Blue Angels

I have lived in Baltimore for over 40 years and I have never been so proud nor so impressed with the city as I have been this past weekend. The Sailabration was beautifully orchestrated, and the organizers deserve much credit for a flawless event. The tall ships and all the visiting ships were magnificent with eager visitors. The Blue Angels were simply thrilling. The harbor was overflowing with happy families. Pierce's Park, our newest park along the water near Pier V, was jammed with joyful children, happy parents and an extraordinary mix of people so impressed with this city.

WEATHER Today's forecast calls for cloudy conditions in the Baltimore area, with a slight chance of showers, a high near 75 and south winds between 7 and 9 miles per hour. The chance of precipitation is 20 percent. TRAFFIC Check our traffic updates for this morning's issues as you plan your commute. FROM THE WEEKEND... Relive Sailabration : Look through Baltimore Sun photos of the Blue Angels and other Sailabration festivities from the weekend.

As a visitor to Charm City aboard a boat for Sailabration, I am disappointed with the excessive noise pollution. The Blue Angels are one thing, but helicopters hovered for hours at low altitude, and it was difficult to have a conversation while visiting the tall ships. Visitors should remember the great sight of the tall ships, the Blue Angels, and the great sights of downtown Baltimore and not that helicopter 500 feet above. Ward Anderson, Annapolis

Shrieking children covered their ears and adults flinched as the Blue Angels made a low pass over Fort McHenry, only to stretch their necks and shade their eyes to track the Navy jet fighters as they soared into the sun. At the Inner Harbor, crowds lined the waterfront for unobstructed views of the aerial maneuvers as the Angels ducked behind office buildings and hotel towers, their roar none the quieter. The air show represented a crescendo for the Star-Spangled Sailabration, a weeklong event that also included 19 tall ships and other military vessels moored in Baltimore's harbor to mark the start of a two-year-long remembrance of the War of 1812.

Cars began lining up before 7 a.m. to get into the parking lots at M&T Bank Stadium for the shuttle bus ride to Fort McHenry and the Blue Angels air show. Yellow school buses stretched from Camden Yards to beyond the football stadium to handle the crowds, which are expected to fill the fort to capacity by 11 a.m. The historic site holds about 25,000, but The Star-Spangled Sailabration is expected to draw 1 million people to Baltimore's Inner Harbor area by Tuesday. Elsewhere, several thousand people are expected to attend Gay Pride Parade activities in Mount Vernon, and the combination could mean congested traffic around downtown Saturday.

Baltimore has been selected to host a Navy Week in June, when the Blue Angels, the Leap Frogs parachute team and ships and sailors will join in the War of 1812 bicentennial celebration. Also scheduled to visit from June 11 to 19 are sailors from the U.S.S. Constitution, the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world, and the U.S. Navy Band, the Navy said Thursday. Admirals and other senior leaders "will engage with local corporate, civic, government and education leaders," according to a release.

Navy Lt. Mark Tedrow has no problem reconciling an air show with a commemoration of the War of 1812, an era that precedes flight by almost a century. The Blue Angels pilot said he looks forward to flying over the Inner Harbor, Middle River and Fort McHenry - birthplace of the national anthem - during a bicentennial celebration in June. "It will be outstanding to perform multiple maneuvers over Fort McHenry," he said. "It will show just how far we have come. " Tedrow and his co-pilot flew into Martin State Airport in Middle River on Thursday to give a small preview of what the Navy's renowned flight team will do for the bicentennial maritime and air festival that kicks off June 13. "Stake out your places on the waterfront so you don't miss a thing," said Lt. Cmdr.

  Steve Medinger, the director of the Northern Maryland Fellowship of Christian Athletes, took a sign to the National HomeSchool Football Tournament that read, “Don't Mess with Texas,” but he crossed out Texas and wrote in “Maryland.” Maryland Christian coach Tony DiPaola pleaded with Medinger to keep that sign hidden when the Saints took on the Blue Angels from Dallas for the national home school championship Saturday in Panama City,...

The Blue Angels, the Navy's flight demonstration squadron, abruptly canceled its practice demonstration and air show scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday in Annapolis, but officials said the group's planes could still fly at Friday's U.S. Naval Academy graduation ceremony. In a statement, the Pensacola, Fla.-based Blue Angels said it is in a "safety stand-down" after an error during a maneuver during a performance on Sunday at the Lynchburg Regional Air Show in Virginia. A spokesman said planes were doing a "barrel-roll split" in which planes turn 360 degrees and then break apart.

The Blue Angels — the flight demonstration squadron for the Navy and Marine Corp. that has for decades thrilled crowds during the Naval Academy's Commissioning Week festivities in Annapolis, will not perform over the capital city in 2012, officials said. Traditionally, the Blue Angels have performed an hour-long routine, with its C-130 Hercules known as Fat Albert and F/A-18 Hornets wowing crowds in diamond formation and flying just 18 inches apart at times, over downtown Annapolis.