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My wife and I are feeling airshow-deprived this year since they cancelled the one at Fairchild. We usually BBQ and watch the practice sessions and shows from our yard since we're just a couple miles off the east end of the flightline. It's a payback for the all-night KC-135 traffic that we hear the rest of the year. :lol:

We've been kicking around the idea of heading over to Seattle for our anniversary, which happens to fall in the same week as Seafair. It's been about 10 years since I've been in the Seattle area for more than an hour or two at a time and I've never been there for the airshow so I'm unfamiliar with the lay of the land, so to speak. I gather that the show happens over Lake Washington -- are there any hotels in the area with a good enough location to be able to view the show from the room? Are any of the high-rise hotels in Seattle close enough to see anything?

South Lk. Wa.(Seward Park) is all residential so you will have to drive in to an area to be close. Downtown Seattle hi-rise looking due East would be perfect to see things, but two miles from the action.

https://maps.google.com/maps?client=saf ... 9595454231

The air show is held during the annual hydroplane races at Seafair.

There are no hotels where you could watch the air show from your room. I have not been down at the lake for many years. My understanding is that you can buy a seat in the grandstands for the whole race day on Sunday and there are busses which come from park and ride lots elsewhere.

Looking on the Seafair web site, there is a special air show VIP program you might be interested in to feed your air show jones. It's kind of expensive ($199/person) but I'll let you look at it and judge for yourself. (I'd have to sleep in my car and eat top ramen to afford that but you ain't me! ;))

http://www.seafair.com/news.aspx?ID=220&Mon=5&Yr=2012

This site would have anything else you might want to know about the races and Seafair.

Jeff KB7AIL CN88

Thanks guys. I was looking a a couple hotels -- I didn't even know there was a Westin tower in Bellevue. It looks sort of like you might have a decent view of the entire area from a southwestern-facing room, but it's so hard to tell without being there. That's a lot of money to spend to be wrong.. might be better to hole up in a Residence Inn somewhere and go to the park.

I heard somewhere they close the I-90 bridge during the Blue Angels show and let people walk out?

Man, I've really got to upgrade my scanning equipment -- I've never had a machine that will tune in to UHF mil air, but I'm out mowing my lawn this morning and I look up to see 2 A-10s hamming it up over Fairchild. We hardly ever see anything other than tankers and the occasional E-6B from Whidbey so that would have been a treat to listen to.

Thanks for all the tips, everyone.

Loads of places to watch from in close. My fav is a little park over the east exit of the I-90 tunnel and the same place to walk onto the bridge for the show. I love Sat as it's not as crazy as race day Sunday.

Yes, no. There's a path along one side that's popular with pedestrians and bicyclists but even that closes when the bridge closes. Shot this a few years ago during practice: