Lympa Log Lt Cmdr Kevin Davis Blue Angels

Lympa Log - Leica R lenses on Olympus E-330 DSLR

Apr 24, 2007

Lieutenant Commander Kevin Davis, US Navy Blue Angel Pilot

Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis of Pittsfield, Mass died in the crash of his Navy F/A 18 at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S. C., at approximately 4 p.m. EDT, April 21. Across the Internet many web pages already have been dedicated to him. I never talked with Davis, but working with a portrait photograph often creates a one-way relationship for a photographer that feels much closer than the couple of feet away that I stood from him in Sacramento a year ago. I dedicate this page to him and his love of flight.

Lt Cmdr Davis greets the crowd at the Sacramento air show March 18, 2006. Especially as he signed autographs for the children, his friendly smile and warm response made him the perfect representative of the US Navy Blue Angels flight team.

© Gary Todoroff 2007

One of the early pages in this photography web log was about the Sacramento Air Show featuring the Blue Angels. After the spectacular air show, the Navy pilots walked over to greet members of the crowd behind a low chain-link fence. After the jets had landed, I was standing at the fence right where a couple of the pilots began chatting with people and signing autographs.

The Delta formation is one of the final passes the Blue Angels perform, here from a year ago in Sacramento. Only this time in South Carolina the formation was missing their number six aircraft flown by Davis. The crash apparently occurred as the Delta formation was being set up. The other five pilots immediately landed their jets safely at the Marine Corps Air Station near Beaufort, SC.

Standing by the Sacramento airfield fence and looking down the line of aviators, one man in particular stuck me as the epitome of a Navy combat pilot. Self-assured, smiling and relaxed, he had a command presence mixed with an openness and boyish grin for everyone. He seemed to represent the finest United States military tradition of soldiers who know how to defeat an enemy and then win again by marching through conquered territory with candy bars and piggy-back rides for the kids. Looking back on my photographs from a year ago, Commander Davis looked like someone I would have liked knowing.


Lt Cmdr Davis had joined the six team formation pilots in his second year with the Blue Angels, piloting aircraft #6. As the #7 Blue Angel pilot in the above portrait from a year ago, then Lt Davis flew the Blue Angel dual-seat F/A 18, training with the team and narrating their air show performances.

All I can really say that I share with Kevin Davis is a love of flying and of anything that flies. Perhaps as a boy, the baseball sailed over his head, too, because an airplane in the sky above became more important than the ball game on the ground. Even then, an invisible will connected me to whatever flew by, my longing gaze somehow helping to keep the pilot aloft and safe. Those feelings have evolved now to an upward glance and a prayer for any craft within sight, a silent request for God to keep watch over those in the air. Now my prayers are for Kevin's family, friends and colleagues who miss him dearly.

Last year Kevin Davis was narrating this Sacramento air show for his fellow Blue Angel pilots, who had just marched down the flight line as smartly as their precision flying, then finally broke ranks to smile and shake each others hands.

Fler-de-lis

Links:

An article that mentions Davis as the #7 pilot who narrated the air shows last year along with his #8

events co-ordinator pilot can be found a the online Stanford Alumni magazine . The article quotes Davis -

'Being earthbound is “the hardest part of my job, the hardest to stomach,” he says. “I'm on the ground; my buddies are flying.” '

Video of Davis and the two seater F/A 18 are at http://www.nctimes.com/movie/blueangel/viewer.html .

My Lympa Log page of the Blue Angels last year was from when Lt Cmdr Kevin Davis, then Blue Angel #7, was the air show narrator.

All photographs above were taken at the Sacramento Air Show, March 18, 2006.