Being a big fan of speed and heart thumping sounds, I went to MCAS Miramar to watch the Blue Angels. No matter how many times you see, that’s something that’ll bring your hands together any day. Well, there were other good ones too, the alpha angle flight of FA-18(Hornet) and the low altitude flyby of the F-16, the minimum radius turn of the F-16, vertical landing and take off of some navy fighter jet (forgot the name) and acrobatics of one of the great show pilots, Sean Tucker, in his custom built challenger aircraft (This year his flight was called Oracle challenger ‘cos Oracle had sponsored that event). Trust me nothing beats the Blue Angels. The professionalism, the speed, the precision, it just beats them all. It was a cloudy day and it was going to be a low-show and here’s how the show was.

The DangerZone music from TopGun stars and the entire crowd is on the feet. The stalls get empty and the rails are packed. The smoke is on and all the extra long telescopic lenses in various hands start focusing. 5 angels go towards right and the last (#6) goes to the left. Four of them (1,2,3,4) form the classic diamond formation with 18 inch separation between them. The first sight of the Blue Diamond formation, all the heads make a quick turn from right to left in a second or two and all the hands go up and togehter enjoying the rumble with excitement.

After some amazing heroics from blue angels, loads of others perform but still that just stays in your mind…and it  did stay in my mind until now. Now I have a blue engels deskpiece on my table for inspiration. (If you claim to be a slow pilot on fighter jets, you’ve to be a blue angel. Any less is one in a million)