Seafair today: Blue Angels’ practice show, and where to watch

(photo taken from south side of Boeing Field before yesterday afternoon’s practice takeoff)
If you’re not interested in watching those six bright-blue jets tear through the sky, the main effect of today’s practice that you’ll want to know about is the 12:45-2:20 pm I-90 bridge closure (tomorrow and Sunday too). If you are, today’s what we dubbed “Free Day” – you can go to Lake Washington and watch the air show (the Blue Angels are the stars but other acts perform) and hydro time trials without paying admission, unless you want to sit in the grandstands. (We wrote in 2006 about how to get to the lake shore.) For other Blue Angels-watching options, our preferred option remains the Museum of Flight, where you can arrive early for a spot on the fence to watch the “walkdown” (here’s our “on the fence” story from 2007) before the ground-rumbling takeoff; always hard to tell how the fence crowd will be, but we wouldn’t advise getting there later than noon. You can also watch the takeoff from other vantage points around Boeing Field – cars line the frontage road on its east side, and yesterday we wound up on its south side. Our fellow independent-neighborhood-news-site operators at Central District News have published not-so-well-known free viewing options in their “Blue Angels bonus” report. Also part of Seafair: Fleet tours continue today.

JH July 31, 2009 (8:41 pm)

I learned by accident today (taking a walk from work) that the police escort them from the WAC parking garage at around 10:15AM or so and shut the streets down for them. It’s quite the sight, even though the pilots are in “flight mind mode” and won’t look at the people gawking. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this, otherwise I would have been lining up every practice day to see them!

WSB July 31, 2009 (10:45 pm)

I got to the Museum of Flight early enough one year to see that motorcade show up – there are lots of those little details that make the “behind the scenes” view more interesting than just going to the lake and watching the actual show. When I was at M-o-F on Thursday, one of the Corvette convertibles with a “Blue Angels official vehicle” decal on the windshield was parked near the north edge of the property, and before the pilots landed to end their practice, the #7 and #8 officers — #8 is a woman, their official events coordinator, but will not eventually advance to the actual team, which has never had a female demonstration pilot — came out, in full jumpsuit/hat regalia like the flyers, got into it and cruised over toward the parking zone.

JH August 1, 2009 (5:50 am)

Very cool huh??? I think I may have been off 30 minutes or so. It may have been closer to 10:30 or 10:45AM (for the downtown viewing of the motorcade)! And yes, they were all in Seafair cars.

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