The show center is marked on the sand directly in front of Boardwalk Hall at Florida Avenue. From there the audience looks east over the Atlantic - which means everyone is facing into the sun all morning and into the afternoon, a detail that has frustrated photographers for two decades. The Pier at Caesars juts roughly 1,000 feet into the ocean about a thousand feet south of show center, which forces aircraft to fly almost half a mile offshore for safety reasons. The performances themselves happen between 50 feet above the water on the deck and 15,000 feet for high-altitude flybys. Aircraft stage out of Atlantic City International Airport about 12 nautical miles to the west and McGuire Air Force Base further north - both off-limits to the public during show days. The Coast Guard usually puts on a search-and-rescue demonstration using two HH-65 Dauphin helicopters dropping a swimmer to a simulated victim in the water. The Borgata, the Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce, the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard, David Schultz Airshows, and The Press of Atlantic City have jointly produced the show since its 2003 debut.

The USAF Thunderbirds have headlined more years than any other act, returning so often that they brought their annual reunion to Atlantic City in 2006. That year the United States Navy Blue Angels joined them for a rare joint appearance - the only year both demonstration teams have shared the boardwalk. The 2006 show pulled in over 600,000 attendees and became one of the largest events held in Atlantic City up to that point. The US Army Golden Knights parachute team has performed at virtually every edition, opening the show with a flag jump set to the national anthem. The F-22 Raptor first appeared in 2006. The B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has done flybys. The F-14 Tomcat's 2004 appearance was its last over Atlantic City before retirement; the C-141 Starlifter's flyby that same year was its last airshow performance from McGuire AFB before withdrawal. Each year reads like a slow accounting of the changing American military aircraft inventory.

In its first twenty-one editions, Thunder Over the Boardwalk has been canceled twice. The first was 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down nearly every public gathering in the country. The second was 2024, and the reasons were more idiosyncratic. Funding wobbled in the spring; Governor Phil Murphy's office stepped in with $300,000 from the South Jersey Transportation Authority. Then the United States Air Force Thunderbirds announced they would no longer support weekday airshows because of the logistical difficulty of squeezing a midweek show between two weekend dates. The Blue Angels had not put Atlantic City on their schedule. On July 10, 2024, the act that organizers had lined up to replace the Thunderbirds backed out. With no military headliner available, the organizers pulled the plug. The 2013 show had nearly suffered the same fate - federal budget sequestration that year forced the US military to cancel every airshow appearance. Atlantic City organizers held the show anyway, with only commercial performers, and managed somehow to put on a respectable program even without the military aircraft that give the show its name.

The civilian aerobatic performers carry the show as much as the military jets do. Kirby Chambliss, John Klatt, Sean Tucker, Rob Holland - World Unlimited Aerobatic Champion - have all flown Atlantic City. Jim Beasley Jr., a Philadelphia attorney by day and a stunt pilot by avocation, has performed with his Spitfire and his P-51 Mustang more years than not. The Horsemen Mustang Demonstration, founded by Beasley and the late Ed Shipley, flies tight-formation routines in restored World War II fighters. The GEICO Skytypers, a six-ship aerobatic team flying World War II-era SNJ training aircraft, write messages across the sky in dot-matrix smoke. The Brazilian Air Force's Smoke Squadron made a guest appearance in 2010. Each year also brings flybys from FAA test aircraft based at the William J. Hughes Technical Center adjacent to Atlantic City International Airport - the FAA's principal research facility, where the federal aviation system tests its newest technologies.

Stand on the beach during a Thunder Over the Boardwalk afternoon and the geometry of the experience is hard to describe. Behind you, the boardwalk and the casino skyline: the Hard Rock's silver towers, the Ocean Casino Resort's glowing white pearl, Bally's solid wedge, the Tropicana's pastel deco. In front of you, three quarters of a million people in beach chairs and on blankets. Above, an F-16 Viper from the 177th Fighter Wing screaming past at 500 knots, then circling around for another pass. The aircraft routes its turn out over the Atlantic and comes back down the beach at 50 feet above the water, slow enough that you can see the pilot's helmet and the unit insignia on the tail. Beach umbrellas snap closed in the wake turbulence. Children scream. Casino windows reflect the smoke trails. Then everything is quiet for ninety seconds until the next aircraft comes through. The Golden Knights land just before the closing flag salute. The Thunderbirds, when they come, fly six-ship formations down the boardwalk a quarter-mile out at the same altitude as the tops of the hotels. It is, as airshows go, almost unrivaled for sheer cinematic compression. Two decades in, the city has built much of its summer identity around the second-to-last Wednesday in August.