F/A-18 Super Hornet

The true stars of these shows (in my opinion anyway!) are the military aircraft and their amazing crews (ground and in-air). The F/A-18 is an amazing aircraft and I would never want to be on the enemy side of this beast. It is flown by the Navy/Marines and obviously carrier-capable. It is 32,000 lbs of pure mean attached to 34,000 lbs of thrust capable of Mach 1.6. They have to keep speeds below Mach 1.0 but these guys pushed it as close as they dared! Keeping this plane in the view of the camera at those speeds can be a challenge but I was fortunate to get a lot of quality shots.

I share two photos per message due to size limits from some on my distribution list. I'll try to keep the shots coming and may violate my "1 message a day" self-imposed rule.


These two airmen are casually moving their jet down the taxiway with hardly a care in the world as they prepare to give us a show. I'm sure they turn all-business once that canopy is closed.

The subsequent take-off is quite the display of power as seen in this shot. Though the take-off point was a long distance from us, the thunder of those jets was a sharp contrast to all other planes up to that point in the show. You can see the hot exhaust very clearly in this photo.


Stay in touch!
Doug White

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