SMYRNA, Tenn. (WKRN) — A crowd favorite will be returning to this year’s Great Tennessee Air Show at the Smyrna Airport.

The U.S. Navy Blue Angels will be performing jaw-dropping maneuvers in the sky June 10-11.

An Air Force Raptor F-22 will also be performing, added John Black, the executive director of Smyrna Airport.

“It’s one of the most modern fighter jets that’s out there, that honestly does, it does things that really defy gravity to me. It’s amazing to watch,” Black said.

The Navy F-35 dual aircraft act will also join the lineup with several more civilian acts.

“They’re flying right on the edge of the envelope and are so skilled and so good at it. It’s just amazing to watch, you know that people can do that,” he exclaimed.

  • A KC-10 Extender refuels an F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft prior to strike operations in Syria, during flight on September 23, 2014. (Photo by Maj. Jefferson S. Heiland/U.S. Air Force via Getty Images)
  • U.S. Navy variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35C, conducts a test flight February 11, 2011 over the Chesapeake Bay. Lt. Cmdr. Eric “Magic” Buus flew the F-35C for two hours, checking instruments that will measure structural loads on the airframe during flight maneuvers. (Photo by U.S. Navy photo courtesy Lockheed Martin via Getty Images)
  • Blue Angels practice session for San Francisco Fleet Week October 4, 2007. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

But it’s not just the stunts in the sky that Black hopes will wow spectators.

“Then there’s a lot of stuff to see, you know, on the ground, because we have a lot of static displays, airplanes that fly in from all over the place to take part in the show,” Black continued. “People can get kind of close, go inside airplanes.”

Displays like a Blackhawk helicopter and a Blue Angels cockpit experience simulator are on the list.

The event is expected to draw a crowd of around 50,000 to the airport, which will be a huge economic boost for the area.

“We actually did a study on that several years ago… the one the weekend impact was just over a million dollars to the local economy,” Black said.

But the impact Black believes matters most is how the show can inspire the next generation of aviators.

“I cannot tell you how many people I’ve run across that have said, you know, ‘I wouldn’t be flying here with Southwest or Delta, you know, if I had not gone to that air show, when I was a kid with my parents.’ So, that’s how impactful that it can really be,” he recalled.

Black has been with the airport for 32 years and has reportedly experienced “a lot of airshows.”

In the more than 50 years the airport has hosted the Great Tennessee Air Show, Black said there has only been a handful of times they were forced to cancel.

“There was one significant time, and that was 2001, when 9/11 happened, because that happened on a Tuesday, and we actually had an air show scheduled for that weekend. Obviously, no one was flying.” He remembered there was also a year the government shutdown when they had to cancel.

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Tips from Black on anyone planning to enjoy the show this year are to bring sunscreen and “come with a great attitude to have some fun and hang out all day.”

Good news, he added, the airport has already been selected to put on another airshow in 2025. However, it will be a while before a performance lineup is announced.

If you’d like to learn more about the upcoming air show in June, click on this link.