[Waltz41]

Hope no one is getting sick of these reports.....but here's another!
This one just kind of fell into place with a quick vacation trip....but I was able to make it for a day of the airshow. It was perhaps, the most dissapointing and wierd airshow I've ever been to. I'll get to the weird part in a little bit, but first off, I will say that a day with airplanes is better than no airplanes at all!! First of all, weather report was supposed to be high 80s, bright sunny day, but about 1000, these huge grey clouds rolled in. Visibility went way down, and it stayed like that till about 130. Which screwed up a lot of the show. First, they had the Osprey and Raptor listed as statics, but they weren't there. And then the whole show was really turned upside down by the weather and some weird things. Here's a listing:
-First on Thursday, on his way to the show, an aerobatic pilot named Sergei B crashed in VA on his way to the show
-The F-117 that was supposed to do the flybys aparently damaged a rudder when it came in and landed after deploying it's parachute. It took off, was gone for about 20 minutes, did a quick low flyby and landed.
-The S-3 Viking demo had two planes ready to go, the first one had some engine trouble, and then the other shut down as they canceled due to the low ceiling and visibility.
-Both the Canadian CF-18 and US F-16 demo teams had to use their back up jets.
-The Golden Knights went up but never dropped due to visibility and strong winds.
-P-40 didn't fly, as well as cancelations by the B-1 and A-10 flybys.
-The Thunderbirds took off, did 1 diamond pass, the solos aborted their first knife-edge pass.....reevaluated conditions, made 1 more pass each, reevaluated and canceled their performance.

Anyways....never seen an airshow with so many 'problems', obviously to not the fault of the base or people itself. But what did go up, well....it was great to see. So here we go!
Statics:

A REAL A-10 (take note Hobby Master, Corgi, etc!!!)


CF-18 Show jet


S-3 CAG


F-5 Agressor


F-117


F-16 CA ANG tails (What are they doing here I thought! That's a trip, must be vacation!!)

[Waltz41]

Blackhawks delievering some goods


Gaggle of Blackhawks


CG Jayhawk


MA ANG F-15s (host of the show at Otis ANG base, they are losing their F-15s to the MA A-10 unit at Barnes airport)


C-17 Demo (The pilot flew this thing like a fighter, I was really amazed at it, even after seeing it a few times, but it's still a sight!)


CF-18



West Coast F-16 Demo



East Coast F-18C Demo





USN Legacy Flight


Corsair

[mustangdriver]

Great pics man. Love the heritage Flight stuff.

[PappyB]

Tired of air show reports and pics? Never!

Looks like another good show -- despite the issues... heck any day not at work and at an air show ain't bad right?

Plus you got to see that Corsair up in the air, which still elludes me... Awesome vapes, too!

[STARMAN 352ND]

It's about darn time someone too pictures of the F-16 Cailf ANG.....Of all the air show pictures i have seen.... this is a first but it's only the tail.....Where is the
rest of the plane Brian....Just kidding....
Great pictures and "no" we don't get tired of your reports.
JP

[Waltz41]

Its funny, I actually read on a forum that they were there on friday...i thought whoa, awesome, never ever thought I'd see them. My wife is from CA and I just bought one of their squadron tshirts, so getting to see them there was just awesome. But for the pictures.....Too many damn people in the way to get a nice clean shot of the CA Vipers Starman!! I waited for about oh....10 minutes, just didn't happen. I took a few anyways but......

Thanks for the nice words guys. Yeah, i guess no one will ever get tired of airplane pics!!!

[Hurriup!]

Great Pics waltz41 especially of the F-16 on the move nice to see that Corsair along side as well, Thanks for posting them.

[First Sgt]

Wifey and I were there on Sunday - our son was working at the C-5 static display. It was a more successful flying day and the T-Birds managed to get their show in despite a low ceiling and some raindrops. All in all an enjoyable day!