'Blue Angel' Hornet stops by Hillsboro to promote air show
HILLSBORO, Ore. – The popular U.S. Navy Blue Angels will headline the Oregon International Air Show this summer.
On Thursday morning, one of the iconic blue and gold F/A-18 Hornets touched down at Hillsboro Airport to promote the upcoming visit by the entire team.
The air show will be held July 26,27 and 28 at the Hillsboro Airport. The show will feature the F/A-18s of the Blue Angels and their C-130 support plane, nicknamed “Fat Albert.”
Tickets will be available on the air show’s website.
KATU.com photographer Kai Hayashi was at the airport on Thursday morning to check out plane #7 of the Blue Angels, piloted by Lt. Ryan Chamberlain. Click through the photo gallery to check out his shots.
MMMMMMM Jet A......Smells like "Victory"!
Yikes! The price is a little steep. Maybe thats because the last time we went to an airshow, was at joint base elmendorf-richardson and was free for the military and public.Â
If you were lucky enough to either live or be stationed in Pensacola, Florida, you got to see them on a regular basis since that is where they are based.  My brother was a Chief Warrant Officer there for several years back in the 1980's and 90's.  He knew them and even hitched a ride with them a couple of times out to the west coast. Of course, they didn't do too many acrobatics, but he said it was still a thrill.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the county fair scheduled for the same weekend as the air show?
Man I love fighter jets. Spent some time Tuscon, got to watch A-10's touch and go, went to the bone yard there, saw a Blackbird up and close, amazing stuff. Haven't made it to Evergreen yet but it's on my short list.
 @deejm2112 For my bachelor party road trip we visited every (known) Blackbird on the west coast. If you go to the Boeing museum you can sit in the cockpit of one. With enough willpower, you can pry yourself out of it without security hauling you out, but, not me. The Blackbird at Evergreen was at the flightline at Dryden with another one when we were down there. They said they were both flight-ready, but didn't have the funding to fly them. She said we could take photos as long as we didn't point "that way", because there was a flight of black F-22s and the X-35 prototype had just flown over from Plant 42 that day. Religious experience.We were eating lunch in the shade of a B-52 wing (static display) and our RV owner panicked, because he realized he had a semiautomatic rifle stashed in some forgotten hidey-hole "Cause, hey, even I get boarded sometimes."Â
 @deejm2112 Apparently, the Blackbird in McMinnville is still capable of flying because instead of just 'whacking' the wings off and reattaching them, they were removed fitting by fitting, bolt by bolt, and put them back on that way.
The first time I saw the Blackbird down there, it was under the wing of the Spruce Goose. The next time I went, they had moved it over to the Air & Space side so a person had to pay extra to see it.
Unless Evergreen has changed admission price levels, and if you add in the new waterslide, you can expect to drop a chunk of change. Actually, it is almost as much fun just walking around the outside of the buildings and looking at those displays, and it won't break the bank.
COOL!
 @oodathunked Yep still remember watching them over Lake Washington perform. They literally flew so close overhead you could see all the details of the pilot and his gear as he went by you inverted. Don't think they fly quite that low anymore,,, darn....
Living in  California for 18 years, I'd see those guys fly in formation for free, and it always made me look up and smile. Just plain awesome.  Sometimes I miss my youth and thoses glory days.  Now here in Portland , what do the tickets go for?
I saw the Blue Angels back in the place I grew up in when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. The most awe-inspiring man-made event I have ever seen.
Since then, I saw Mt St Helens erupting first-hand . . . . While the Blue Angles are fantastic to watch, they are absolutely no competition to what ol' Mama Nature can do when it's time to throw a tantrum and put things into the atmosphere!
 @Gravity Works!Â
I saw the Mt St. Helens event. I was young and still had training wheels on my bike.
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So this toddler sitting on his bike sees a giant black cloud spread out from the NW. Slowly covering the sky with darkness. It was a thing of horror films.
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I had nightmares for days.
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LOL
@Gravity Works!
! Well, yeah. It's hard to top watching the equivalent of a bunch of atomic bombs going off on the horizon. I was in the fifth grade but I don't really remember a huge sense of public panic and apocalyptic chaos.
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At first nobody took it seriously. There are two basic ingredients to a proper volcano, and they are Lava and Rodan. In April, the weather sucked but if -you- did see it erupt, it looked like an ice cream cone that puffed smoke like that Marlboro Man billboard downtown. Weak.
The article says July 26-28th, but the Oregon Air Show website says August 3-5th? Â
Nevermind, the air show site hasn't updated since 2012...
 @Monica Warren it's been 2013 for ten days give them a chance.  Just bustin' your chops...
It stopped at PDX yesterday too. Awesome!
I hope the organizers of both the Air Show and the Washington County Fair work together to come up with some effective solutions to the parking and traffic impacts on the people who have to live and work around this. Â Normally they don't both occur on the same weekend and I would imagine that the airshow usually uses the fair complex for parking. That won't be available this year.
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I usually ditch town that weekend to escape both the noise and the traffic mess. Â It's annoying to try and do anything around the house with all that air traffic flying overhead. Â While it's a great economic boost for the immediate area, I think they've always been a bit inconsiderate of those who live around the airport.
Was the airport there before or after you moved into your house?
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Kind of like complaining about living next to railroad tracks.
 @lgb6 @HarryReams I'm guessing neither of you live near either of those.  And to be honest, I don't either.  I live out on the Northwest side of Beaverton near 185th and Walker.  Everyday air-traffic isn't a problem.  But when for hours upon hours for a weekend when they're flying at low altitude at high speed over your house so they can line up to excite the spectators on the runway, that gets old quick.  Some people may pay to sit in the sun and listen to jets hit their afterburners, but we don't.Â
 @Repoman  @pdxtvguy  @lgb6  @HarryReams Nope, not one of those.  I may explore the idea of getting a group together to petition to have the show moved.  McMinnville would be a great fit.  Not around a large metropolitan populated area, has the Evergreen Air Museum nearby.
 @pdxtvguy I would love that!  Free air show.
 @pdxtvguy  @lgb6  @HarryReamsÂ
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At 185 and Walker the only Air show traffic you might see would be them turning around as they pass from NW to SE over the strip. By law they will have to have lifted above the "exclusion zone" (military aircraft are immune).
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You must be one of those people who call the non-emergency line each time a plane goes over to complain.
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I don't live near the Hillsboro airport, but I used too. It never bother me, I expected the noise. If the noise had been at night, then it would have bothered me.
 @pdxtvguy It's not like the air show lasts all year long. A couple days of inconvenience is completely manageable for y'all.