Angels

2025-04-08
Pensacola, FL

Today's trip to the Naval Aviation Museum didn't go quite as planned. First off, I made a rookie mistake. The museum opens at 9:00 and you have to go through a Navy base gate so I checked with google the night before and about 40 minutes should do it. They probably won't let you through the gate much before the museum opens. However, I forgot to check in the morning, with traffic. So I left on time to be 10 minutes late.

Driving along, traffic is steady, but the estimate in google maps keeps getting longer. This had my spidey sense tingling; I knew something was off. I also knew that the Blue Angels were doing a practice session today and that would increase crowds. Connecting the dots, the time was extending because the line outside the gate was getting longer. Apparently on days with Blue Angels you can get in an hour or so before the museum opens.

Another learning experience is that the roads are poorly designed for these events. I was on the road that went straight to the gate, and maybe a mile from the gate it became a parking lot. However, there is a crossroad and traffic light just a couple hundred yards from the gate. So when we'd get the green, 2 or 3 cars might cross and begin the approach to the gate, but when the other road had the green, 3 or 4 cars might pack in due to better angles. I sat in that line of cars for roughly 90 minutes, and was one of the last maybe 50 cars to get in. It was almost a very disappointing day.

But it turned out to be quite good instead. The Blue Angels practice show was a ton of fun. They treated it like a real performance, and the crowd wasn't that big, so it felt close. If you get a chance to see the Blue Angels wherever, I would recommend it. It was a practice and not everything was perfect, but in a couple more weeks I'm sure it will be.

The Blue Angels are a six-person team, four flying as the "Diamond Formation" while the other two are soloists (although sometimes they fly as a six-person Delta Formation). They do a number of tricks that all seem really impressive to me. Rolling a single plane is one thing, but rolling a diamond without changing the relative locations of the planes is quite another. They can be as close as 18 inches.

One photography note: I didn't realize the time and location of the show, so I ended up with just my 24-105 rather than the 100-400 lens I was thinking to grab. As an air show rookie, that may have been for the best. I had trouble finding them at 105 some of the time. I think with practice I could get better. And a bonus note: I took close to 300 pics since I had no idea what would work.

After the show (which lasted about 40 minutes) many people went back to the museum. It was pretty crowded, both with people and with planes. It's not quite the Dayton Air Museum, but it is a very good air museum. You can spend quite a while there.

There were three major sections: WWI, WWII, and modern. The number of cool biplanes was surprising. I didn't think the Navy supported many aircraft back then, but there were a number (and not just flying boats). Also, instead of benches for visitors to rest, they had old aircraft seating which I thought was a nice touch.

Leaving the museum, there also happens to be the Pensacola Light, a Lighthouse from 1859. Every time I look at one of these, I think that someone had to carry the kerosene up those 177 stairs on a regular basis. But since I'm already in the gate, it was absolutely worth a stop.

I ended the day in Daphne, a suburb of Mobile, set up for tomorrow. I had some extra time so I finished my taxes. Some things have to happen even on vacation.