June 23 2019
My son is a standard boy, he likes things like Star Wars, laser guns, rocket ships, fighter jets,... At some point over the winter, I thought that he would probably like to see the Blue Angels. After a little googling, I found that the Blue Angels weren't going to be super close to KY in 2019, but the Thunderbirds were going to be at the Dayton Airshow and Dayton is only a 2ish hour drive. I had been to one in FL about 25 years ago and remembered liking it. My wife was a little skeptical, but gave in pretty quickly. So Merry Christmas or Happy Birthday or something, we are going to an airshow.
We drove up to Dayton the night before and checked out the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB and then dinner and bed. The next morning, off to the airshow.
We checked out some of the static displays and waited for the start.
Note: the photos aren't the best because I don't have a long telephoto lens. These are heavily cropped from a 24-105 lens.
The US Army Golden Knights opened the show.
Then the Geico Skytypers (6 WW2 era planes)
An interlude with a truck with 3 jet engines (my son thought this was awesome, mom not so much)
Team Oracle
A KC-135 refueling a C-17 (not completely sure of type of planes)
A flyby of two F/A-18s and a WW2 era Navy fighter
One of the only privately owned Harriers in the world
Landing vertically (my son thought this was loud, but cool)
And then the main event, the USAF Thunderbirds
Thunderbird #1 taxing to the runway
