The Blue Angels

Last Saturday, Mark and I drove to San Francisco to watch the air show that included the Blue Angels in conjunction with Fleet Week.  Jeff and Jess had graciously invited us to view the proceedings from the roof of their apartment building which has a spectacular view of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.  Jeff told (warned?) us that the Blue Angels usually passed right over their building.

I was excited to try out the big camera lens I got for Christmas.  It is a heavy lens, so I don't use it a lot, but this was a perfect opportunity.  It did not disappoint.  The weather was beautiful and hundreds of ships, sailboats, and other smaller boats dotted the bay.  The preliminary "acts" in the air show included some tricky flying by a red bi-plane doing loop-de-loops and stalling high in the air and then spiraling downwards toward the water.  There was also the Patriots Jet Team with red, white, and blue contrails that flew in tight formation.

They flew quite close to the water, lower than the apartment building near us.

The fog had started to come in as the Patriots Jet Team were flying.

But clearly, the Blue Angels would be the star attraction.  They were scheduled to fly at 3:00 and Jeff was nervously watching the fog begin to come in through the Golden Gate.  He was worried that if there was too much fog, the Blue Angels would cancel, something that had happened before.

Just before 3:00, there was a deafening roar and suddenly, there they were, streaking across the sky.  Wow! is all I can say.

 The building next to Jeff's.  There were lots of people on top of lots of buildings.

 Such tight formation was amazing!

 There would be a lull in the action, with no planes visible, and then suddenly we would hear a roar and they would be directly overhead!

 This photo was not cropped!  They were that close!  And right above us.  (With 200 mm lens)

 One plane upside down and one right side up as they pass over Alcatraz.

 Two planes upside down, two right side up over the fog.

 Small specks in the sky over the Golden Gate Bridge.

 Peeling off of formation over Alcatraz.

Zooming past the Golden Gate Bridge shrouded in fog.

After the Blue Angels, a marine plane that was quite a bit larger passed over us a few times and did some amazing maneuvers for such a large plane.

 I didn't know if this was a troop transport plane, but definitely the Marines were taking part in the show!

Sometimes it looked like the plane would go right into the building.

We had such a great time, I kept thinking that my 2-year old grandson would have loved it!  Actually, all the grandkids would have loved it!