Joint Service Air Show at Andrews Air Force Base

Chris and I took the metro all the way out to the last stop on the green line today to see the Joint Service Open House Air Show at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. According to the Joint Service website, there would be a “convenient shuttle service to and from FedEx Field and Branch Ave Metro station” (the only way in and out of the show).

The highlights of the show that Chris really wanted to see were scheduled between Noon and 3pm, and we also planned to have lunch there, figuring we’d arrive around 1pm. But we got to the Branch Ave station and the parking lot was an absolute zoo. There were so many people just standing in line in the lot, waiting to get on the busses to go to Andrews AFB. Here’s the line to get on the bus that continues on way into the back and snakes around the lot:

One of the military personnel said that if we got in line, it would be about a one-and-a-half hour wait to get on a bus, and the last bus was running at 3pm so we might not even make it onto the last bus! So we ended up leaving. It’s ironic that the website also said, “It is our intent to accommodate everyone,” because tons of people were turning around and leaving once they saw how long they’d have to wait for the convenient shuttle service, which wasn’t even a guarantee to get to the show. So, two hours of commuting to get there and we didn’t see a thing.

And because we had planned to eat at Andrews AFB, we were both starving and didn’t end up eating lunch until 3pm. It’s funny how good stuff tastes when you’re that hungry…almost as good as it feels to get out of soaking wet clothes and into dry ones after being out in a torrential rain for hours! (Thankfully it was a gorgeous day here today.) So, I’m sorry that I don’t have any really cool pictures of the F-22 and the Blue Angels to show you. Maybe next time! And I’m sorry my last two stories from my weekends were kind of abysmal! I’ll post some happy wedding pictures from last weekend soon – stay tuned.

Comments

5 responses to “Joint Service Air Show at Andrews Air Force Base”

  1. […] Go to the author’s original blog: joint service air show at andrews afb […]

  2. Armin Avatar

    Oh no Susan, I’m sorry to hear about this 🙁 The show is awesome, hope you can see it next year. And yeah it’s a big attraction and it gets packed as you can tell! I suggest next time to get there really early for the shuttles. I took my son last year and there was NO line for the shuttles 🙂 But I guess it helps that we’re only 15 minutes away.

  3. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    Sorry to hear you had the same experience that myself and thousands of others apparently did. There was so much wrong with how they handled the situation it’s hard to know where to begin. I guess, the first place is that they scheduled everything that someone would want to see in a three hour block. The show schedule gave no one incentive to arrive earlier and spread out arrival times. I arrived at 10:15am, spent two hours in line and at 12:15pm decided that I wasn’t going to leave Fedex Field and get to Andrews until maybe 1:15pm. After doing some quick calculation I figured that I would be turning around shortly after I arrived to watch the show and very likely be waiting another 2+ hours to get back to my car.

    The JSOH was a very poorly planned event. It disappointed many thousands I’m sure.

  4. Jacob Avatar
    Jacob

    Arrived at Fedex Field at 11. Got to Andrews on the bus at 2. Yeah, it sucked, and I’ll be getting there earlier next year. There’s good stuff to see all day long – I think everyone just decided to go on Saturday since the weather looked great, and Sunday’s forecast was poor.

  5. Andrew Wilson Avatar

    Susan,

    Wow. A really beautiful site – the photographs are spectacular. It is too bad you didn’t actually get to the show. I am sure that you would have had some great photographs to post. The info that you got from the military personnel confirmed what I thought – at least an hour wait. I don’t know how all the people with young kids could have made it that long. At least the weather was pleasant and not too hot!

    Take care and I look forward to some more great pictures.

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