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It was another beautiful weekend here in Seattle that was perfect for Seafair. There was quite a collection of planes out. Of course, the Blue Angels were the highlight, but in addition, the kids were asking about all the hardware that was out there including:

Patriots Jet These folks have red white and blue smoke (something the Blue Angles might want to do). They fly Boeing/Aero-Vodochody L-39C Albatros. I’ve never hear of these, but they obviously are from a country where calling a plane an Albatross isn’t a big deal. The planes are from the Czech airforces and you can even fly one yourself at Space-Travellers.com !

They also had the Flying Heritage Collection up there with vintage P-51 Mustang and I’m proud to say I spotted the P-47D Thunderbolt and couldn’t tell, but the site shows that it was a P-40C Tomahawk of Flyting Tigers fame. They have an amazing number of aircraft they are rebuilding. By the way, you can actually go out and see them by appointment only. They are at I-5 Exit 206, so a little north of Seattle and they have regular flying days out of Arlington airport which should be a real treat. P-51D and the Spitfire for instance on September 23rd. Wow!

Finally there were some amazing flyovers, including a C-17 Globemaster III out of McChord most likely, a CH-47 with a huge American flag (also on the fourth of July, they had this out) and a flight of F-15E Strike Eagles flew all the way from Mountain Home AFB. There was supposedly a KC-135 from Beale out there, but I didn’t see it.

We also got a chance to get out in Elliott Bay and see some of the ships thate were part of Fleet Week. Unfortunately, we didn’t get ot go out an tour, but they were quite a site outside of Elliott Bay Marina. My study of Jane’s Fighting Ships as youth, got me to identify DDG-69 right as an “Arleigh Burke” class destroyer. It was originally designed mainly as an anti-air destroyer to complement the bigger and more expensive Aegis-class cruiser (Ticonderoga class) which has two sets of VLS cells while the Arleigh Burke has just one. This is one of the original Flight I called the Milius. Also there was the DDG-93 the USS Chung Hoon. The big change was in Flight II which added a helicopter so it could be more multi-purpose (originally the Spruance class was anti-submarine, but with the contraction of the fellet, they have retired almost everything else, so the Arleigh Burke is now multi-purpose. The Chung Hoon is actually a Flight IIA destroyer with two helicopter areas. The Chung Hoon by the way is brand new, its maiden voyage was January 5, 2006. For true Navy geeks, you can read all about the follow-on called the DDG-1000/DD whcih will be truly strange looking.