Air Force Memorial Dedication

"A soldier can walk the battlefields where he once fought; a Marine can walk the beaches he once stormed; but an airman can never visit the patch of sky he raced across on a mission to defend freedom. And so it's fitting that, from this day forward, the men and women of the Air Force will have this memorial, a place here on the ground that recognizes their achievements and sacrifices in the skies above." President George W. Bush, October 14, 2006.

Blue Suit little guy and I attended the dedication of the Air Force Memorial. The memorial was designed to look like a "bomb burst" maneuver. The Air Force Thunderbirds performed an aerial salute to the memorial that included the bomb burst.


The crowd enjoyed the video view from the cockpit of Thunderbird 1 as they began their salute.

Here they come over the Pentagon. They flew right over us.

On their next pass, the Thunderbird's diamond formation pulled into the vertical for the bomb burst. The four jets separate in four separate directions right after turning on their smoke. Then a fifth solo jet trailing behind flies through the middle of their smoke while doing a vertical roll. I didn't photograph the moment of the bomb burst because it was too awe inspiring, but I did take a photo a short while afterwords.