Yesterday, I attended this year’s Moffett AirExpo show. The highlight of the flight demonstrations was the Navy’s new F-18/F Super Hornet. An F-18/F from Lemoore NAS in the central valley of California spent about 20 minutes thrilling the crowd early in the show. After that, everything else was pretty mundane! I believe the announcer said this was the first airshow demonstration by the Navy of the F-18/F.
The F-18/E single seat sister version of the F-18/F has just embarked on its first operational cruise aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln bound for the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.
Unfortuately, this air show isn’t up to the standards of the old Moffett airshows held by the Navy prior to them moving out of the base and handing it over to NASA a few years ago. Seems like the show just doesn’t draw the top performers — while in the past the Blue Angels were regulars. The whole show has also gotten very commercialized and expensive ($15 general admission) — being run by AirShowNetwork.com. As our military has gotten out of the air show business, these folks appear to have taken over!
The Moffett Field Museum reports the last Blue Angels exhibition at Moffett took place on October 17-18, 1992. On July 19, 1994, the Navy turned the keys to Moffett over to NASA.
The AirExpo continues today — airshow begins about 12:30 PM and the F-18/F Super Hornet is the second or third demonstration.
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