If you didn’t see it, surely you heard it roaring above the Lower Keys.
But if you didn’t see it, you missed a true spectacle in the sky at the Southernmost Air Spectacular April 15 and 16 at Naval Air Station Key West.
In addition to the U.S. Navy’s elite Blue Angels precision flying team, (featuring its first female aviator, Lt. Amanda Lee), the weekend air show was packed with award-winning aerobatic pilots performing heart-stopping stunts. The crowds gasped in horror, disbelief, then relief as a plane seemed to fall from the sky and hurtle toward earth, before miraculously pulling out of the dive and sailing once again upward.
The show included tours of a behemoth U.S. Air Force plane as well as a dog-fighting demonstration by Key West’s resident adversary fighter squadron, VFC-111 SunDowners, composed of instructor pilots who play the bad guys in the sky while training other naval aviators in air-to-air combat.
But instead of taking up too much space describing the show, we at the Keys Weekly figured a picture is worth a thousand words. Enjoy the images by photographers Larry Blackburn and Mark Hedden.
