2010 NAS Oceana Air Show Review, Virginia Beach

Review by http://www.airshowsreview.com/

Location: NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia
Admission: Free -- see report about this.
Parking: Free
Value: Excellent

The 2010 Oceana Naval Air Station air show took place on September 17, 18 & 19. It kicked off on Friday. The public was allowed through the gates of the base at 5 PM for a spectacular evening. The Twilight Air Show is a tradition at Oceana. It is a chance to see aircraft flying in a different environment. The sunset light affords stunning views of the aircraft both on the ground and in the air. USAF Viper West Demonstration Team F-16 went up first and was later joined by Warbirds Over Long Island P-51 Glamorous Gal for a US Air Force Heritage Flight. Later before the sun went down the Navy heritage flight was also flying. The F-18C from VFA-106 flew together with the F4U Corsair from the Collings foundation. This weekend the Horseman Flight Team traded in their 3 P-51s for 2 Grumman F8F Bearcats and a Chance-Vought F4U Corsair performing a beautiful flying display. Before the main event on Friday, there were also performances of the Blue Angels C-130 Fat Albert and Team MS760 flying two Paris jets. Once the skies were dark the public was presented with rarely seeing performances by aircraft that we usually only see during daylight at air shows. The power of an F-18 take-off and fly by with afterburners on can be fully appreciated at night. The evening also brought very special performances of Bill Leff’s T-6, Roger Buis’ Otto The Helicopter and Bob Carlton’s Super Salto jet sailplane. Their planes had special lights and pyrotechnics for the evening’s show.

The weather this weekend was sunny and not very hot, a sharp contrast with last year cold and rainy show weekend. Saturday and Sunday brought thousands of spectators to the air base. One the highlights of the weekend was the awesome performance of the F-22. On Saturday it had some technical problems and it had to go back to Langley Air Force base right after its display started.

The layout of the show was excellent. The flight line ran south west to north east so that flight demos were backlit or side-lit for most of the time. If someone was willing to pay for upgraded seats, or stands, it provided very good to excellent viewing of the flight line activities. And, in essence this was also the major problem with the show. There was little or no spectator viewing areas that were free. Flight line seating costs ranged from metal bleachers for $5.00 to VIP for $60.00 per day which included some food and beverages.

For most performances a lens with a 200-400mm range worked well. Even with such limited performances it was possible to take a few interesting images.

The media pit was adequate. Media treatment was good and well organized. There were no media flights offered.

Food service was plentiful and not overly expensive. Sanitation facilities were adequate.

NAS Oceana air show is a perfect venue to bring the entire family, with many attractions for kids. For those who want to have a place to seat and eat can get special VIP tickets or just tickets for the bleachers.

Warbirds that were airborne were:

• Blue Angels F-18 Hornet
• C-130 Hercules Fat Albert
• F-16 Viper West Demo Team
• F-22 Raptor
• Navy Legacy Flight
• USAF Heritage Flight
• E-2C Hawkeye
• P-51D Mustang
• T-6G
• Grumman F8F Bearcat
• F4U Corsair
• Shockwave Jet Truck
• British Red Devils
• Otto the Helicopter
• and many more
  

Rating: 8.5 out of 10