YPSILANTI – Marine

Major Mark Hamilton has flown the C-130 Hercules, dubbed Fat Albert, for the

Blue Angels Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron since September 2014. He says travelling

around the United States, meeting people at airshows and hearing their stories

is one of the best things about his job.

The 15-year

Maine Corps veteran, who grew up in Minnesota and attended college at Purdue

University, will fly his lumbering four-engine propeller driven cargo plane

Saturday and Sunday during the Thunder Over Michigan airshow at Willow Run Airport

in Ypsilanti.

Hamilton

will be joined in the sky over the Willow Run Airport by the Navy’s Blue

Angels, the first time the flight demonstration team has been at the Michigan airshow

since 2011. He and his Blue Angel comrades start their show at 3 pm each day.

But the airshow kicks off at 10:30 am Saturday and Sunday with a full cast of

aircraft including some vintage World War II planes that include one of the few

remaining B-17 Bombers flying in the world, called Yankee Lady.

Thursday

was time for the pilots to check out the area. Six of the jets arrived from Pensacola,

Florida, about 10:20 a.m. A seventh arrived Wednesday for some

demonstration flights that included one for an unnamed Detroit Red Wing

who passed out briefly during a high G pass over the field, a Blue Angel

spokesman said.

“The jets go

up and fly circles today,” Hamilton said Thursday during the press briefing

attended by MITechNews.Com Editor Mike Brennan. “They fly straight lines to

figure out what landmarks they can use for checkpoints for their routines. It could

be Michigan stadium or a weird looking tree.”

During the

show, the F-18 Hornets fly a series of tactical maneuvers with what Hamilton

described as “a little showmanship added in.”

On Thursday,

a group of four Blue Angels practiced flying in a diamond formation, sometimes

inverted – at hundreds of nautical miles per hour. Two other F-18s remained on

the ground until the first group finished. Then they took their turn. During

the show, all six F-18s will spend about 40 minutes wowing the crowds with high

speed and very noisy aerobatics.

Also with

the Blue Angels team is Petty Officer Second Class Jennifer Piatek, who is an

avionics technician. Piatek graduated in 2006 from Novi High School. She is a

member of the large entourage of mechanics, technicians and other ground crew

personnel who keep the flying circus in the air.

Piatek said

her mother was very apprehensive when she told her she had joined the Navy. But

now, some eight and a half years later, Piatek said her mother is very proud of

her.

Before she

joined the Blue Angels, Piatek worked off aircraft carriers. The giant ships nearly

three football fields long that carry a crew of upwards of 5,000 sailors. In

her time at sea, Piatek said the most exciting moment was watching the jets

take off at night with full after burners spouting flames dozens of feet behind.

Piatek got a

ringside seat because her job was to kneel down and do a visual inspection of

the jets wedged into the catapults before she cleared them for takeoff. But now, she said, working with the Blue

Angels team has been the highlight of her Navy career.

For

information or to buy tickets for the Thunder Over Michigan airshow, click on http://www.yankeeairmuseum.org/airshow