Thunder Over Utah

One word: AMAZING!

The U.S. Navy Blue Angels came to St. George on March 17 to perform their awesome Thunder Over Utah Air Show. We didn't want to miss this probably once in a lifetime show so of course we went. The kids had a great time as well. Emily was so excited to go that she talked about going to the air show for a whole week before. She kept reminding me that I needed to get her and Colby some ear plugs, sunglasses and a hat, and I couldn't forget her special drink too. She wanted pink ear plugs because that is her favorite color. Unfortunately we couldn't find any pink so she settled for her next favorite color, purple. As the air show got closer, Dixie Ambulance needed paramedics to do stand by at the show so Russell volunteered to work. By doing this, we got free tickets to the show and a free parking pass. That saved us $60 and Russell got paid to be there too! We decided that was a good deal. We were still able to do whatever we wanted and all Russell had to do was wear his uniform and carry a radio in case there was an emergency.

On the morning of the air show, we go up bright and early to be out at the airport by 8:30 in order to get a good parking spot and seat. Russell had to leave even earlier to ride in with the ambulance. After securing our seat with our camp chairs and blanket, we walked around and looked at all of the awesome airplanes.

The first airplane we looked at was a huge cargo plane for the U.S. Air Force. This airplane can hold tanks and other machinery.

We actually got to go inside the cargo plane and see how big it is. When you see it up close, it is amazing to think that something this big and this heavy can actually fly and stay in the air. Wow!

Next we saw all of the other airplanes on display.

Some of the pilots even let us sit in the airplanes and pretend to drive them. Emily had a blast looking at all of the different airplanes and Colby just loved being outside all day. We saw everything from jets, old fighter planes, single engine planes and even the KSL 5 News Helicopter!

The Army had also brought some tanks for us to look at.

The tanks were cool to see that close. I was amazed at how big the bullets and shells are that are shot out of the tanks. You can see the huge bullets in the picture on the right. The tanks were used in the air show to do a WWII battle scene re-enactment. During the re-enactment they shot off the cannon and also used a huge flame thrower. The flame thrower was so hot you could see and feel the flame from where we sat.

Finally at 1:00 the Thunder Over Utah Air Show began. The first planes were the old WWII Mustangs and the Raptor:

These planes were so cool. The Mustangs would fly really low and then do back flips in the air. Next the Raptor came out and the two of them flew side by side doing flips and turns in sync with each other. Then the Raptor did a cool trick and flew straight up in the air flying vertically! The Raptor was so fast that it actually flew faster than the speed of sound. You could see him coming before you actually heard it. It would fly past us then we heard it and it was so loud we were glad we had our ear plugs. We had to keep putting Colby's ear plugs in because they kept falling out of his little ears.

The next plane was the Osprey:

This plane reminded me of Transformers. The Osprey is a military plane that is a mix between a helicopter and an airplane. The propellers can change position so they can face forward (like in the top right picture) so that the plane can go forward really fast or the propellers can be in an upright position so that the plane can hover like a helicopter. These planes look quite scary to me. If I was an enemy, I would hate to be spotted by one of these!

The next show was the stunt plane:

This pilot was crazy! This plane would fly upside down, straight up in the air, do flips, and turn barrel rolls. Every time he would fly up in the air and do a barrel roll, it looked like he was falling out of the sky. It freaked me out each time because I thought he was going to crash! Luckily he never crashed and kept the plane in control.

Next was the wing walker:

That's right, if you look closely at the pictures, you will see a lady standing on the wing of the flying plane! This was also scary to watch because I couldn't believe someone would actually do this. The announcer said that this lady had been walking on the wings of planes for 10 years. I don't know why anyone would even want to try this once let alone do it for ten years! This plane didn't fly very high but it did do a flip in the air with the lady on it! Wow is all I can say.

And finally the many attraction...The Blue Angels:

These guys were awesome! Their formations seemed perfect and their stunts kept us on our feet the whole time. There are 8 Blue Angels planes but only six of them flew today. You can see that the planes are so close together in their formations so it is obvious how accurate these pilots must be. The pilots said that the planes are so close that they could actually touch the other plane with their hand if they could reach out of the cockpit window! Even the smallest wrong turn could have devastating results so they must be perfect. During one of the stunts, two planes were flying so close together it looked like one plane. In fact everyone thought it was one plane until they turned and we could see both planes. These guys also flew upside down and straight up in the air. All I can say is the show was amazing. I am definitely glad we were able to go. Emily loved it too and is still talking about the Blue Angels and the air show. The next day she told everyone about it during Primary.

If you couldn't tell from the pictures, there were a ton of people at the show. On the day we went there were supposedly 20,000 people! I don't really know if there were that many but there were a lot. After the show, we were all herded like cattle to the parking lot and our cars. It took Tyler and me an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot and we almost got hit and ran over twice. I am not exaggerating! First we had to push our way into the line of cars and the guy we cut in front of was giving us the dirtiest looks. Then when we finally got to the gate of the parking lot, this Toyota totally speeds up to get in front of everyone and almost runs over the car in front of us. I decided to stay back a little and let him in so I wouldn't get hit. Once we got out of the parking lot we were driving down this dirt road in two lanes and then I noticed the road merged into one lane. I tried to get over and that same dumb Toyota would not let me in. He kept speeding up to prevent me from moving over. We came within inches of hitting each others mirror before I just sped up and got ahead of him and two or three more cars and then moved over. I couldn't believe how rude that Toyota driver was. Any way, Tyler and I had a good time laughing at all of the other impatient drivers while we waited for almost two hours to get home. I was glad that Colby had fallen asleep and Emily was busy reading her library books. Russell was lucky and didn't have to wait in the long line of cars. Right when the air show got over, someone got hurt and Russell got to take him into the hospital with lights and sirens. He was able to take the person to the hospital and get home before everyone else!

The Thunder Over Utah Air Show was a lot of fun and I think we will definitely go again if we get the chance.