Watching A Blue Angels Weekday Practice Session
Story and photos by Del Laughery
Each Tuesday and Wednesday prior to an air show, the Blue Angels conduct a practice session at Naval Air Station Pensacola, FL. Savvy locals head to the Naval Aviation Museum who opens the ramp behind the museum to allow the public to view this necessary preparatory step. A few lucky people, though, who have contacts within the team are offered the opportunity to view the practice from within the fence line at the Blue Angel facility. I was afforded this rare opportunity, recently, thanks to the Pratt & Whitney instructor staff at the F-35 Academic Training Center at Eglin AFB, FL, that I’ve led since 2011. This was part of their way to say “good bye” as I retired from Pratt & Whitney on June 30, 2025.
The session is, to the greatest extent possible, a full demonstration. This includes the pilot walk, ground checks of aircraft, and the flight demonstration itself (though farther away than is typical at an actual air show). Observers watch from some simple bleachers to the right of the aircraft, which affords a close-up view as aircraft are started, checked, and taxi to the active runway. On the day that I was there, Fat Albert was closest to the observation area, then BA1 with the remainder of the team aircraft to its left. Interestingly, aircraft 2 and 5 were not available, so the line-up was 1-3-3-4-4-6, and as is typical of an actual show, there’s a back-up aircraft (#7) ready to go in case one of the jets encounters an issue that prevents flight.
The team keeps a very busy and demanding schedule. As the pilots and ground crew go through their well-oiled routine on Tuesday and Wednesday, team leadership looks for issues that can be corrected before a very early Thursday departure to the site of the air show. To say that the team is busy, is a gross understatement. When the Wednesday practice session is complete, Fat Albert is loaded, that afternoon, with the necessary ground equipment and spare parts to support a show. The team departs the next day, arrives at the show location, conducts various flights to familiarize themselves with the local area, performs a Friday show for media and local military families (when the show is at a military installation), performs Saturday and Sunday, and finds their way back to Pensacola Sunday evening. The following Monday may be a day off, then preparations for the next show begin.
After watching the pilots take to their jets, get them started, taxi out (with a quick wave to the crowd from Blue Angle 1), and perform an abbreviated show due to cloud base restrictions, I had a chance to speak to a number of team members. To a person, they all loved the job, but noted its toll, citing time away from family driven by the show schedule as the primary driver for those feelings. One can certainly understand that frame of mind, but every person I talked to was an example of the best America has to offer – literally the person you hope your son or daughter brings home to meet the parents. They’re all business, grateful for the personnel forward deployed at sea, impeccable to look at, respectful in their conversations, and proud to showcase naval aviation to the public. That said, the team has a sense of humor that I did not expect. I discovered this in the men’s head (that’s the bathroom for you civilian and non-Navy types) where I found USAF Thunderbird photos and memorabilia, to include blow-up Thunderbird jets. When asked if there were any Thunderbird items elsewhere in the building, the answer I was given was, “No. That’s where we keep them.” I had to laugh at the visual proof of a long-standing rivalry.
