The boys check out the pointy end of an F-16.
We were hoping that the low cloud cover wouldn't prevent the main attraction from taking off.
We had a good view of the Blue Angels flight line. Ironically, it was the availability of the Blue Angels that required the air show be held in April instead of the usual July time frame. The temperature was nice, but it does rain here in April (just a little), so we were wondering if the gamble was worth it.
At least the jet truck doesn't need clear sky to run. Always a crowd favorite, the truck called Shockwave sports three Pratt & Whitney J34-48 engines that together produce 19,000 pounds of thrust. That's enough to accelerate the full-sized truck to over 370 mph! And produce gobs of flame and smoke and noise for your viewing pleasure.
Finally! The clouds lift enough to start flying. As if this guy needed a high 'ceiling' to do his show.
Skip Stewart makes his custom built bi-plane do things that airplanes aren't supposed to do. Including crabbing down the runway on his side the moment his wheels leave the ground on take-off.
And corkscrewing his plane through the air at a dizzying rate. It's difficult to convey how fast-paced his act is with a still photo, but the picture below gives a hint. The smoke shows where he's been, but the direction he's pointing doesn't necessarily show where he's going.
Most of his show was spent flying sideways or upside down. Some of it backwards. And some of it so low to the ground that if a deer had run across the tarmac he'd probably have had to call his insurance agent. Here he is cutting a streamer that's being held between a couple of tall poles. This is his third pass - on the first two he went under the streamer!
Finally, what's a daredevil show without a game of chicken? With a jet truck?
One of my favorite airplanes is the A-10 Thunderbolt, aka. the Warthog. It's an ugly looking bird, but it's tough as nails, agile, and mean. See the tube sticking out of it's nose? That's a 33 mm GAU-8/A seven-barrel Gatling gun, capable of firing 65 rounds a second at tanks, armored cars, bunkers, or whatever else happens to be in the way.
The A-10 was built to destroy tanks in the Cold War, but has found new life in the Middle East scaring the sandals off bad guys. It's so maneuverable that it can lay down a line of fire then turn around and do it again within 30 seconds. That doesn't leave too much time to get out of the way.
The Blue Angles put on a show worth waiting for. Everything they do is carried out with order and precision, from the time the pilots line up to salute the flight crew and climb into the cockpits to the time they dismount, their actions are coordinated and exact. For most of the show the six planes are divided into a group of four who fly in a variety of formations and two solo planes that demonstrate some of the capabilities of the F/A-18 Hornet. Here's the famous 'delta' formation.
What's cool isn't just that they fly impossibly close to each other, it's that they turn and loop and roll as one, like they were physically locked together, wing tip to canopy. Talk about the ultimate game of follow the leader.
During most of the show the planes fly past at about 300 - 400 mph and their unfiltered jet engines shake the ground with a deep, resonate roar. But at one point, as we were watching the group of four disappear behind us and then obligingly following the advice of the announcer to "look to your right as Captain Whatshisname sets up for the next pass", one of the solo jets came blasting out of the sky from our left in full afterburner, pushing 700 miles an hour. The sound of that is something else all together - a high crackling shriek that about pulls the hair right off your scalp. Scary fast.
Towards the end, the two solo planes joined the group for a six-plane 'delta' formation.
And the boy's favorite, the starburst grand finale.
1 comment:
Looks like a boys dream - both little boys and big boys. I've never been to an air show. We'll have to do that sometime.
Post a Comment