albert is HUGE and loud. We got to see them fly, then land and taxi backwards. The kids always get a kick out of the person who stands up through the whole on the top of the plane holding an American flag and waving at us.



Then they started talking about the Blue Angels. It's interesting to watch the person announcing what the planes are doing and when because they have their back to the runway and are not watching what is going on. The stand at ready the entire time, and except for one time when the announcer was shown a paper with the pilots names on it, he did his entire program turned around.




The planes do all sorts of maneuvers and fly-byes. Some of the maneuvers are done with just a few planes and other are done with all 6 planes. Last year I was so scared that the planes were going to crash into each other when they did some of the maneuvers, but this year I knew that they wouldn't. At one point the announcer is talking about the planes and out of the blue a plane flies up low behind us-startling us. The point was to show how they can sneak up on enemies. Because of the storm that was now heading our way, they didn't fly quite as long as last year.



After they fly they land at another airport near by, then the pilots are flown to the airport we are at, then driven over to us for us to meet them. The wish kids get their picture taken as a group with the pilots, then everyone can get the autographs and pictures taken with the pilots.

Corrine really wanted to meet one of the 2 female pilots. When we got to meet one of them Corrine had her sign her picture and take a picture with her, but Ammon didn't even want a signature. He wanted to meet the male pilots, and he did get his picture taken with one of them.

About this time we notice that the cloud coming in are dark and the wind is getting cooler and picking up quickly and we decide to get going. We were told to drive back down the runway with our flashers on and that "no one would run us over". So we start going onto the runway and this BIG plane starts coming right at us. They start yelling for all the cars to turn around and get off the runway. So we did as quickly as we could. After that we drove on the grass and out the back of the airport safe from any moving airplanes.

On the drive home the sky was getting darker and darker by the minute. Then drops started falling. Slow at first, but about the size of a quarter. Then all of the sudden it was if the sky just opened up and buckets of rain were falling on us. It was coming down so hard that the cars were going 40 miles an hour and at times you couldn't see the cars 20 feet in front of you. We drove in the rain like this for about 20 minutes before getting home. Later we learned that over 2" of rain fell in about 45 minutes-and we drove right through it!