Andrews Air show pics

[Nied]

Well it's taking me a while to get things cropped and re-sized so I figured I'd start posting things now and continue over the week. But first a little summary of how things were:

The Good: Just about every flying demo was excelent, particularly the Super Hornet and A-10 demos. Also being able to see a real F/A-22 and and V-22 (and a JSF mock-up) was a real treat.

The Bad: Not a single Navy combat aircraft was on the tramac, I don't know if the Navy was miffed about something or what, but it was pretty disapointing.

The Ugly: Getting there. The restrictions put in place after 9/11 have really made it dificult to get to the show. The website said to go to Fed Ex Field and take shuttle buses from there, but the highway signs directed us to take the Metro (DCs subway system), and ended up directing us to the oposite side of the system from the Air base. Ended up there about 2 hours after the show started.

And now the pics:

Snowbirds. Canada's equivelent of the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds. This is the first time I've ever seen them, they actually started performing just before we arrived.

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These guys were awfully good, better than the Blue Angels were this year (more on that later). Lots of good starbursts and more variation in their formations.

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Next up was the B-1, it took off did a fly by and landed. Not very exciting but boy did it sound good.

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This was the best picture I could get of the Yak-9 that flew. It's to bad too since it's such a beutiful plane, looks like a cross between a Spitfire and a P-51.

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More props planes. This is Sean Tucker, who IMHO is the best aerobatic pilot today. It's hard to capture what he does on film, but suffice to say he apears to defy the laws of aerodynamics.

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THe A-10 demo was next. I saw this same team at Hanscom AFB in Massachusetts in '02, and they were even better this year. I gotta say the the A-10 demos have really evolved, when I first started going to airshows the Air Force didn't even want to fly them. Then the Warthog gained some noteriety after the Gulf War and they started having them do some lame flybys, or watered down copies of the F-16's routine, both of which were pretty lame. Now they've gotten down a good routine based off of actual maneuvers the A-10 flies in combat. Now it swoops dives and rolls in a deadly ballett that has it's own functional beuty, just like the Hog.

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Here it is straight and level. If you look closely you can jsut make out the sharkmouth on the nose. It looked plain grey while I was at the show, I only noticed it after looking at the photos.

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Here it is turning away, the false canopy is actually more prominent than the real one.

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The Viper demo was probably the worst of them all. which isn't as bad as it sounds, It's just the Super Hornet and Warthog were so good. Still the F-16 showed that it was the king of high speed maneuverability.

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One of the problems the F-16 had was bad music. The A-10 flew to Radiohead, whle the F-16 flew to a bad synth version of Eye of the Tiger.

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The Super Hornet put on the most impressive show of all. In this shot it has just taken off and gone into a roll (you can't tell here but it's gear is still retracting). It then proceeded to turn around before it reached the end of the runway, pitch down and drop roughly 50 ft before leveling off and finishing with a sort of half Cobra maneuver (it pitched up to about 80 degrees instead of past 90), all within 30 seconds after taking off!

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Here it is pulling another high alpha maneuver. It spent most of the show like this.

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I gotta say I've changed my mind about the Super Hornet. I watched it pull some of the same maneuvers I watched Sean tucker pull in a a highly modified aerobatic plane, and it wieghed several times as much. Until the F/A-22 comes into service it is by far the most maneuverable plane in the US inventory, and about the closest thing you can see to an Su-27 at a US airshow.

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F-117: They've gotten pretty good at having the stealth planes sneak up on you. I saw it pre-flighting but never saw it take off. It just showed up suddenly out of nowhere buzzing the crowd.

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The Blue angels actually put on a pretty lame show this year. The four ship formation just did a bunch of fly bys in various formations, and the solos just did the same trick where they look like they're going to fly into each other over and over again. Does any one know if they were reprimanded for bad behavior lately or something? Because I know they are better than they were this weekend.

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Fortunetly I got my best in air picture from the Blue Angels. Suitable for wallpaper even.

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Well that's it for now. My apologies to the mods for posting such a pic heavy thread. I may put the pictures of the static displays on a different thread. No matter what they'll be up sometime this week.

Edited May 25, 2004 by Nied

[David Hingtgen]

Dang, I'm jealous. I NEVER get even half-way decent lighting for the Blue Angels. I have many close, clear, and DARK shots of them.

Anyways---5 more weeks until the Super Hornet comes to Iowa!

Hmmn, that's the East Coast F-16 team, I've never seen them. I need to, to see how they compare to the West Coast team (whom I always see).

