Thunderbirds at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland

I live in Northern Virginia, close enough to Joint Base Andrews to easily visit for the biennial air show. I like photographic challenges and airplanes, so this is a good event for me.

I’ve done this enough times to know most of their routine, what to look for so I’m ready to shoot, and what kind of shots I like. Here are some of my favorites from the 2025 show.

Mirror Image Pass

The mirror image pass is performed with both aircraft passing along the runway, on parallel paths, with the inverted one, #5, nearer to the crowd than the upright one, #6. Number 6 flies alongside and slightly above #5. Here the illusion of belly-to-belly is almost perfect. You can see #5 looking straight ahead, while #6 is watching #5 to hold position. I’ve never seen this maneuver head-on; I’m guessing #5 flies above the near edge of the runway while #6 flies significantly farther away, hence #6 appears smaller than #5 because of the added distance.

Unusual To See #7 in the Formation

The show uses six aircraft, with the commander flying #1, with #1-4 doing most of their work together in a diamond formation, and a pair of solos, #5 and #6 mostly performing apart from 1-4. The show mostly alternates between the main group of 1-4 doing a maneuver, followed by one or both of the solos doing a maneuver while the main group repositions, then back to the main group showing off. For some maneuvers, the solos join the main group to form their delta formation. There is also a seventh aircraft, and this is the first time I’ve seen it fly. It didn’t participate in the show, except for this flyby.

Diamond Formation Pulling Gs and Making Vapor Trails

On humid days, the aircraft sometimes form vapor trails, usually when they’re pulling Gs. This day wasn’t especially humid, so the trails were minimal. I always like vapor trails and the maneuvers when they come in especially fast after a dive from high altitude.

Right Angle Cross

When I see them approaching on a converging path, I pick one to follow in frame and spray the shutter when I think they’re getting close to one another in frame. They roll as they approach each other, and if I’m lucky, I get one shot with them both in frame. If I’m really lucky, both aircraft will be sharp.

#5 Is Frequently Inverted

Famously, solo #5 has its number painted upside down in a nod to the fact that this pilot spends a lot of time inverted.

Head to Head

I keep trying, and failing, to get both aircraft sharp in a head-to-head pass. I use the same technique for this as with the right angle cross: follow one, spray the shutter when they get close. The one that I panned with is usually sharp (the one on the left in this photo) and, if I’m lucky, I’ll freeze the other one too. I need to use a faster shutter speed for this, but I keep underestimating the requirement.

Calypso Pass

The Calypso Pass is a nice slow pass with the solos flying back-to-back, an easy shot to get that shows both sides of an F-16.

Top Side Visible During Aileron Roll

These airplanes are subjected to lots of stresses and wear during a season. By late Summer, the paint has taken a beating. The maintenance crews do a great job of keeping the airplanes looking great, as shown by this view of the top. I always like to get a shot that shows the panels control surfaces. Here you can clearly see the ailerons positioned for a roll to the left.

It was a very bright sunny day, making it really difficult to get good exposures of the white airplanes. I had to shoot everything really underexposed just to keep from blowing the whites out. Fortunately my camera does a great job capturing dim details that I can recover in post-processing. There was also a lot of heat haze. And the wind blew the smoke back toward the crowd area to my right so most of my shots to the right were smoky.

So, not my best work, but I got some keepers.

Civil War Century Ride

GPS Track of My Civil War Century Ride

Elevation Profile

That was hard!

I’ve liked riding bikes all my life. When I was raising my family, I would get out of the habit of riding, restart for a few years, then fall back out of the habit. Now that my children are gone, I’ve gotten back to cycling, riding more than ever. I’ve come to know some things about myself: I find long hours in the saddle to be very therapeutic - my mind wanders, and I enjoy a hard challenge - it gives me something for which to train. Without a goal, I don’t push myself to get fitter.

I’ve wondered for years whether I could actually complete the annual Civil War Century Ride. This event happens every September, starts and ends in Thurmont Maryland, wanders through mountains, and visits Gettysburg and Antietam, hence the name. And the route features 7000+ feet of climbing. I’ve done century rides before, but they were flat. I knew this would be a stretch goal when I decided last year to do this ride, and I trained all winter and spring. My training slacked some this summer, with two trips that interrupted my routine. I showed up for the ride in reasonably good shape.

The route has a 1000 foot climb over 7 miles right at the start. I was afraid this would be too hard for me. I shouldn’t have worried. It was strenuous, but when I reached the top of the climb I was surprised, thinking, well that wasn’t so hard. But of course I did that climb with fresh legs and cool temperatures.

Then I had the first of many descents during which I reached speeds in the 30s. There were a few descents during which I reached the 40s. I would bend down into a sloppy aero position to try to preserve kinetic energy to coast at least a little up the next climb. During every descent, I was in the drops, hands on the brakes, ready to slow down, busy checking for hazards ahead and thinking, “Please don’t hit anything! Now I’m going to have to climb again.”

So it was up, down, up, down, all day. I was doing OK until the climb at mile 60. That one was grueling. The climb actually started at about mile 48, with a long, but relatively gentle ascent of about 300 feet to about mile 59. Then there was a brief ride through Smithsburg, a right turn onto Raven Rock Road, left onto Ritchie Road, all during a relentless climb of about 800 feet, with all of it steep, parts more than 10%. Coming as it did when it was hot and I had just climbed 300 feet and with 60 miles in my legs, I was pretty tired at the top.

Then came the relatively flat part of the route, about 30 miles with only 500 feet of climbing. The brief ride through the Gettysburg battlefield was cool. I rode right past Little Round Top, thinking about how close the Confederates came to winning at that spot, and how brutal the fighting was. And then it was just a long slog back to Thurmont. I reached the end, really tired, and glad to be off my bike.

It’s good that I downloaded the course GPX file and installed it on my cycling computer. The route was marked with spray-painted marks on the road to indicate turns. But it was very easy to miss them, especially when the turn came on a descent. It’s hard to see a small bit of green paint on the road when I’m descending at 30mph. I spent most of the day constantly looking at the computer to verify that I was still on course. This route had a lot of turns and I couldn’t trust that the riders ahead of me were doing the same course (there were shorter options) or that they were even on the course that they wanted.

The rest stops were just OK. There were lots of bananas and sliced peaches on offer. But there was also plenty of water and Gatorade.

The weather was OK. I would have liked for it to be a little cooler, but I can’t complain. The temperature at the start was about 70 and it was overcast and the wind was very light, but it cleared up after a couple of hours. It also warmed up and the direct sun made for some hot stretches. With about 20 miles to go I was worried that it might rain as clouds rolled in, but the rain seems to have passed to the east, and it got sunny and hot again, and the wind picked up. It was sunny and windy as I finished. The ice cream at the start/finish was wonderful.

This was a real challenge - a hard stretch goal; I’m glad I did it; I doubt I’ll ever sign up again for that kind of ride with so many climbs.

Final numbers: 103.6 miles, 7667 feet climbed, maximum speed: 49.9mph.