Hey all, just got back from a 9 day stay in Virginia Beach where I attended the NAS Oceana airshow. This year they had a demo of a privately owned A-4 Skyhawk and I must say, having never seen one fly in real time, it was a treat! It put on a very good demo and I must admit that it had very clean lines that I had never noticed while watching them on film. Very thin head-on profile and easy to lose in the sky.
There was also the Tactical airpower demo, F/A-18F demo, legacy Hornet demo, and of course the Blue Angels. The Angels added some new routines to their performance and it was a surprise to see them.
Last year Oceana hosted a Sat/Sun crowd of 314,000. They haven't released any attendance figures for this year's show but it sure looked to be on-track for the same.
They had an F-35 on display in a hanger, but it was roped off so that you couldn't enter the hangar so you couldn't get a good view behind it.
A TBF Avenger flew, along with a F4U Corsair, and a Skyraider. The schedule had listed a Spitfire to be included in this group but it was MIA and not even on the ramp.
One of the local aviation museums had an event on Saturday evening where they wet down the ramp and cranked up a number of WW2 aircraft about twilight so you
could get some photos of the engines firing. The wife and I didn't make it to that event after spending all day on Oceana, so we stayed put at the hotel and watched
the F/A-18 do afterburner passes up and down the beachfront for the Saturday Beach Blast. After the Hornet departed, sky-divers dropped in to land on the beach.
All and all, it was a fun weekend, but I do miss the Twilight Air Show that they used to have on Friday evening.
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