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Hurricane Milton was approaching Florida and I got the heck out of dodge. Didn’t wanted to get stranded again after a hurricane with no power and barely communication like it happened to me earlier this year in Houston. Timing was great, I could take my flight earlier to San Francisco which I wasn’t due to be there until the following week. Because of my early arrival in San Francisco I was able to enjoy the San Francisco Fleet Week which I haven’t seen in a few years. The last time I attempted to photograph the airshow the whole bay was fogged in for the weekend and you could only hear some of the planes which were actually flying. This year turned out to be way better.
Blue Angels Training on Thursday
I was in the city Thursday for a project and on my way home made a small detour towards the Golden Gate Bridge to find a good viewing location for the parade of ships on Friday. While I was driving there, I could already see and hear the Blue Angels in the sky. Once I got to my destination, I was able to get a few passes of the planes flying over the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay.
Parade of Ships on Friday
I showed up about an hour early to the parade of ships which would start at 11 a.m. on Friday and will last approximately an hour. There were two choices, either low from Torpedo Wharf but that would bring me eye-level with the ships. I decided to take the trail up towards the Golden Gate Bridge and shoot from a view point about half way to the bridge. This gave me an elevated look of the ships and the bridge.
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Air Show
Friday
After the parade of ships ended, I walked down to Torpedo Wharf to get closer to the “action” of the airshow. I have been shooting from here in 2017 and got some good pictures. But with all the extra experience I gained over the last few years of shooting airshows, this location is to far from show center. At least one big plus was that free parking was available close by. I got some great pictures and was hoping to catch the Blue Angels dive in right over the Golden Gate Bridge but had no luck with that. However, it was a good spot for the United Boeing 777-300(ER) and the U-2 spy plane flying overhead. The U-2 would only fly on Friday.
Saturday
Saturday I was able to shoot the airshow from a sailboat in the bay and we were located right along show center. Right in the middle of the action. Saturday started out with great weather and performances. Saturday was also the only day on which the Coast Guard flew their C-27 plane in addition to the MH-65 Dolphin helicopters. All other days you would only see the Dolphin helicopters. Saturday & Sunday the Patriots performed instead of the U-2 spy plane. The Patriot performance was great. They flew even lower than the Blue Angels. Thanks to my vantage point on a small boat I got awesome shots with other boats and Alcatraz in the background.
Unfortunately, Karl the fog started to roll in. The Blue Angels started with their Fat Albert performance and after that had a single F/A-18 Super Hornet survey the situation and ultimately deemed it not safe to fly with all the fog in the bay. Thanks to my scanner I was able to listen into the conversation and knew exactly what was going on way ahead of the official announcement of Fleet Week that the Blue Angels will cancel their show for the day on X.
If you weren’t at show center where they probably made an announcement over the speakers that the Blue Angels cancelled, you had to wait about 45 minutes to read on it on Twitter and a few hours to find out via Facebook.
I still got amazing pictures of the rest of the performers and it was a great day otherwise. We were worried that they might cancel the airshow as we saw the fog roll in and getting denser and denser.
Sunday
Sunday was another great day. The morning had some light fog but lots of it burned off by the time the show started at 12:30 p.m. I was shooting the show again from a sailboat right at show center.
The lineup was the same as Saturdays. This day, the Coast Guard demonstrated how they rescue a person from the water with their Dolphin helicopters.
As time went on, the fog burned off more and more and the Blue Angels came out to do their show. Impressive as always but I have to say the F-22 Raptor Demo Team and the USMC F-35B Demo Team put on a pretty good show as well.
Gallery
Below are all the pictures from the event including some of the practice day on Thursday all the way to the show on Sunday. Yes, I know there is no prop-blur in the photos but it was impossible for me to take panned shots of the planes with a longer shutter speed. The problem was not only to pan steady but I would had also to compensate for waves and rocking of the boat which was impossible. I still like the pictures though. Let me know in the comments what you think.
Peter is an award-winning photographer who travels all over the world to capture the beauty of our planet as well as the achievements of humanity. Follow Peter on his travel blog Gate to Adventures for more amazing places to go and explore.
