Air Show!

So I went to the airshow at Martinsburg, WV today. It was a blue, cloudless sky, with no wind--just perfect flying weather. (Note: I never get flying weather this nice when I go up. What's up with that?)
The first--and biggest--aircraft that everyone who came saw was one of the C-5 Galaxy transports operated by the local Air National Guard unitIt was open for walk-thrus, and roomy enough that you could almost play football inside.

There were Biplanes, ranging from a nifty little Pitts Special to this classic Boeing-Stearman trainer.


One of my favorites--the F-86 Sabre--was on display. Honestly, if I could fly just one jet fighter, it'd probably be this classic. I just love this aircraft. If you click on the picture and enlarge it, you can see that they've got an access panel removed to display the three .50 machine guns that the aircraft has on this side. And yes, there are three more on the other side, giving it a pretty good punch for it's day. Note the large fuel tank under the wing. Economical it was not.

Ah, but these A-10's would be a hell of a ride, too. Down low and fast...that's where the action is. These came from Pennsylvania just for the show.





And there were Mustangs. Two of them. This one to the right, and the one below. These beauties are what I came to see.







And there was a P-40E Warhawk, too. This one in the picture below served in the Aleutians during the war and eventually wound up sitting on the roof of a gas station in Spokane, Washington before it was hauled down and lovingly restored.










The warbirds flew around for a while, looking spectacular, of course. Just the roar of those engines up close was worth coming out to hear.










After they landed, this BT-13 Vultee trainer performed some pretty heavy acrobatics just over the field. Note that it has fixed landing gear. This aircraft was designed to have retractable gear initially, but the Army Air Corps in the 1930's wasn't willing to spend that kind of money so they told Vultee to cut the frills and make it cheaper, and as a result, most of our World War Two pilots learned to fly in this fixed-gear aircraft.


I spent most of the day looking at the old planes, watching the aerobatics, and standing next to some of the aircraft, trying to impress attractive women with my own pilot tales of daring-do.
But alas, this is West Virginia, and the few attractive women here either had a litter of kids with them or else they were hanging onto the arm of some skeezy guy. Why is it that the hotter the women are around here, the more their boyfriends look like ex-cons and gang-bangers?