A-10's---AFAIK, all the airshow ones are "dedicated" and have chrome-plated muzzles. And the one they usually use is the one that shot down a helicopter in Desert Storm. Can't tell in that pic if it's got the chrome gun, but that's certainly the right squadron (Flying Tigers).

Edited May 18, 2004 by David Hingtgen

[trueblueeyes]

Did they have the whole pyrotechnics set up for this show too? Scared the heck out of me to hear this unexpected loud bang and bright flash of light when the A-10 flew low. Priceless!

[cube]

woot for the snowbirds...go canada

[007-vf1]

Darn!! I almost get to go this year. The last 2 rained or ir was cloudy and you couldn't see that much...

[Mr March]

I had the fortune of seeing the Snowbirds perform at the old Namaio airshows in Alberta a few years back. They were very impressive. The show they put on didn't disappoint.

Cool picks!

[Winkle]

Yea, I saw the Snowbirds about 5 or 6 years ago (can't remember). Very impressive, they pulled off some crazy stunts that no sane person would ever do.

At the same airshow I saw a CF-18 (Canadian version of the F/A-18) take off and do a barrel roll as it was lifting off... it was SO LOW to the ground that when it did the barrel roll, the plane's tail fins were only at most 10 or 15 feet off the runway when it was upside-down. That completely blew my mind.

[Nied]

I forgott I that I reformated some more pics earlier this week. This would be the squadron leader of VMFA-321 "Hell's Angels" By far the best looking plane on the tarmac.

side on

Nose on.

Bug nose

From behind. That would be my Father and Brother-in-law in the foreground.

Bug Butt

Close up on the squadron markings.

VMFA-321

Trident and halo on the inner tail. You know David if you wanted a good color scheme to paint one of your Hornets in this would be a good one.

Trident

Markings on the intake splitter plate.

Bug shield

Here it is from the other side. You get a better view of the tail here.

Other side

Edited May 25, 2004 by Nied

[Anubis]

Guess I'll have to go next year. I thought about this year, but forgot all about it until I was driving down I-270 and saw on the news sign "Andrews Air Force Base Air Show No Parking on base, use Metro." something like that.

Maybe next year, either that or the Pax River show.

I have yet to see a F-117 fly by. Only parked and/or hangared.

B-2 Fly-by's are among the best though. Amazing how a plane that big can be so quiet. It's a sight.

I want to see a F-22 fly finally too.

What is with the Spam trailer in the background?

Edited May 24, 2004 by Anubis

[Nied]

Guess I'll have to go next year. I thought about this year, but forgot all about it until I was driving down I-270 and saw on the news sign "Andrews Air Force Base Air Show No Parking on base, use Metro." something like that.

Maybe next year, either that or the Pax River show.

I have yet to see a F-117 fly by. Only parked and/or hangared.

B-2 Fly-by's are among the best though. Amazing how a plane that big can be so quiet. It's a sight.

I want to see a F-22 fly finally too.

What is with the Spam trailer in the background?

That sign single handedly made us some two hours late. Further up the beltway it directed us to a metro station that ended up being on the oposite end of the Green line from Andrews. Very anoying.

They were giving away free Spam from that trailer. I did get in line to try some, but then the A-10 demo started and I decided it would be better to get good pictures of that then eat some over salted pork by-products

[David Hingtgen]

Very interesting---that's an A-model Hornet. Yet it's a current USMC commander's plane... An updated A-model, but an A nonetheless.

Markings---that plane's high on the list of wanted Marine Hornet decals, from the entire modeling community.

Myself, I'm looking to make the Red Devils (as soon as I find a way to get a twin AMRAAM launcher for the underwing pylons):

[Nied]

For the life of me I have never been able to tell the difference between an A and C model Hornet. I had just assumed it was like telling A and C model Eagles apart, ie almost impossible.

[David Hingtgen]

It's easy when you know what look for. C's have very distinctive antenna bumps at certain locations, where A's have simply featureless areas. The fact that the C-specific antenna bumps are always painted gloss white regardless of camo scheme makes it easier to spot them. I'll post a little guide later on. (Marine and USN D-models are suprisingly different, and quite easy to spot--an odd little quirk of the Hornet family)

The really quick and easy way is to look for the 2 bumps on the upper part of spine just aft of the canopy, one on the left and one on the right. Easiest way to tell, though from your pics I actually went by the tailfins first, and confirmed with the nose.

