The Blue Angels will kick of their 71st season with The NAF Air Show

The Naval Air Facility El Centro Air Show is this weekend and pilots are gearing up to entertain with large high flying stunts and air maneuvers.

We spoke to pilots and asked how they’re preparing and what people can expect this year.

“In terms of what’s new, we have changed a few maneuvers around. They’ll see a pretty exciting number 6 Immelmann on take-off and they’ll also see the burner 270 out of the diamond which is a four plane tight formation and full afterburner doing a high g turn in front of the crowd,” said Commander Ryan Bernacchi, Commanding Officer and Flight Leader of The Blue Angels.

In addition to The Blue Angels the show will also feature military flight demonstrations and civilian performances.

“We brought five of our airplanes here, they’re all World War II fighters or bombers, very rare some of them. This particular blue one, there’s five in the world. We’re all going to fly all of them this weekend,” said Steve Mccartny, Pilot for The Commemorative Air Force.

Attendees will be able to see the planes up close and pilots will be giving rides to the public too.

“I will open my act by climbing up to 5000 feet, a roll inverted, put it in inverted flat spin and do a demonstration and the smoke trail coming out will be like a big corkscrew behind the airplane,” explained Spencer Suderman, Air Show Pilot and World Record Holder.
Suderman is a world record holder and hopes on breaking that record soon.

The Blue Angels will be kicking off their season this Saturday here in El Centro; gates will be opening at 9 a.m. But before that is the 20th annual Entertainment and Food Festival happening in hangar 6.”

Friday night will be open to the public, where guests can come and enjoy live music, good food and a firework show.

“We get so many questions wherever we go about what the flying is like and I would say that it’s actually much more similar to what everyone than what is commonly thought, as to how the fleet flies and trains. We really just do everything that the fleet does. Navy, Marine Corps Pilots, Navy and Marine Corps maintaining airplanes and flying airplanes. We just do the exact same thing; we just do it a lot lower to the ground and a lot closer.”

For more information on the NAF Air Show and The Food and Entertainment Festival, you can head to http://navylifesw.com/elcentroairshow/.