Recently, some town east of here called Fargo held a little thing they call the Airsho. I went down the day before as part of a meet & greet with the Blue Angels, the A-10 Thunderbolt demo pilots, and the F-22 Raptor demo team. It was a fantastic day!

Let’s start off with my beloved A-10. Also known as the Warthog, it’s an absolutely lovely aircraft in a way some would call ugly. No ugliness here, as far as I’m concerned.

Of course, it’s famous for its business end. The A-10 is known as “a gun with a plane built around it” for a reason.

But boy, it’s got a nice tail end, too. What a beauty! Of course, I’m incredibly biased; this has been one of my favorite aircraft since I was a kid.

This engine. Oh boy, this engine. It’s got two, by the way. I didn’t know these guys were in the air, but while we were climbing around the C-130 I heard them on approach. There’s nothing that sounds like it. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear the “BRRRRRT” of the cannon, too!

One cool thing about this A-10 is the artwork inside the door for the access ladder. One thing about the Air Force – they love to paint things.

I love it…a tribute to the victims of 9-11 and a commitment to freedom and liberty. Anyone who’s heard that scream and faced that wrath knows exactly what this means, and how serious it is.

“Fat Albert” is the C-130 that hauls all the Blue Angels’ ancillary equipment. One thing you can do with a plane like this is clean your own windshield! Can’t do that in a fighter.

I would not want to get caught in these props. They’re capable not only of turning a guy into fish food, but of generating a lot of lift, too.

Note the intake cover: Fat Albert Airlines. Fat Albert is one of the stars of the show, too!

Of course, we wanted to poke around the F-18. These things are such a beautiful blue! And this is one of the few times when I really love the color yellow.

SO beautiful. These are Super Hornets. The Blue Angels have flown Hornets for a long time, and a number of other aircraft before that.

History. A friend of mine got to see these guys practice regularly when he lived in Pensacola. That’d be a blast! Although, he says, it’s amazing what you can get used to…

If you can read this while the turbines are spun up, you may have a problem in an instant.

Here was my Bucket List item: the F-22 Raptor! Due to the nature of this aircraft, this was as close as I could take a photo. At some airshows where an F-22 is on display, one can get closer, but since we were actually going to get to touch this aircraft and spend quite a bit of one-on-one time with the pilot and ground crew we had to leave our electronics at this point. It’s a good thing: any photos of me would have captured the drool!

The F-22 was the last aircraft on my “must-touch” list: the A-10, SR-71, F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, F-35, B-1, B-52, MQ-9, RQ-4, and others came before. I can gleefully say that this thing is sharp – the tip is actually very pointy! And those thrust-vectoring nozzles…ooooh. What about the B-2, you ask? Yeah…out of my league, at least for now.

But what about the actual air show? Well, that’s for tomorrow’s post.