F-15A's/C's vary between "very very very hard" and "utterly impossible, even if you're close enough to touch it". Depends on the exact plane. If you're comparing a C with every possible current update, you can BARELY tell from a current A. But as it is, most A's and C's are currently IDENTICAL, due to overlapping updates and such. As of right now, all A's have received 99 to 100% of the C's formerly subtle distinguising features. Your only hope is if a C model has gained the latest C-specific features (mainly itty-bitty antennas on the forward fuselage related to upgraded ECM)

[David Hingtgen]

Ok, here we go. This is an F-18C. Now, there is some slight under-nose antenna bump variation that identifies it, but I don't know it, and it's really subtle. Here's the others (for the A/B, these are simply not there):

Right behind the canopy are fairly obvious, triangular bumps. These and all the other bumps are for the ALQ-65.

Nose bumps: directly above the 01 modex, directly above the center formation light panel. The one in front of the 01 modex is on all Hornets, but only C/D have the one above. Also, go straight back from the formation light panel, until you're directly below the tip of the LEX. There's another C/D bump.

Tailfin: If you look at the pics here of the Hell's Angels A-model, there's a distinctive "gap" in the middle of all the bumps and anteannas and the fuel vent on the rear edge of the top of the v.stabs. Well, the C/D's fit in another one, so there's a pretty continuous line of antennas in that area. (A/B's have 3, C/D's have 4---the "new" one would occupy spot #2, going from top to bottom) A/B's have a small bump, large space, large bump, then the fuel dump. C/D's have a small bump, a small space, another small bump, then the large bump, then the fuel dump.

Edited May 24, 2004 by David Hingtgen

[Nied]

The F-22 was one of my main reasons for coming to the Air Show this year. They've been promising to have one for quite a while now but this is the first time (at least when I went) that they actually had one. By far I took more pictures of this plane than any other at the show, and despite looking rather featureless from a distance, there's actually quite a lot on this plane to look at.

Raptor time!

Big beak-like nose.

Raptor nose!

From the side. Note the odd bump right behind the canopy, I don't think this feature is going to be included in the final configuration.

Raptor profile!

Shot of the tail.

Raptor Tail!

Good close up of the sidewinder bay. The launch rail has been removed but if you look closely you can see the attach points for it. Also note how much of the internals (fuseboxs etc.) are accessable through this bay.

Raptor Bay!

Main Gear. Take a look at all the complex panels between the gear and the sidewinder bay.

Raptor Gear!

Edited May 25, 2004 by Nied

[David Hingtgen]

You know, all I can think of from those pics is:

"When Hasegawa brings out an F-22 kit, it'll be a B*TCH to paint". There's like 5 shades of grey on that thing, some splotchy, some defined. And I've also heard it's sorta-quasi-color-changing. Nied--notice any weird optical properties while walking around it? US Navy ships have rather "prismatic" paint that really changes how it looks depending on the angle, I think the F-22 is supposed to as well.

[Godzilla]

I am not getting the pics. Seems like they are missing.

[David Hingtgen]

For me, in the last hour, they stopped being imbedded in separate replies, and suddenly became one big post with many URL's linked.

::edit:: Yup, and now all the previous links have failed, even the ones saved in my cache.

Edit 2: F-18 and F-22 pics work, earlier ones don't.

Edited May 25, 2004 by David Hingtgen

[Nied]

Max Jenius and I edited things to try to speed it up a bit. It should be working now.

Edited May 25, 2004 by Nied

[Nied]

OK everything is working now. I've reposted all the pictures in the test forum, so the links will eventually stop working after a few weeks.

[Max Jenius]

Thanks for fixin it up Nied. I mean... 5 pictures is pushing it even. lol

Anyway, they look great and it looks like you guys had a good time.

[David Hingtgen]

Oh yeah--is that an F-35 to the right of the F-22 in the nose-on shot?

[Anubis]

Any engine pics? Or did they have the engine exhausts covered again?

We still need to see the thrust vectoring system up close.

[Druna Skass]

Anyone know if there's going to be an airshow at Vandenburg AFB any time soon?

[David Hingtgen]

I bump my Airshow listing thread often:

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=6741

[Nied]

"When Hasegawa brings out an F-22 kit, it'll be a B*TCH to paint". There's like 5 shades of grey on that thing, some splotchy, some defined. And I've also heard it's sorta-quasi-color-changing. Nied--notice any weird optical properties while walking around it? US Navy ships have rather "prismatic" paint that really changes how it looks depending on the angle, I think the F-22 is supposed to as well.

