Fleet Week is officially upon us, and that means that in addition to the Blue Angels flying above, the Bay is going to be teeming with Navy vessels all week long. To kick things off, ABC 7 captured the cool time-lapse video embedded above showing the USS San Diego entering the Bay yesterday.

The video also depicts a Navy tradition of the ship's crew "manning the rails." Apparently it developed as a way, before radios existed, for a crew to demonstrate to a port they entered that they had no hostile intentions.

You can see more ships at 10:00 a.m. this Friday during the scheduled "Parade of Ships."

Previously: Fleet Week Starts Today: Complete Schedule, Where To Watch The Blue Angels, And A Reminder To Hide Your Pets

It's that time of year again — San Francisco Fleet Week, after a budget-cut 2013 meant basically no celebration at all, roared back in October 2014, and has returned this weekend for all the military-inspired fun you can handle. Over a million people are expected to participate in this week's events, so here's a round-up of what you need to know to make this a fun, safe, and happy celebration.

The loudest (and, perhaps, most controversial) aspect of Fleet Week, the Blue Angels, arrived in Oakland yesterday. You'll start hearing their distinctive VROOOOM as they practice over San Francisco on Thursday and Friday, then will perform at the Fleet Week Air show, which runs on Saturday and Sunday from 12:30 to 3 p.m.

Here are some of your (in the comments) and our favorite places to watch the airshow, and KRON has some suggestions too.

While the airshow is many folks' highlight of the week, there are plenty of other events that make up Fleet Week, including the "Bay Area Earthquake Plan Rehearsal," in which "Military and local first responders" established a command post at Pier 50 at 5 a.m. today, all to "stage vehicles and equipment following a simulated catastrophic earthquake."

There are also tours available of numerous Navy Ships this week, as "thousands of visitors climb aboard amphibious carriers, destroyers and cruisers docked at the Embarcadero to get a glimpse into the day-to-day lives of the sailors serving in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard and Canadian Navy."

And then there's my favorite, Bark at the Park, where on Saturday we can meet "working canines from the US Marines, US Navy, San Francisco Police, San Francisco Sheriff, San Mateo Sheriff, San Francisco Fire Department, US Customs and Border Protection, Canine Companions for Independence, CARDA, and many others" at Duboce Park.

You can see a complete schedule of all the Fleet Week events here, but before you go, be aware that the San Francisco Police Department is not messing around, as they sent out a press release to let us all know that they are on the case.

"The men and women of the San Francisco Police Department will be on duty and patrolling venues on foot, bicycle, motorcycle and marked police cars. The SFPD Marine Unit will be patrolling the bay, providing security for visiting naval vessels and assisting the Coast Guard by keeping civilian vessels out of the waters beneath the air show performance area," they write.

While offering the usual, common-sense suggestions that Fleet Weekers allow extra travel time due to crowds and to take public transit, one of SFPD's warnings was news to us: Everyone in San Francisco is basically banned from flying drones Thursday through Sunday. From the SFPD:

Fleet Week is a No Drone Zone. To ensure the safety of airshow participants and spectators, there will be a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR), also known as a “no fly zone” in effect within a 5 nautical mile radius around the center point of the airshow, from the surface to 15,000 feet, 1:00-6:00 p.m. on Thursday October 8th, and from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Friday October 9th through Sunday, October 11th. A fine of up to $10,000 can be levied by the federal government to anyone flying an aircraft, or operating a drone, in the TFR during those hours.

The bold type was SFPD's, not ours. But if they hadn't bolded it we probably would have, as a $10K fine is no joke. We got it, no drones!

The government might not have enough money to put on their yearly show of airborne superiority, but one effort hopes local fans of American naval power will pitch in enough of their own cash to make sure the show gets off the ground this year.

The campaign is being organized through crowdsourcing site CrowdTilt (think: Kickstarter but with a broader range of projects). According to campaign leader Marc McCabe, the Blue Angels have already trained for the air show in advance, the only thing keeping them from taking off this October is their total lack of funding. So why not pass the hat?

From the campaign's CrowdTilt page, which hopes to raise $650,000 - $800,000 for the cause:

Last year, over one million people in the SF Bay Area eagerly watched the skies as the Blue Angels zoomed around -- I was one of them. This is a huge bummer for millions of people, all over the country. So here's a crazy idea: let's get all of our local bay area friends to group together, and find the power to make the Blue Angel show happen! I've been calling around and talked to folks at the Navy and Crowdtilt. Working off of this KQED estimate of the cost of a Blue Angels show, we believe $650k is a good goal to bring the Blue Angels back to SF. We're still working away at confirming with the Navy, but we should know the exact amount soon!

As of this writing, the campaign has raised about $5,300 from 60 contributors, averaging about $88 bucks per person — which isn't exactly a cheap ticket. But as McCabe points out, if the fundraiser doesn't reach its goal, no one will be charged. On the other hand, if it does reach its goal, there's no guarantee the Navy will even be able to accept the money and put the Blue Angels in the air either. (The mind reels trying to imagine the bureaucratic red tape around this one.) As McCabe tells SFist via email, he and CrowdTilt "haven't been directly in touch but are in the process of reaching out to the Navy. [...] We have a lot of interested parties offering a hand early on which has been great, but there's a long, long way to go. We're just excited by the potential to mobilize the city to solve a problem."

