I had been waiting on this one for a while. I was supposed to watch the viper demo fly for the first time at Harrisburg, but the 1100' ceilings shut them down that day. Now this would be the day. If you have ever seen clips of the pilot, Taylor "FEMA" Heister, on social media, you'll know what an amazing pilot he is. This is a man who casually pulls up to 9.5Gs and can have a conversation with you the whole time. If you haven't heard of him, go check out Sam Eckholm's YouTube video "F-16 Viper | The Most Violent Flight of My Life". He got to fly in the backseat during a practice demo and had cameras in the front and backseat facing FEMA and Himself. You really get a feel for how aggressive this demonstration is when you watch this video.

There were other headliners of course, those being the Navy Blue Angels, and The Patrouille Acrobatique de France (or "Patrouille de France" for short). Even the non headlining performers were top of the line. Panchito, RJ Gritter, Michael Goulian, Jim Tobuls's F4U, Greg Colyer with Acemaker iii, and the USNA Sky Goats parachute team. The drive was only around 2 1/2 hours so we were able to get in pretty much right when the gates opened. Parking was easy and the event directors did a great job directing traffic.  The gates opened at 9:00 and we had our spot on the flightline by 9:45. That 45 minutes includes driving to the parking spot with thousands of other cars, walking through security, getting water, checking out some of the static displays, and getting our things set up. That is a testament to how quickly we were able to get parked after getting on base.

We got our spot 2 hours before the flying started, so we did have to wait a while, but because were so early we were right up on the fence. It really didn't feel like we were waiting for 2 hours, so I felt a little surprised when I saw the Blue Angels C130-J, "Ernie", taking off so soon. The jumpers inside the C130 perfectly timed their jump with the National Anthem, and Goulian was circling around them in his Extra 330SC. 

After the jumpers landed we saw a few short "teaser" demos from Michael Goulian and RJ Gritter. Both are incredibly talented and amazing performers. RJ actually only took one year from getting his PPL to flying his first airshow. After those 2, Greg Colyer flew his T33 for around 15 minutes. The T33 is one of my favorite non headlining airshow performances. It is a very historic plane, being the first jet fighter made by the united states. It used to be called the P80/F80 Shooting Star, but after becoming a trainer jet it was renamed to the T33 (still retained the "shooting star"). The way he flies that jet is very elegant, and it is not as faced paced as some of the other demonstrations seen throughout the day. The Pax River SAR Dogs flew a search and rescue demo in their SH-60 Seahawk afterwards. 

Finally it was time for the Viper Demo. Towards the end of the SAR demo, you could hear the F16 starting up, and I watched it taxi down to the end of the runway. As they were doing a few introductions, FEMA came out of nowhere, ripping down the runway, and pitched up into a vertical climb. He circled around to the southwest, out behind the crowd. All that was left before the full demo were the rest of the introductions. Anyone who turned around during this time could see him turning his jet to position it for an overhead high speed pass from directly behind the crowd. One thing to know when seeing the Viper Demo is that FEMA is almost always on the afterburner. He typically only flies for 12 minutes, as that is all the time he gets even with a full tank of fuel since he is always on that burner. 

The first pass was the previously mentioned high speed pass from behind. It is always timed perfectly, right as the team finishes introductions. From there he would fly 3 more high speed passes, a minimum radius turn, the 3 mile climb, a knife edge pass, the triple roll, 4 point roll, the falcon turn, and the dedication pass. The dedication pass is always one of my favorites. Even apart from the meaning of the pass (dedicated to a group or person of the pilot's choice), the actual flying is awesome. It is typically a somewhat high speed pass (~500 knots, maybe a little more for the f35 and f18), and the pass starts with the pilot trailing from behind and to the right of airshow center, then rolling the top of his plane to face the crowd, and maintaining a high G pull to make a curved pass directly in front of the crowd on full afterburner.

Immediately after the Viper demo was the Patrouille de France. Having previously seen this team fly 3 demos in OC, it wasn't quite as special to me. That's not to say it is not still amazing. Using a smaller jet allows them to do some wild stuff. The 8 jet formation is the star of the show, but part of the show involves multiple other formations. They can split into 2 diamonds, a delta and 2 solos, or a diamond and 4 solos. I have always loved opposing passes, so I was a huge fan of the "formation" opposing pass. They fly 2 sets of 2 jets straight at each other around 400 mph and pass with around 100 feet of horizontal separation

The B25 "Panchito" was next to take to the sky. Yes, it is still a historic plane, but I have seen Panchito fly nearly 10 times now so this is not as cool to me anymore. I still enjoy the history behind the bomber and enjoy watching it fly though. Jim Tobul took off next in his F4U Corsair. The F4U is just as historic as the B25 and is more agile so it is more entertaining to watch fly. The Corsair can hit speeds of up to 450 MPH, and this was how it used to escape during a dogfight. It was so heavy that if it got caught in a fight the pilot thought he couldn't win, he could dive straight down and pick up speed much faster than the enemy, directly allowing the pilot to escape. 

The Blue Angels flew last, as always. I have always had a soft spot for the thunderbirds, since I saw them at the first airshow I ever went to, but the Blues have been climbing my list and continuing to get closer to the top with every performance I watch. The only problem I have is that 2 out of the 3 Blue Angel demos I have seen this year have had a problem. This time, the right wing (number 2) ended up falling out of formation after the first pass. I'm not sure if this was just an accident or if it was something with the jet. The slot (number 4) slid over and took his position for the time being. This left the next pass as a triangle pass instead of the iconic diamond pass, but I was not upset at all since this is super unique and got me multiple shots that I might never get the chance to take again. He smoothly joined back up immediately after and the rest of the show was Business as usual. 

There have been a few shows I have been to in the past where we left about 15 minutes early to try to beat the traffic but fortunately we did not have to do that here. I had 2 bad experiences leaving bases last year after shows, at Andrews and Oceana. At Andrews you are not allowed to park on base unless you have a DoD ID, so you have to park at Northwest Stadium (previously FedEx Field) and take a bus for15 minutes to get onto the base. For whatever reason, after the show we stood at the front of the line waiting directly in the sun and heat for nearly an hour to get on one of the 50 buses that were already there before they finally opened the doors and let us on. At Oceana we at least parked on base so we had our car, but we again sat for over an hour not moving an inch (while watching thousands of other cars in a different lot drive away) until they opened up a back gate on the northwest side of the base on Railroad Dr and let us drive up taxiway bravo to get out.

As I was saying before, traffic was not a problem here at Pax River. We were off base and on our way back home only 25 minutes after getting back into the car. We got to drive along taxiway alpha and see some things that are probably not exactly meant for the public's eyes. Overall, this was a fantastic show with great weather, great performers, and a great team directing the event. I will definitely be back the next time Pax River hosts an airshow.