It's actually closer to three shades of grey. Most of the plane is just a variation of how they paint F-15s, the colors look a little different because of the weird paint they use on the F-22 (more on that later). Most of the spots around the edges are made up of composites (Radar absorbing composites if I remember), so it ends up being like F-16 nosecones, no matter how hard you try you can't get it to match with the rest of the plane. The painted sections are supposed to give off IR radiation at a frequency that disapates rapidly in the atmosphere, that might explain why it looks so weird. I didn't notice any real color changing, but the painted sections of the plane had an almost metalic sheen to them. If I were building a model I would use standard Eagle colors for the leading edges then add a couple drops of silver the the rest of the paint.

Oh yeah--is that an F-35 to the right of the F-22 in the nose-on shot?

It's either a remodeled X-35 or a really detailed F-35 mock up. I have some pictures of it that I'm going to post soon.

Any engine pics? Or did they have the engine exhausts covered again?

The exhausts were covered I've got a few more pictures of the '22 to post and the engines will be among them.

[Nied]

Time to finish up the Raptor pics.

Here's the other end of the main gear well. If you want to super detail a Raptor model your only oportunity would be this and the bays. Everything else is either featureless or would be increadibly hard.

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Unfortunetly as I mentioned the engines were quite well hidden. I'm more convinced than ever that the details of the engine are still classified.

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Wing detail, you can just make out a series of serations at the edge of the hydralics fairing.

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Even the nav lights are shaped for low RCS! This would be one of those hard to model things.

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Close up of the cockpit. You get a better feel for the metalic sheen that I was talking about, and the contrast between it and the composite sections of the plane (the area around the intakes.

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Other tail. For those of you who've never read an Air Force tail before, the large number is called the modex, it tells you which aircraft in the squadron it is (for instance Hikaru's VF-1J's modex was 101), the two big letters are the tailcode, it generally tells you what air base the plane is stationed at, and finally the two numbers below the AF indicate what year the aircraft was manufactured. Something to keep in mind for all those doing color schemes or customs.

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and finally a close up of on the (reletively) featureless nose gear. Note the air dams in front of the main weapons bay.

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Edited May 26, 2004 by Nied

[Nied]

Thanks for fixin it up Nied. I mean... 5 pictures is pushing it even. lol

Anyway, they look great and it looks like you guys had a good time.

Thx Max. Any chance you could use your mighty moderating powers to make those pics stick around a little longer in the test forum?

[David Hingtgen]

Eh, not quite on the tail markings.

1. AF planes don't have a modex. It's all part of the serial number, has utterly no relevence to the squadron/wing. It is what it is, and never changes, unlike a Navy plane that may change its modex every few months. USAF has "AF", then the 2 little numbers AF are the year it was "bought" not built. Most planes are built a year or two after being budgeted, approved, etc. The next 3 digits (large) are the last 3 digits of the serial number. "Important" planes get the lowest serial numbers, usually 0000-1000. F-22's of course have the lowest numbers there are, thus AF00-014 etc, standing for serial number 000014. F-16's will commonly be "over 1000" thus 85-565 is actually serial number 851565, and there will be another plane labeled 85-565 that actually stands for 850565. It can be hard to track a plane down because of this. Thus if we somehow ordered 1000 F-22's that year, there could be ANOTHER F-22 labeled "AF00-014" which would be 001014. So long as that plane doesn't happen to belong to the same wing, there's no problem identifying it (though it is hard to figure out the serial number) (They used to do it differently--like in Vietnam, you'd have 64-077---well, for that format they omit the decade of manufacture, and it is actually a 196*6* plane, number 4077)

2. The tailcode indicates the wing, not the airbase. Both FT and SJ are based at Seymour-Johnson, for example. FT is the 23rd wing (the Flying Tigers), while SJ is the 4th wing.

3. Cut and pasted from Joe Braugher's site (a GREAT site):

""""Camouflage began to reappear on USAF aircraft during the Vietnam War, and this led to a change in tail number presentation. The letters "AF" were added directly above the last two digits of the fiscal year, followed by the last three digits of the sequence number. The three-digit sequence number has a height of the AF and fiscal year letters combined and is sometimes called the "large" component of the tail number. For example, F-4E serial number 67-0288 had the tail number 67(small) 288 (large). This could of course lead to confusion, since aircraft 67-1288, 67-2288, etc would have exactly the same tail numbers as 67-0288 under this scheme. This would not ordinary cause a whole lot of difficulty unless of course some of these larger serial numbers also happened to be F-4Es (which they were not). Unfortunately, the system was not always consistent--for example F-4D serial number 66-0234 had a tail number that looks like this: 60(small) 234(large). It appears as if this number was obtained by omitting the first digit of the fiscal, and combining the remaining "6" with the "0234". Consequently, one often has to do a lot of educated guessing in order to derive the aircraft serial number from a knowledge of its tail number, and a knowledge of the aircraft type and sometimes even the version is required. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has noted different tail number presentations on recent USAF aircraft.

