The Blue Angels Super Sonic Flight

It was August 2005. The day was warm, calm, and the sky was a piercing clear blue. We were attending an Air Show featuring the Blue Angels, an elite team of Navy pilots, demonstrating their skills. Arriving at Walker Field, Grand Junction's small airport, The Blue Angels were performing today. Walking through the temporary parking lots toward the hangar's the dust was stifling; the cars were lined up and packed like sardines in a dirt filled can. People were everywhere, men, women and children, of all ages. Excitement filled the air with the weight of expectancy.

We traveled the length of the parking lot, almost to the gate itself, when everybody started to slow down and gaze upward, squinting and shading his or her eyes looking for the source of the strange sound. Murmurs of "Where?" and "I don't see them." were heard throughout the group. Suddenly, no, faster than suddenly, a jet passes overhead silently, and then a second later, a roar of the jet engines so loud the ground shakes underneath our feet. Clapping, cheers, and exclamations travel through the assemblage.

We moved past the turnstiles quickly by airport security and unto the runway where booths have been set up along the edge of the tarmac on the south side. A barricade type fence about 4 feet tall fences the crowds in and keeps them off the center of the runway. On the other side of the barricade are five jets, F/A18 Super Hornets hunkering down on the asphalt, awaiting orders. Standing about fifteen feet tall, and sixty feet long, these fighter/attack jets looked like sleek steel gray panthers, crouching in wait.