Michigan Exposures: Thunder Over Michigan - Part I

So the day of the air show arrived. We had thunderstorms the night before and it looked like we might get some again. It was kind of a humid day.

The Yankee Air Museum made this a drive in air show and ended up splitting it into a morning and afternoon show. It was actually kind of nice to night have to walk to the air show spot. The view wasn't too bad either as they did a decent job in spreading people out. I have a couple complaints about the show, but I'll save that for the next post.

Since I had a ton of pictures and the Yankee Air Museum split it into two shows, I will split my post into two parts. This is the morning part.

They were offering rides in the Huey helicopter. I think they were $99/trip. That's fairly reasonable compared to the other trips.

The theme of this show was Mitchell Madness and as a result, they had 15 different B-25 Mitchell bombers.

These bombers came from all over the country and they all painted a different scheme.

This would have been a naval theme.

This would have been used by a B-25 that was used in the desert.

This is more or less the traditional B-25 pattern.

This one comes from Champaign, Ohio.

Another fairly traditional pattern.

The Yankee Air Museum repainted theirs last year. They used to have a bare metal plane. They now called it Rosie's Reply to honor Rosie the Riveter.

this one is dedicated to the Marines, but I don't think the Marines used B-25s.

After the parade of the B-25s, they had them group up and this was pretty cool.

Next up was an E/A-18 Growler.

This is the new electronic warfare aircraft for the US Navy. But the Navy squadrons are used by the other services.

A heritage flight with a Corsair.

Another angle.

This was pretty neat to see. It is a German Air Force A400M Atlas. This is the first year they have toured the United States.

They put the plane through its paces.

Because it was so humid out, it made for some cool effects.

Next they took up the B-17 and had escorts for her. I have better pictures from the afternoon, so I will show those in the next post.

The P-51 Mustangs in a formation.

A single P-51 flying by.

Next up was the F-35 demonstration.

The F-35 is the newest fighter in the US inventory and started with the Joint Fighter Program.

After a roughly 20 year development program, they are finally reaching operational capability.

This is a transonic shock cone. Again made possible by the high humidity.

It was pretty neat to see.

I'll have to say that this is a pretty neat looking aircraft, but I still think its a dog.

It also made for some nice patterns on the wings during maneuvers.

Another shock way.

I kind of like this picture.

Another tumbling shot.

I really like this one.

And they did a heritage flight with a P-51 and A-10 Thunderbolt. I would love to see an A-10 with a P-47 some day.

Another angle.

For many people, the Blue Angels was the highlight of the morning show. The continuing haze made for some photo challenges.

After a loop.

One of the solo planes taking off.

The diamond approaching.

The diamond passing.

A pass by the opposing solos. Unfortunately, this was the only picture where I got both passing aircraft.

The diamond in an aileron roll.

The mirror formation.

The diamond in a landing configuration.

A pass showing off the different intakes of the F/A-18 Super Hornet. This is the first year that the Blue Angels have used the Super Hornet. There are some major differences between the Super Hornet and Hornet. The easiest to see is the intakes.

One of the solos passing by.

I kind of like this shot.

The mirror formation for the diamond.

The solo pair passing by.

An echelon formation.

The Blue Angels were getting into the shock cone act too. While I was paying attention to this one, the other solo made a really nice one in front of me.