That’s better than the one I saw last night. Damn lucky there wasn’t a mid-air, and two gone.
I live a mile from the runway where the Farnborough International Airshow takes place every two years. It’s mostly an industry trade show and since they’ve stopped the public days at the weekend there has been much less display flying. It’s cool seeing big commercial jets do climbs and turns they’d never do with passengers on board. I like the airshow and happily put up with the extra noise and traffic for that week.
About 20 years ago I did some volunteering at the Royal International Air Tattoo. I was basically a motorcycle courier collecting cash from vendors and taking it to the cash office or bank. At one point I was riding my Harley along a taxiway and there was a MIG on the next taxiway over. The pilot and I waved at each other. Another time I was waiting to cross the end of the runway and was nearly knocked over by the jet blast of the 6 jets of the Italian display team taking off at the same time.
They’re horrible. Just about everyone I know in San Francisco hates the Blue Angels and their stupid, noisy, war-glorifying (yes, they most certainly are that) shit show as much as I do, and that’s plenty. For the two days before the spectacle, it’s like we were under siege from 9:00AM to 4 or 5:00PM with all the goddamned fighter and bomber jets arriving, roaring low and in formation over our homes, making sonic booms like Rodan, and scaring our pets. There’s something terrifying about the mere sound of them. Then there’s the show itself–the bellow of killing thunder, all day, even if you stay at home.
And why? Just to show off the murder machines the government uses against unfortunate foreigners, and could use against us if we got too uppity–which last part is always implied.
The only people in these parts who claim to love the Blue Angels and their show are 1: patriotic Neanderthals who adore the military and 2: conformity minded square citizens. (last sentence deleted because this isn’t the Pit and I don’t want to get bounced).
I don’t like them.
Air show? Buzz-cut Alabamians spewing colored smoke from their whiz-jets to the strains of “Rock You Like a Hurricane”? What kind of country-fried rube is still impressed by that?!
I went to one a few years ago, at a navy/coast guard facility in the Houston, TX area. I wasn’t expecting much, but it was actually pretty cool. It was a mix of World War 2 era and modern planes, and maybe some helicopters.
Unless you see it in person, you really can’t appreciate the speed and sound of a fighter jet passing right over your head.
I’m not from San Francisco, and I’m not a patriotic Neanderthal who adores the military or a conformity-minded square citizen. I just like seeing/hearing/feeling high-performance machines and people performing to the best of their capabilities. And when it comes to high-performance, it’s hard to top fighter jets. I can see why you might liken a Thunderbirds/Blue Angels show to the sort of crass military hardware parade that Trump so badly wanted to have during his presidency, but they’ve never felt like the same thing to me.
I guess I never picked up on that last implication. I would guess most people haven’t.
Alrighty. We’ll just put you down for “Good” then.
But what about the civilian aerobatic performances, and antique aircraft, and whatnot? The Blue Angels/Thunderbirds are just a small part of what you see at a typical air show. And I, personally, find the vintage aircraft and civilian performances more interesting.
An ex of mine told me that once on a business trip to the Bay Area, the plane landed in Oakland. He need to go to SF, and the pilot was taking the plane there anyway, so the pilot let him stay on board. Now, the distance between Oakland airport and SFO is pretty damned close. He said the take off went almost vertical right away, then pitched steeply down for the landing. My ex said it was the best thrill ride of his life.
I lived in San Francisco for a year and the most common air show there was seeing a homeless man piss in his own mouth, saw it twice.
You know if they organized and did it in unison, I’d watch that.
Sorry, your options were ‘good’ and ‘great’. (-:
The title was inspired by Colbert interviews. President Bush - Fantastic President? Or Best President Ever? 
I wouldn’t want to see that. However, it is presumably low in noise, and is admirable in its dedication to reducing pollution.
I’m as liberal as they come, but also an aerospace engineer. For the display of sheer awesomeness, nothing beats an airshow, except maybe a live rocket launch.
I believe it was : Great President or Greatest President.
He always asked it during his Get to Know a District (or was it Better Know a District?) interviews with congresspeople.
You are right, realized this an hour after posting.
We live just a couple miles from the airport and air base. We regularly see the air guard jets doing their practice flights. There is an air show every summer that features the Blue Angels or the Snowbirds (I think that’s what they’re called). During the grand finale the jets fly directly over our house and I mean directly. I think if I stood on my roof, I could almost touch them. We can also see most of their maneuvers from our backyard. They arrive on Thurs and practice Thurs and Fri. Then they perform on Sat and Sun. So I see and HEAR them for 4 days. I enjoy it, the dogs not so much.
Isn’t that always the way? 
I only enjoy airshows when there are combat aircraft, especially doing a flight demo.
In the mid '70s there was the 1st Annual Air Expo in Ottawa (sadly, for whatever reason, there wasn’t a 2nd Air Expo) and there was a BAC Vulcan that did a fly past, which was really cool. And, one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen, was an F-15 flight demo. That was incredible.
The following Monday, I was outside my high school, 7 or 8 km from the airport, when the air show participants were leaving. I saw the F-15 leaving, ascending vertically and doing a corkscrew as it climbed. This was decades ago and I was 15 or 16 but it seemed as though it got to 20 or 30k feet in 20 seconds or so.
Ten years later I was at USN Station Roosevelt Roads and there was a big honking exercise for a few days. At one point about five F-14s just dropped out of the low cloud cover, at the same time their wings were sweeping forward as they were screaming in to land.
I was also offered a ride in the back seat of an F-4, flown by an air reserve squadron but, sadly, I didn’t have HAI (high altitude indoctrination) so that couldn’t happen.