Airshow pressured by loony left caves.

So because one alleged "artist" from Mexico started an on-line petition reportedly signed by "dozens" of people, the upcoming Dayton Air Show scrapped a pyrotechnic display featuring the B-29 Fifi and a simulated atomic bomb.

Air Show cancels fake bomb drop after outcry
Re-enactment was desitgned to mark the end of World War II

Dammit. This sort of rampmant political-correctness-run-amuck is the sort of thing that I'd expect from spineless government officials, not organizers of a show dedicated to the air power that keeps America, and by extension the rest of the free world, free.

Frankly, who cares what Gabriela Pickett thinks? Before she set up her leftist art center in Dayton, her most relevant job was as a quality control checker at an underwear factory. She's never produced anything tangible or contributed anything to our country except criticism, and now she's used a tribute to the great people who ended a war and preserved world peace as a springboard for her own "hey, look at me" moment. And the airshow, sadly enough, obliged her, even though she could only get a few scattered losers and kooks to sign her petition. And some of those kooks hail from Japan, and they don't deserve a say in matters like this since they started the war and caused world misery on a scale that not only required that atomic bombs be dropped on them as the only way to end it but justified it morally.

Shame on the air show folks for caving. Seriously.

But here at Lagniappe's Lair, Murphy and I will have our own B-29 tribute with pics and video of Fifi shot at last year's Thunder over Michigan show.

There's even video.





Oh, and because I'm all immature and stuff:

Screw every damned one of you America-hating "peace activists" who smugly enjoy the peace and security that our military provides.

The Big Event--Thunder Over Michigan

Murphy and I were back in Michigan so that I could take my nephew, The Spud, and my father to Thunder Over Michigan 2012, an air show at Willow Run Airport. As an added bonus, my uncle--my father's brother--was able to come along, too. It was a family affair and a "Man Day" at the same time. And this air show was particularly manly in that everything that flew in it or was available for ground viewing was a Warbird, including twenty P-51 Mustangs, 11 of which were in the air at one time during part of the show. Also featured: Stearmans, Texans, P-47s, a P-38, a Corsair, B-25s, a B-17...and Fifi, the last flying B-29 left in the world.

Here's Fifi, just inside the gate. Forefront are my father (in the tan to the right) and his brother Tom (blue shirt, carrying the walker, to the left.) Spud is, as usual, bringing up the rear behind me.

The show also had an F-86, a Sea Harrier "jump-jet", military helicopters, and a land battle between American GIs and German soldiers fought just yards away from the spectators, complete with tanks and half-tracks on both sides. Personally, I was in aviation overload the whole day and I won't be able to do it all justice here...but I'll try. Just expect lots of plane and tank pics and other assorted manly macho gear over the next few days. Now I understand that that won't appeal to everyone because some people actually aren't into fighting aircraft and ground combat. So if that's not your thing, you might want to just click here for a while. Never let it be said that I don't respect the feelings of liberals on this site.

Martinsburg Air Show...the rest of the photos

I took these before Saturday's tragic Trojan Horsemen T-28 crash.

This first one is my old pal, the F-86 gate guardian at the base. It's been moved to a nice display platform and restored nicely since the last times I photographed it here and here. It's great to see them finally taking proper care of this long-neglected aircraft.
Here's one of the C-5 galaxy transports of the 167th Airlift Wing that always seems to schedule their flights specifically to boot me off of the runway when I'm out to fly. But hey--they're bigger than my Cessna and they have actual work to do, so who am I to argue.
The business end of the C-5.
Here are some of the other ones that were moved across the field to make room for the airshow displays. They look funny sitting over there...and big.
Here's a smaller transport, a C-130 Hercules. These birds can land and take off from just about any sort of field, even dirt strips. This one came in from Minnesota for the show.
Here's a T-38 Talon trainer. Sweet-looking ride, isn't she?
Here it is from the other side with it's pilot. I was going to talk to the pilot but ran into some friends and never made it back to him before the crash.
An A-10 Warthog up from Ft. Smith, Arkansas. The pilot informed me and several others that it is a myth that the recoil of it's gun slows the plane down in flight. He said that tale came from a crash of one of the prototypes where the gases from the gun made the engines stall, causing the pilot to eject and the test aircraft to crash. That's why these now have those little vertical fins just forward of the wing, to direct gun gases away from the engine intakes.
Here's pilot Scott Yoak flying P-51D "Quick Silver" past the crowds. Beautiful.
As he flew by, you could hear a whistling sound from the air moving over the gun ports in the wing leading edges. My Cessna should whistle like that.
Quick Silver is called “The Resurrected Veteran.” The aircraft is comprised of parts from more than 200 different Mustangs.
The paint scheme celebrates veterans, with every marking a symbol representing something about our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines. This P-51, “The Resurrected Veteran,” is a celebration of our nation’s Armed Forces. Every aspect of the paint represents those who have served and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

While the identity of the pilot killed yesterday is still officially unconfirmed, he T-28 that crashed was owned and apparently flown by Jack "Flash" Mangan. His pilot's credentials are impressive. He was a graduate of the USAF Academy, and spent 13 years active duty as an Air Force fighter pilot flying over 2500 hours in the F-15 and F-4 aircraft. His aviation awards include three Meritorious Service Medals and Tactical Air Command's Instructor Pilot of the Year. He has over 4000 hours and held an Airline Transport Pilot and sailplane rating.
When my time comes, I could think of worse ways to go than quickly while doing something that I love.

