First off, sorry if this posts a couple of times. I was having trouble loading it, so had to try a couple of times.
For our military people and former military people, and air enthusiasts, hope you enjoy these.
Pictures here
Those are some really great pictures. I really liked the tall ship picture you had.
Bernie
Very cool. I got to fly a B-1 in that show one year (it was 1998, or something like that). Totally crazy…we came in from the west, flying low level in between sky scrapers to roar over the crowd from a direction they weren’t expecting. Great airshow.
Spot
cool also is the fact that the B-1 flying in from the west that year (98) went right over my head heading approx. E-SE as wife and I were walking E down Fullerton Ave. heading to the beach. I really tried to get a clear zoom on the pilot’s name under the cockpit in that one picture but couldn’t. That’s the 6.1mp camera’s limitations, as opposed to a 10.2mp.
you may appreciate that the 5th Thunderbird shot, the one where the plane fills the whole frame horizontally is NOT zoomed. That’s the shot. It was screaming overhead turned on it’s side, took it while aiming straight up.
Not to nitpick, but the aircraft you identify as an F-15E is actually an F-18F Super Hornet.
Thanks. made the change. Looking at it again, I see that it is in fact not an F-15. Despite my lack of a military background, this is a heinous mistake for someone who grew up in the 80’s watching Top Gun again, and again, and again. We didn’t have audio to hear the announcer and I looked on the show lineup on the website to figure it out and saw the F-15E listed, but I think that was actually one of the 3 different planes flying in formation in bw the 2 pix of the helicopters when we were having lunch. Maybe, we didn’t see that performance all that well.
"Despite my lack of a military background, this is a heinous mistake for someone who grew up in the 80’s watching Top Gun again, and again, and again. "
Top Gun was F-14s, not F-15s, so you can forgive yourself for mistaking 18s for 15s. 
Yes, of course they were F-14’s, swing wings and all. my bad. Thanks, Iceman.
Can one of our military people answer a question - what kind of plane are the current pictured Thunderbirds? Looks like an F-18 to me, but, as has been clearly established in this thread, I have no idea what I am talking about. My son wants to get a toy one to go with his other toy planes so I’m going try to find one (or 2, he has a brother too) to throw in the xmas gift stash. he’s pretty perceptive so if I get a wrong one, he’ll say “daddy, the wings on this one are a little different.” No big deal really, he’ll like it no matter what kind it is, but I just looked on eBay etc and there were a few different kinds, and I might as well get the one we just saw if I can find it. Anyone remember seeing “To Fly” featuring the Blue Angels at the old Pictorium at Great America (now Six Flags Great America) or elsewhere? Amazing experience, well before the proliferation of IMAX theaters.
As an aside, my 5 year old has decided (at least for this week) that he wants to be a “rescue diver and save people in the ocean because I’m a pwetty good swimmer daddy”. He saw this book on my bookshelf was pretty mesmerized by it, sifting through the illustration pages again and again. He wants to learn how to scuba too, high ambitions for a 5-yr-old. But the Lifetime Fitness scuba classes I think start at age 12, and he’ll prob be in another phase by then.
The Thunderbirds fly F-16s,
The Blue Angels fly F-18s,
the Snowbirds fly CT-114 Tutors,
that covers the three teams you’ll see most often in North America.
I’ve also seen:
The Red Arrows ( Brits ) fly BAe Hawks
The Frecce Tricolori (Italian ) fly Aeromacchi MB-339
thanks a lot
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I hear the Thunderbirds will be driving the F/A-22 next season. Can anyone back this up?
Nothing on the Thunderbirds web site about changing from the F-16c.
That would be a very expensive aircraft for that job. There aren’t that many Raptors in service, the total number planned is under 200.
Would you take 6 of them out of frontline service to be Air Demonstration models when you could be talking about operational use in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas ( cough, Iran, cough )?
Cool. I was there on Saturday as well. Used to live in area but moved south. Before then we would come in from Naperville on Friday to bike up and down the Lake (son in Burley) and then stop at Beachstro and watch them practice. We would then go int on Saturday or Sunday depending on the weather for the show.
This year we had a mgmt meeting up there then went to the show on Saturday. Lots of fun and glad the weather sort of worked. I had viewed videos of the F-22 but never in person. That was awesome. Pretty much throws old aerodynamic principles out of the window. 
I love the Aeroshell team in their T-6’s…loud but really skilled pilots. They have a great dusk show they used to do off Navy Pier on Friday night with cool strobe lights on the plane. Best shirts I saw were with the Boeing guys…on the front it said something like “The Miracle Mile Goes Vertical,” then had a fighter on the back going vertical. Very cool…any Boeing guys got an extra shirt and wanna trade? :).
Also, I have watched Sean Tucker before and he is genuinely NUTS! However, the addition to the show where he talks to the crowd was hilarious. We were all rolling! Oracle has a great gig on his plane! What a riot!
Thanks for sharing the photos!