Fargo, North Dakota.

As an aviation enthusiast, I’ve always enjoyed the performances of our military flight demonstration teams. For many years, the Blue Angels have flown in Fargo at an event known as the Fargo Airsho (sic). The air show features many more performers than the Blue Angels, though. Between the jet powered biplane, the Army’s Golden Knights Parachute Team and many other acts, the show starts in the morning, but the Navy’s featured demonstration team doesn’t start until around 3 PM.

This year’s weekend presentations were the 34th and 35th presentations of Blue Angels performance season. Saturday was a perfect day for their aerial work, partly cloudy skies and miles of visibility. Sunday was not so much. Lots of overcast, but the show started on time. There would be no high flighting climbs as demonstrated in the image above. In fact, after only completing about 50 percent of their show, thundershowers threatened and the show was terminated early.

In previous years, my attempts to capture an image of the two opposing aircraft as they came together in front of the reviewing stand, were unsuccessful. I could never quite hit the shutter at the right time to get them in the same frame. This year, I was more successful thanks to the Nikon D500 camera I used to capture these shots. When the announcer indicated an opposing maneuver was coming, I quickly switched the camera to high speed capture. At 10 frames per second, I simply followed one jet in the viewfinder and held down the shutter. I had lots of images of that one aircraft, and a couple where both aircraft were in the same frame. I was able to pick the best of the two and process it to share here.

Using the same technique, I was able to capture the two opposing aircraft in their circular turning maneuver where they came close together, again right in front of the reviewing stand.  The small gallery of images are but a few I captured at this year’s show. We are in for a treat next year as they announced that there will be another Fargo Airsho next year. Instead of skipping a year or two, we’ll be treated to the U.S. Air Force’s Thunderbirds. I hope to be there and share those images with you here as well. In most browsers, you can click on an image in the gallery below to enlarge the image and to scroll through the images.

John Steiner