Great day

Yesterday was a great day indeed. Went to the air show with Aaron of The Shekel and my nephew The Spud, and then it was over to Aaron's for a birthday dinner, yesterday being his birthday. Today, the sun's out, the weather across the Great Lakes region looks good, and I'm flying home with The Spud and my mom on board, and the Spud and I will spend a week doing guy stuff. Stand by for some great air show pics when I get back, but in the meantime, watch Aaron's blog over on the left column as he'll be posting pics too, and his new camera is out of sight, one small bug notwithstanding. :-)

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?

Return fight home

There will be more airshow posts following, but Murphy wanted me to post on our return flight home on Monday.

We went out to the airport, accompanied by my mother and The Spud, and we loaded up the plane. After the pre-flight check and the good-byes, I called my father up at home and told him to be out in his back yard for one final bit of airshow. He lives in a subdivision made up of tree-lined streets that all look like every other street for miles from above, but the day before, I'd plotted out some landmarks that I was sure that I could pick out from the air and once I took off, I headed straight for them. Sure enough, I found my way-points and was able to roll in just north of his house so as to be perfectly visible in the clear space over his back-yard fence. I came in low and loud (while observing all applicable FAA regulations as to altitude, or course) and for about two minutes I made passes over his place as he stood in his yard below and waved. Then with one final wing-rocking pass, Murphy and I were off to the east and gone. But we'll be back soon, and that's a promise.

Flying over Detroit, I called up the tower at Detroit City Airport to get clearance through their Class D airspace. City Airport should not be confused with Detroit Metro Airport to the south. Metro is the big dog airport and I was already flying below the floor of their Class B airspace. City's tower promptly cleared me for a flight out to the north end of Belle Isle in the Detroit River, at which point I made a turn and flew south, just enjoying the city skyline.
There's the Ambassador Bridge over the river, and Canada on the other side.

The tall one is the Fisher Building, and the smaller one that looks like four buildings attached to each other is Cadillac Place, once headquarters of General Motors. Both date back to a time when this city was word-renowned for it's business district, architecture and wealth.

Here's the MacArthur Bridge leading to the southern end of Belle Isle.

"Control, we have an ore boat up-bound in the channel. Rolling in hot."

It's an old straight-decker retro-fitted as a self-unloader. Low in the water, too. Got a belly full of something. Stack logo shows her to be one of the Algoma Central fleet. Pretty sure it's the Algomarine. What a sweetie.

Then it's down the river, veering out over the river to maintain horizontal separation from the Renaissance Center.

Then it's south to the Ambassador Bridge and beyond.

Oh look--everybody's favorite abandoned train station / eyesore--the old Michigan Central Station. Built in 1913, it was once the tallest train station in the world. It's been empty and stripped longer than I can recall.

A quick shot back over my shoulder. Gotta be careful--Detroit Metro's controlled airspace it just above me, and Canada's is just to the left. But heck--it's not like Canada has an air force, right?

Here's the shipping channel at the south end of the Detroit River, with Lake Erie beyond.

And here's another ship heading for the channel. This oldie was built as a self-unloader, probably back in the late 1960's. can't make out her name or stack, though. Anyone wanna research it?

And then it was time to climb for the lake crossing. But once across the lake, I set up for a landing at Port Clinton. Murphy, dozing in the back seat, has already figured out that when I pull power to descend, that means that we're getting ready to get out. He sits up, just like other dogs do in cars when you take the cruise control off and begin to slow prior to exiting the highway in your car. He watches over my shoulder as I make descending turns in the pattern and set down on Runway 36. I park the plane, the fuel truck comes out to see if I want gas, (At just $5.80 a gallon, you'd better believe I do!) and I take Murphy out of the plane for a drink.

Once he was satiated, we headed across the field to the new Liberty Aviation Museum. They'd had their B-25 Mitchell bomber at the air show and their crew had invited me to pop in on the way down, so here Murphy and I were, walking into their brand new building as workers are finishing up landscaping and painting outside.
First, we encountered a nice young fellow on the desk who told us that pets aren't allowed in the museum. I replied that we'd just flown in and that I had no place to leave Murphy, and that I just wanted to go into the hangar and see the B-25. "And if it's any help," I told the fellow, "he's really not much of a pet."

Before he could object again, another staffer appeared and asked me if Murphy was a service dog. Now I can't lie, so I admitted that he wasn't, but then the man said: "Wait...he's a German Shepherd, isn't he? That's close enough to World War Two to get him in, I guess." Then I told them that his name was actually Audie Murphy and suddenly everyone was coming up to pet him and fawn over him.

So did Murphy get to see the B-25?

He and I both agree that I need one of these. Granted, the fuel burn of two of these 1700hp Pratt and Whitney R-2600 14-cylinder engines will probably be a bit more than my Cessna's 6-cylinder, 145hp powerplant, but still...

And nothing says "Get outta my traffic pattern!" like a snout full of .50 machine guns.

This one has better paint than my Cessna, too. Pilot side:

Co-pilot side:

Yeah...my first choice would still be an A-26 Invader, but if I couldn't get one of those, this'd sure do.

We took off again, and since we had plenty of gas and no real time-frame to get home, and since the weather was perfect, we hop-scotched various airports on the route home, setting up touch-and-go landings at three others enroute. We hit Ohio's Wayne County airport (BJJ), Jefferson County Airort (2G2), and Washington Co airport (AFJ) in Pennsylvania. I figure that just flying point-to-point isn't really going to make me proficient so I decided to just play and visit a few new strips and simulate a couple of engine-out emergency landings since I had the time. It was much fun, and we still make it back to the home field before dark with five take-offs and landings in 4.4 hours. And Murphy now has 8.3 hours cross-country time in his dog-log. But does he really get credit for time spent dozing in the back seat?