CrowdTilt has agreed to disburse the funds if the campaign reaches its goal before it ends in just over three weeks, but where those funds will actually go is still up in the air.

On the other hand, not everyone is so jazzed about the flight team. In 2007, San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly tried to propose a non-binding resolution to ban the air show and countless others commented last month that they were perfectly happy to have a weekend in October with out all the noise.

Still, if you (or the eight-year-old boy trapped inside of you) would like to crack open the piggy bank and donate a few bucks to bail out the Navy, you can do so right here.

That rumbling over the sky each October won't be heard this year as the Blue Angels will not fly Fleet Week 2013. Budget cuts, it seems, is the issue here. The air acrobats will continue to train "to maintain flying proficiency" until further notice at their Pensacola, Florida headquarters.

"Recognizing budget realities, current Defense policy states that outreach events can only
be supported with local assets at no cost to the government," the U.S. Navy said in a press release. "This is one of many steps the Navy is taking to ensure resources are in place to support forces operating forward now and those training to relieve them."

Despite budget cuts, the Navy plans to continue performing dazzling ariel tricks in the future, provided the money situation improves.

The Blue Angels, if you recall, prompted some controversy in the San Francisco, especially with left-leaning politicos. Former Supervisor Chris Daly (working with Code Pink, Global Exchange, and Veterans for Peace) once proposed a non-binding resolution to ban the flight team in 2007.

Also, back in 2009, SFist interviewed Blue Angels pilot Lt. Mark Swinger. When asked whether or not the Blue Angel pilots get respect within the Navy, Swinger replied, "When I was on the other side, I always made fun of the Blue Angels because of these tight blue flight suits. We’re just air show guys."

Fleet Week is upon us! That means the parade of large, naval power tools is pulling into the bay as we speak. In addition to this weekend's patriotism-inducing Blue Angels demonstrations, the USS Makin Island amphibious assault ship just slipped under the Golden Gate Bridge and the Navy's Landing Craft Air Cushion (a.k.a: "Badass Hovercraft") pulled up on Ocean Beach earlier today to kick up some sand.

More than just military theater, this morning's exercise was meant to simulate a response to a major disaster in the city. Now we can all rest assured that the Navy will be bringing us emergency rations via hovercraft when the big one hits.

Video: BurritoJustice on Vimeo
[RichmondSF]

Do you have $139,200 lying around to sink into a quirky piece of U.S. naval history? Well, you're in luck because the Navy is looking to unload this sleek piece of Cold War-era technology for a song. Dubbed the Sea Shadow, the stealth vessel was designed to evade enemy radar while running stealthy night missions. It cost DARPA and the Navy a cool $50 million to build the thing back in the early 80s, and the total price tag on the ship's development program eventually topped $195 million, making the price tag a relative steal.

The ship was built in a massive floating dry dock originally used for salvaging sunken Soviet subs, and the dry dock comes included with your purchase of the Sea Shadow. Ships are currently docked in Suisun Bay gathering dust with the rest of the Mothball Fleet. Although Lockheed says the ship was a great test bed for other naval technologies, it was never actually used in combat.

There's a downside to spending over $100,000 on the boat: The Navy will make the auction winner promise to scrap the ship for parts and materials within six months of the purchase. That should still give you just enough time to terrorize Larry Ellison's own fleet of expensive all-black vessels before you have to scuttle the thing.

[LATimes] hat tip: [SFCitizen]

by Amy Crocker

No, the sky is not falling on your head. And no, the wrath of Thor is not upon us. The great booms echoing in the San Francisco sky come not from the vengeful thunder god, but rather from Blue Angels. The Navy flight demonstration team will be capping off a five-week west coast tour with two air shows over San Francisco bay this weekend. They have been practicing their loops, dives and tandem swirls since their arrival on Tuesday as part of Fleet Week. Aside from practices, the official show lasts 40 minutes, or about how long it takes a 1986 Boeing F/A-18 Hornet to run out of gas. The choreography hasn’t changed much since the Blue Angels formed in 1946, yet it remains consistently controversial.

Lt. Mark Swinger is in his second year as a Blue Angel, one of six pilots in the show. SFist spoke with him about banning the Blue Angels, airplane fuel efficiency, getting rejected for seasonal allergies, and why he could never be an astronaut.

SFist: What does San Francisco look like from upside down in a Blue Angel plane?
Lt. Mark Swinger: It’s awesome from the air. I mean, it’s amazing from the ground, too. Having the opportunity to fly over Fisherman’s Wharf and Alcatraz is really cool.
SF: Can you see the landmarks when you’re flying formations?
MS: Yep, we keep a fairly low altitude over the water. There are only a few cities where we’ll do a show like this, on the water with a city in the background. Seattle’s one of them, and Chicago. It’s great venue.
SF: You guys are staying in Fisherman’s Wharf. What have you done in the city so far?
MS: I played some golf over at Lake Merced. I’m going to go to Alcatraz on Sunday. I’m going to talk at high schools [Friday.]
SF: You selling them the military?
MS: That’s not how I look at it. The military is not for everyone and I realize that. It’s more talking to kids about doing something they think they can’t. I have a rejection letter from the Navy, dated my birthday 2000 when I was trying to get in, saying you’re not eligible for the flight program because of your sinuses.
SF: You can get rejected for that?