The Salute to Spaceflight 250 in Cocoa Beach, Florida is one of those local shows on the beach that I don’t go to the actual show site but set up south at Patrick Space Force Base where the bulk of this years performers were staged. If you know me, I’m not particularly fond of the promotion that runs this show as well as five to six others each year. They have burnt me on several occasions financially therefore I don’t support them. I do support the local restaurants and tourist locations as I feel that money better suits them. Anyways back to the airplanes!

This year had a few military demonstrations that peaked my interest. One being the F-16 demo team. FEMA was kept on for an extra year behind the stick of the special painted 50th anniversary jet. I love being able to catch FEMA and the team whenever I can. Likewise, when anything from the 920th flies, I like to catch it. When I used to live in Melbourne, Patrick and its assets were always nice to watch fly on practices or real world emergencies. Also knowing they recently acquired the new HH-60W Jolly Green II variant, I had to catch them. The B-52 is always a staple at an airshow and this year was no different. Based up at Kennedy Space Center, the bomber displayed both days and gave us a nice flyby heading down the coast south of the airbox before returning to Kennedy. Lastly, the Blue Angels were the highlight this year. Being almost in-line with the runway, it was a treat as they formed the diamond almost directly overhead. That was a cool experience.

The show itself was light on performers as it has been in years past. It would’ve been nice to see anything NASA related as they are minutes north of the show fly in the show representing the “spaceflight” portion of their title but that didn’t happen. Overall, I was not impressed with the show with minimal performers and it being delayed each day with no reason as to why. I know it sounds like I’m really against this promotion and I am for reasons mentions above but I love to support the aviation community and airshows in general more so I’ll be supporting the local Cocoa Beach area and continue spotting at Patrick SFB at future events!