| Just got back from the Thunder show and it was not the same. Because the Blue Angels came it was on the other side of the airfield and all strung out. Lost the feel of the prvious shows. They must have made a boat load of money but I give it 3/10 overall as a show.
No trees for shade like by the museum and no static display of unflyables, so no sitting under the wing of the B-52 like the last few years. We had umberellas but still..... I think the Angels do for small intimate airshows what Tiger Woods did for nice little public golf courses, WRECK THEM!
Now, to be fair, the Yankee Air Museum has to raise $ to pay for the rebuilding of its facilities and I get why the change happened. I still hated it. There must have been 70,000 people there and I bet they had 10,000-15,000 for last year's Sat. show. The food vendors were everywhere and prices were double. No deals at all, and not much else to look at. Commercial everything all the time. Testdrive a JEEP! Who cares. A big playstation 3 RV blasting rap music over the tarmac instead of the usual big band era oldies I like at airshows. The MC talked non stop over many of the planes and made so many errors and generalizations that I couldn't hear the engines or enjoy the fly pasts. If you don't care or know much about planes, you might not have noticed or cared. Few interesting little shops with airplane stuff with one exception, aviationmilitary.com. A nice online shop with some original items was allowed in this year (he said for the first tiem and it was pricey for him) Nice shop and I bought a couple things.
Saw an F-86 fly for the first time and it did a few passes with a MIG-17. Very few passes and none of the warbirds made as many passes as the previous 4 years. No re-enactors at all and no military vehicles unless you want a big ugly Hummer blasting more rap music. A bummer overall and if it's like tis next year count me out. Mitchells were good but made few passes unlike the past.
Sad but true. If this is your first time to a Thunder show: 1. I'm sorry. 2. Thank goodness you don't know any better. |
I feel the same way - very dissappointed. What has been an "intimate" experience where you could see, hear and smell the planes and feel the prop wash was turned into a big box, commercial airshow (the're OK but its "smallness" in prior years made TOM special). Very sad. I knew we were in trouble when we drove accoss the tarmac where the show has been in previous years. I was all prepared for the same type of show as in prior years and we all ended up roasting in the hot sun.
I have seem the Blue Angels in St. Louis 3 of the last 4 years and would have preferred much more to see the WWII Normandy battle re-enactment being "attacked" by P-47's and P-51's in mock Jabo runs - that was awsome last year! My kids (5 & 7) were very dissappointed not to see the battle and got so hot and tired on Saturday that we left the show before the airshow was halfway over.
I am with you parsig, if this is the trend for the future - count me out. I also heard that traffic was a real bear after the show. I wouldn't know, I left at 2 PM.
07-08-2007, 12:27 AM 
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