However, Air Mobility Command and USAF Europe aircraft still display the previous format for the tail number, with all digits being the same size and the first digit being the last digit of the Fiscal Year and the remaining 4 digits being the last 4 digits of the sequence number. There is no AF displayed, just the name of the command a couple of feet above it. However, there are some exceptions--for example the tail number of 64-14840 is 14840, not 44840. Both of the fiscal year digits were omitted. Another exception was the tail number of EC-130H serial number 73-1583, which had its tail number displayed as 731583, i.e., the full serial number without the hyphen. Again, I would like to hear from anyone who has seen different types of serial number displays on Air Mobility Command aircraft. """"

Edited May 26, 2004 by David Hingtgen

[Nied]

My bad. I knew I was going to screw that up. Still I thought I'd put that in, I was getting tired of seeing custom VF-1s that were aparently bought in 1982!

Edited May 26, 2004 by Nied

[David Hingtgen]

If you follow Navy custom, there's no way to tell year of manufacture at all. They simply do serial numbers sequentially in blocks, regardless of what type of plane, year, etc. 160500-160531 could be F-14's, with 160532-160567 be F-18's. And depending on how busy they are, could cover 2 months, or 4 year's worth of planes...

[skunkobot]

http://www.af.mil/news/airman/0104/tail_markings_hi-res.jpg

[Mechamaniac]

Dang, I'm jealous. I NEVER get even half-way decent lighting for the Blue Angels. I have many close, clear, and DARK shots of them.

Anyways---5 more weeks until the Super Hornet comes to Iowa!

Hmmn, that's the East Coast F-16 team, I've never seen them. I need to, to see how they compare to the West Coast team (whom I always see).

A-10's---AFAIK, all the airshow ones are "dedicated" and have chrome-plated muzzles. And the one they usually use is the one that shot down a helicopter in Desert Storm. Can't tell in that pic if it's got the chrome gun, but that's certainly the right squadron (Flying Tigers).

I live about 2 miles as the crow flies from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and the Blue Angels have been buzzing my house all week practicing. They perform today at 2PM.

My wife's hillbilly friends who recently moved here thought we were under terrorist attack because they kept hearing fighter planes overhead..

There's a bridge about a mile from my house where you can go and watch them, but I am at work, DOH. Besides, it's the Navy anyway.

[David Hingtgen]

http://www.af.mil/news/airman/0104/tail_markings_hi-res.jpg

LOL. Leave it to the Air Force to use A PLANE THAT'S NOT SHOWING ITS SERIAL NUMBER as an example of how to read a serial number. That's the squadron commander's plane, with non-standard tail markings. No year, no serial. 99% of the planes in the Air Force would have been a better example. And it's not even the normal "use a matching serial number displayed in a non-standard way" method that most commander's planes use. Sheesh. (Though that in itself is another discussion).

The quick version, an example I know. 36th Wing. Well, they happened to get F-15C # 79-0036. A perfect plane for the 36 wing's commander. So, they put on the plane "AF79-00" in small letters, then in BIG letters put the "36" after it, then a small "TFW". Thus you get "36TFW" markings on the tail, and still have the serial number displayed "the right way", only with certain digits exaggerated.

::edit:: Ok, so it is showing its serial number. In itty-bitty tiny pixelated lettering. It's at the base of the rudder. That grey ill-defined splotch. "Thanks USAF, that'll teach people how to read tailcodes"

Edited May 26, 2004 by David Hingtgen

[Nied]

I live about 2 miles as the crow flies from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and the Blue Angels have been buzzing my house all week practicing. They perform today at 2PM.

My wife's hillbilly friends who recently moved here thought we were under terrorist attack because they kept hearing fighter planes overhead..

There's a bridge about a mile from my house where you can go and watch them, but I am at work, DOH. Besides, it's the Navy anyway.

Hey, this last time non-withstanding, the Blue Angels generally put on a better show than the Thunderbirds. A good example, the last time I saw the Thunderbirds they taxied out and spent the next 5 minutes going over their preflight checklist before taking off. When I saw the Blue Angels this year, the formation team and the solo team took off from oposite ends of the runway, and the number 5 plane did a barrell inches above the ground after takoff.