These images span the 2022 and 2023 renditions of the annual Chicago Air & Water Show.
Chicago Air & Water Show by
Paul Sager, on Flickr
The US Navy Blue Angels and the US Air Force Thunderbirds alternate annually as the show headliners.
Chicago Air & Water Show Parachute teams from the US Army Golden Nights and US Navy Leap Frogs demonstrate numerous high-altitude drops, landing on the beach at center stage during the show.
Chicago Air & Water Show The Marine & Helicopter Unit of the Chicago Police Department is responsible for all bodies of water within the City of Chicago. This includes 80 square miles of Lake Michigan, 27 miles of Lake Michigan shore line, and 38 miles of Chicago River system.
Chicago Air & Water Show This C-17 Globemaster III is flown by the 437th Airlift Wing from Charleston, South Carolina. In 2002, the Air Force is named their 100th received C-17 airlifter after the US Senate's only centenarian, Strom Thurmond, R-S.C.
Chicago Air & Water Show The Chicago PD Marine Operations team uses seven patrol / rescue boats.
Chicago Air & Water ShowThe Blue Angels' C-130J Hercules is named 'Fat Albert' and is an airshow fan favorite. The modified C-130 carries the team’s maintenance and support equipment and has its own moment in the sun during air shows as it performs its aerobatic maneuvers for about 15 minutes ahead of the Blue Angels.
Chicago Air & Water Show In 2021, the Blue Angels started flying in a new airplane for the first time in more than 30 years — the Super Hornet F/A-18 E/F. The new jets are 25% larger, fly 40% further, remain on station 80% longer and can carry more weapons than their predecessors.
Chicago Air & Water Show The Blue Angels have used support aircraft since the team’s inception, but didn’t begin using C-130s until 1970. Since then, the Blue Angels have used variations of the C-130. The newest iteration of the plane happened just a few years ago after the team retired the previous C-130T after it had flown with the team for 17 years and accumulated more than 30,000 flight hours.
Chicago Air & Water Show The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker is an American military aerial refueling tanker aircraft that was developed from the Boeing 707 airliner. The KC-135 entered service with the USAF in 1957; it is one of only nine types of military fixed-wing aircraft (worldwide) with over 60 years of continuous service with its original operator.
Chicago Air & Water Show Images selected in this post should cover two ISO-800 color film stocks, expired from around 2004. The third type of film is roughly the same expired date, but was originally an ISO-400 film. If you investigate the EXIF details available from Flickr (just use the URL links of each image title), the 'cleaner' images will tend to be shot in Fuji NPH400. The other films involved are Fuji Press 800 and Kodak ColorPress 800.
Chicago Air & Water Show