Wings Over Houston Sunday Airshow 2012

P-51 Mustang. The stripes are D-Day markings, and every Allied invasion aircraft had them. The purpose was to reduce chances of being shot down by friendly fire.

For a few Japanese sailors in WWII, this was one of the last images they saw- the empty bomb bay of a U.S. Navy Curtiss SB2C Helldiver. The helldiver was the workhorse of all carrier based bombers from 1943 until VJ Day.

Watching the F-22 raptor was like a ballet. The computer flight systems seemed to make it fly smoother than the other jets we saw. The flight computer corrects pilot error oscillations. This pilot also selected a nice sequence of shondells, arcing loops and steep turns that were graceful and impressive. Slow flight with the nose nearly straight up was unworldly.

The F-22 is so powerful it became the first fighter to maintain continuous supersonic speeds fully loaded without the use of afterburners. Airshow weight is far less than its 70,000 lbs. of thrust, allowing it to stand on its tail and hover. In simulated dogfights with the best U.S. fighters it amassed a ridculous kill ratio (100 to 1) due in part to thrust-vectoring which allows unprecedented turning control. Also, it's stealth is so good that some fighters cannot get missile lock on it even in visual range!

A crystal clear sky made photography easy on this day. What looks like a fat vertical stabilizer is actually a dive brake panel that raises on demand when pilots want to slow the aircraft.

P-47 Thunderbolt, nicknamed the "jug" due to its shape.

For reasons unknown, Blue Angel pilot Dave Tickle is actually at the controls of this Soloist #7 aircraft that sports Mark Tedrow's name. On Saturday Tickle flew his normal ride, Solo #6, while Tedrow flew the Slot #4 aircraft, but on Sunday Tickle's #6 was left on the display ramp as the Blue Angels taxied away and it never moved. Here he purses his lips as he roars over our position less than 150 feet above. (select full sized original photo for more detail). We were on elevated ground at the end of the Ellington Airfield property.

Greg McWherter is the Captain of the Blue Angels and the leader of the formations. It is his responsibility to fly the proper path, while the pilots around him fly off of a spot on his lead plane.

They are not quite as close as it appears here, but still pretty close!

Flying tight formations "dirty" (gear down) is harder that going faster with gear up.

This is one of the hits of every Blue Angels show. While watching the main formation high above one end of the airfield, the crowd gets shocked by a very low level and high speed solo pass from the other direction, likely at the max speed of 700MPH allowed at U.S. airshows. This creates a shocking but subsonic crack of sound that is very different from the "slower" fly-bys.

The carbon footprint of freedom.

All six Angels finish a barrell roll in the final series of maneuvers on Sunday. In this show on Sunday's the #6 jet was left on the ramp and #7 took over its show duties as backup. The announcer probably explained why, but we were focused on taking photos and out of range of the airshow broadcast.

It is hard to imagine the fear that hundreds of these B-17's rumbling high over Europe would cause to those in the target zone below.

The six performers fly routines just as cleanly as the main four.

One of my clearest images of the day- a closeup of Lead Soloist Lt. Commander C.J. Simonsen's low pass. Exposure was 1/1500 second at f8.

Smoke from a prior maneuver adds backdrop to one of the final elements of the show. Heavy smoke and exhaust heat over the runway made some shots from our vantage point difficult.