Tag Archives: fat albert

Fat Albert Arrives First

Seafair means a lot of aircraft coming to Boeing Field.  The Blue Angels are always the feature part of the show and this was going to be my first chance to see their new aircraft.  Yes, they have replaced the Hornets with Super Hornets and I shall cover that separately but they have also replaced Fat Albert since last I saw them.  The C-130T has been replaced with a C-130J that was sold to them by the Royal Air Force.  It has a new paint scheme to complement this change of era.

I was at Boeing Field for the arrival of the Blues and the jets were preceded by the arrival of Albert.  The good thing is that it is tractable on ADSB so I knew it was going to arrive and when.  Of course, a Herc coming down the approach is not as dramatic as a bunch of Super Bugs blasting over in formation but it is still good.  I did manage to catch it again in the coming days as part of the display so had more than one chance to get some shots.

Fat Albert tearing the turf

wpid12463-C59F0120.jpgLots of my retro posts come about because I was doing something else that led me to a shot I had forgotten about. Having a system like Lightroom is a great way of throwing up some interesting shots that appear when you run a keyword search. In this case, I was looking at an old air show which had featured the Blue Angels. As is usual for their shows, the first part of the demonstration was the USMC C-130 display, Fat Albert.

wpid12465-C59F0133.jpgAt the end of the display, they land the C-130 and throw the props into reverse aiming to stop as quickly as possible. (A little bit of bouncing is also apparent in the top shot!)  On this occasion, I guess the ground alongside the runway was not too stable. The wash thrown forward by the props ripped the turf up ahead of the plane and threw it into the air. It made for a pretty dramatic view. Even through the viewfinder, I could see what was going on. The shots afterwards just confirmed how much material they threw around that day!

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