NELLIS AFB (KLSV)

[SBGrad]

[SBGrad]

[phantomphan1974]

 

[SBGrad]

Yah, knowing what happened to the slot pilot makes this pretty melancholy right now.  Still, I was and AM stoked I got to see these guys fly at their home field.  I see the Blues something like 10 days a year and rarely see the T-Birds, so it was cool seeing them at their home field.  There was Red Flag, Green flag, Weapons School flying going on, and still T-Bird 1 took the extra time to bring the 6 jets in with smoke, they did an overhead break landing, it was impressive. 

It was also neat seeing the differences between the Blues and the T-Birds.  The Blues form the diamond as they are taking off, but the T-Birds launch with 1-3 together and the Slot hangs back until they are a couple miles away before he gets in tight-- have to see if I got a picture of that.

The other cool thing was, they take off and land from Nellis, but do the actual practice up at Indian Springs.  I was driving from Vegas over to Rainbow Valley, and off in the distance I see smoke trails.   It was the T-Birds practicing at Indian Springs.  They were done by the time I got to the base, but still, neat to see, and one of these days if I do that trip again, I might time it to watch the practice (they also fly drones out of Indian Springs, might be cool to get a shot of one there).

[SBGrad]

[SBGrad]

[Realbigtaco]

It was also neat seeing the differences between the Blues and the T-Birds.  The Blues form the diamond as they are taking off, but the T-Birds launch with 1-3 together and the Slot hangs back until they are a couple miles away before he gets in tight-- have to see if I got a picture of that.

I do like that part of their takeoff, i think the slot usually waits until they pass the vertical section of the loop to transfer from the fingertip to the diamond.  I've always loved those formation changes mid loop.