Congrats to John Lynch for quickly coming up with the correct answer to the previous picture quiz. The man in the statue is Richard Owen; the statue sits inside the Natural History Museum in London. Since that quiz was taken care of so quickly (and I'm going through pictures anyway), let's try another one.
This is a picture I took this morning. What's wrong (or at least atypical) about this shot?
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There are two aviators in the #7 plane.
The lead plane doesn't have a tail number.
I don't see anything wrong with it, per se, but it's interesting that (a) the lead aircraft has no number on it's tail, and (b) the trailing aircraft is a two-seater. The second is normal in training for the blue angels, but I seem to recall reading that they seldom/never use their two-seaters in shows.
I think what's odd about it is that a couple of the planes aren't generating contrails.
Clearly, the government isn't gassing us as hard as they used to.
Plane #7 being used in formation flying is pretty unusual. It probably means that they are taking some publicity shots or taping some footage for some reason. The two-seater is usually the PR plane; used to take local media and notables on flights to provide the "air show" experience. Around the home base, seeing #7 in the formation would be fairly common depending on the need for PR shots.
Not contrails, smoke. The planes have devices that allow them to leave smoke trails so it is easier for the crowd to spot them, to leave "pretty pictures" in the sky, and to misdirect the crowd as one of the solos gets ready to make a high speed pass from behind. :-) It looks like three are leaving smoke. I imagine that #7 doesn't have a smoke generator, but that's just a guess.
This one is simple, I'm surprised nobody else got it first, the pilot in #4 is wearing odd socks.
Between (or should that be among?) you, you got most of the things. The tail plane is missing a number, and the plane in the #4 position is a two-seater, which does not fly during airshows. The #4 plane is flying in the #3 plane's position, and the #3 is missing.
The picture was taken during one of their practice sessions, which is why there are so many differences from what's seen at a show.