The Blue Angels must have at least 1,000-foot ceilings and 3-mile visibility to fly, and they prefer at least 1,200 feet and 6 miles visibility.

After all, one of the routines has two planes, traveling at 400 mph each, meeting over the Severn River at a combined speed of 800 mph and rotating at a crucial moment so that their bellies are only a few feet apart.

"We are always working; we got here at 9 this morning," said Navy Lt. Frank Weisser, a 2000 Naval Academy graduate who is pilot No. 7 on the flight team. "Meanwhile, the pilots are back in the ready room at Andrews (Air Force Base), going over plan after plan, waiting to see if they will practice."

Lt. Weisser, a fighter pilot who has been assigned to the Blue Angels for a year, travels ahead of the rest of the team to coordinate with law enforcement, Federal Aviation Administration personnel and ground crews.

He also gives VIPs and media representatives flights in the Navy F/A-18 Hornets, and narrates performances for the public.

Next year, he will begin serving as one of the six pilots who perform for crowds.

"The hardest part is time away from home," the Atlanta native said of life as a Blue Angel, "but there are so many pros, so many advantages to this duty, that we have hundreds of pilots apply each year for the two slots that come open."

When asked what it's like flying high-performance aircraft, his answer was simple.

"You compartmentalize," he said of a pilot's need to clear his mind of life's daily aggravations and focus on the task at hand.

"As you climb up the ladder to get into that jet, you have to leave your other problems behind," he said. "When you get in that aircraft, while it is an exciting job, it is a job, and you have to have your 'A' game on."

When pilots aren't flying, as was the luck for most of yesterday, Lt. Weisser said, they are watching films of earlier flights, looking for flaws in their performance.

"There is no such thing as a perfect flight, but you are constantly striving for perfection," he said. "We execute at such a level, that you (the spectator) ought not to be able to tell if we were on our game that day or not."

A team of about 60 support personnel travel as part of the Blue Angels team, Cmdr. Weisser said, and putting on an aerobatics show takes a lot of planning. Airplanes always need spare parts, he said, and each of the six F/A-18 Hornets can burn as much as 1,000 gallons of fuel during a performance.

The flight team, therefore, includes a lot of talents, including a doctor.

Lt. Cmdr. Mark E. Lambert, Naval Academy Class of 1996 and the Blue Angels' Flight Surgeon, was there yesterday, waiting for the practice.

"This is where I first saw the Blue Angels," Cmdr. Lambert said as he stood in the academy's Dewey Field.

The Georgetown University Medical School graduate, whose job is to keep the pilots and crew healthy, said the Blue Angels make an excellent recruiting tool for the Navy and the Naval Academy, and provide an exciting assignment for Navy and Marine Corps personnel.

"I have loved it," he said of his time as a Blue Angel. "It is one of life's unique experiences."

As the 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. window approved by the Federal Aviation Administration started to close, the Blue Angels ground crews started working with regulators to get clearance for a practice session this morning, if necessary.

But good fortune smiled, and the sun came out late in the day.

The FAA extended the practice window until about 5:30 p.m., so the elite pilots could get in a bit of flying.

The extension meant that the Route 450 bridge remained closed longer than expected, but academy officials said the alternative was to close it this morning for practice, which would have been even more disruptive.

"It was a slight inconvenience for local traffic, but we had rather (the pilots) be safe and get the practice in," said Naval Academy spokesman Leo Mehalic.

In the end, two of the six Blue Angel jets practiced, plotting major landmarks and recording split-second flight times between markers, such as the Greenbury Point towers and Dewey Field at the academy.

Also, Fat Albert, the Marine Corps C-130T Hercules transport that carries crew members and supplies for the Blue Angels, got in some practice for the performance today. The propeller-driven behemoth, which weighs about 75,000 pounds and whose four engines produce a total of 16,000 horsepower, looks as graceful as a glider when it turns its nose upward and climbs at a 45-degree angle.