Photos: Up close with the Blue Angels

CNET News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman's Road Trip 2008 has included visits to two different NASA facilities, Gibson's custom guitar factory, the Corvette assembly plant, and many more locations.

Terdiman got a chance to visit Florida's Naval Air Station Pensacola, the home of the Blue Angels, to watch the high-performance team do a practice demonstration. While the practices are open to the public, Terdiman was invited to watch from the flight line, meaning he was extremely close to the planes.

The Blue Angels fly a group of six fighter jets, five F/A 18-As and one F/A 18-B. The team flies two different shows at the same time, the "diamond" group of four fighters, as well as two solo planes.

Here, the diamond group performs a trick where two of the planes are right side up and two are upside down as they stream past very close to onlookers.

The fighters will fly as close as 12 to 18 inches apart at speeds greater than 400 miles per hour.

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