VALDOSTA – All eyes will be on the sky above Moody Air Force Base as Thunder Over South Georgia returns this weekend.

The free event is open to the public and will feature the Navy Blue Angels, the Air Force F-22 Raptor Demo Team, the Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II Demo Team, the Air Force Academy’s Wings of Blue, the Air Force Heritage Flight Demo Team, and a Combat Search and Rescue demonstration.

Lt. Cmdr. Brandon Hempler will be one of the pilots flying with the Blue Angels this weekend and will be leaving the team next week as he’s been flying with them for three years. Pilots typically fly with the Blue Angels two to three years.

Hempler joined the Blue Angels in September 2016 after being inspired by the Air Force Thunderbirds. During his tenure, he’s acquired more than 2,600 flight hours and 320 carrier-arrested landings.

“They (the Thunderbirds) were the ones that always came to the middle of the United States that I saw,” Hempler said. “I then joined the Navy and the Blue Angels because I wanted to be part of what inspired me when I was little.”

He said he hopes the show will remind spectators what the military does.

“It would be awesome for people to come out here and see what the Navy and Marine Corps are doing, and not to forget, we are just what they see,” Hempler said. “There are thousands of Navy and Marines, airmen and soldiers out there fighting our fight everyday on foreign soil so that we can live free here.”

One pilot is returning to his base roots by flying this weekend at Moody with the F-22 Raptor Demo Team.

“I started out my Air Force career out here at the Azalea City at Moody Air Force Base back in 2005,” Major Paul “Loco” Lopez said. “It is humbling because this is where it all started so it’s come full circle from being a young kid at Virginia Beach wanting to be a fighter pilot to college to Moody Air Force Base to start my pilot training and now here I am flying the Thunder Over South Georgia show.”

Thunder Over South Georgia will have the same schedule for both Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 2-3.

10:30 a.m.: Air Force recruiting enlistment.

11 a.m.: Opening ceremonies/invocation.

11:25 a.m.: Wings of Blue.

11:46 a.m.: 81st Fighter Squadron fly over.

11:52 a.m.: Jeremy Holt Airshows.

12:05 p.m.: Combat Search and Rescue demo.

12:36 p.m.: Playful Airshows.

12:50 p.m.: Smoke-N-Thunder.

1:26 p.m.: T-6 Demo.

1:39 p.m.: A-10 Demo.

1:56 p.m.: Raptor/Heritage Demo.

2:25 p.m.: Kyle Franklin’s Flying Circus.

2:40 p.m.: Vampire Airshows.

3:00 p.m.: Blue Angels.

Base gates open 8:30 a.m. to the public and air show gates open 9 a.m.

More information can be found online at www.moody.af.mil/Air-Show/.

Desiree Carver is a reporter at the Valdosta Daily Times. She can be reached at (229) 244-3400 ext. 1215.