Cleveland National Air Show 2008

Saturday, August 30th, I made the trip over to Cleveland to watch the air show. This year was much better than last year. I believe the US Navy Blue Angels are what pushed it over the top. Last year, the USAF Thunderbirds performed. I thought they were great. Now they are just good, the Blue Angels are great.

What I thought were just ordinary pictures, actually turned out to be great thanks to various backgrounds.

First off was a picture of a USMC Humvee. I was just taking a pic of the Humvee, after I got home I realized how nice the skyline of Cleveland looked in this pic.

 

 

The second picture is of the Blue Angels. I'm still learning how to photograph planes going several hundred miles per hour. I basically just click and pray. But this one has the sun in the background.

 

If you've never seen a C-5 in person, you cannot appreciate how enormous it is. While traveling to the airport, the tail was the first thing I seen.

 

 

 

I once again got distracted by the shiny objects. This one was a B-17G called "Yankee Lady"

 

 

 

Of course; I almost always find something completely unrelated to the air show that captures my attention.

A giant cow. Look at the back of the RV at the rear of the cow.

 

 

Complete with giant teats.

 

Now for a couple Blue Angels pics. The first pic is of Fat Albert. It's the Blue Angels maintenance plane that also does a demo.

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to post more, but I have to remember those who may have dial-up. So CLICK HERE and it will take you to the photo album where there is a whole lot more great pictures. I think there's about 420 pictures in the album

Vectren Dayton Air Show 2008

I took about 300 pics at the show and my new camera is much better than my old one. It's nothing fancy. Just a Kodak Z812 IS. It's 8.1MP with a 12x optical zoom. It takes pictures and records video in HD. Pretty good for $249.

During the air show, they were offering Huey rides for $50. It was tax deductible so I assume it was going to some kind of good use. I prefer to keep my feet on the ground. However; my brother jumped on the chance. The thing about my brother is, while other kids were acting stupid and whatnot, he spent his time studying aircraft. It's his passion. For him, going to an air show is like going to the Playboy mansion. He can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about anything that flies.

But back to his Huey ride:

Everybody boarding

That's him in the white shirt in the gunner seat

And away they go.

This was his first flight of any kind. He said it was the best $50 he ever spent. I'm surprised he got out voluntarily, I was sure security would have to drag him out.

They were operating two Hueys at a time. I think each one carried 10 people. They ran these Hueys until after the show was over to ensure everyone who wanted a ride, got it. There was no shortage of people wanting rides, the line went on forever.

This was my favorite of all the aircraft:

It's a B-25. Everywhere they could put a gun, they did. I think the reason I liked it so much was because it was shiny. I tend to get distracted by shiny objects.

As I said before, the flight crew stayed in the same hotel, and ate breakfast at the table behind us.

Out off all the amazing things at the air show, this was definitely the best:

This Hummer is awesome just to look at, but there's more to why I like it so much

Take a look at what's in the trunk.

Flat screen HDTV, Xbox 360, & a sound system that bumps so hard it vibrates your nether-regions.

Of course; they had many souvenirs you could purchase, and I picked a up a few, but my favorite is my coconut cup. For $12 I got a coconut cup with a non-alcoholic lemon daiquiri. It was actually just frozen lemonade.

I have to take a moment and tell everyone about the hotel. We stayed in the Dayton Airport Hotel. We got a room with 2 queen beds for $79. The room wasn't spectacular, but it was nice. The most important thing was the people at the desk were very friendly. It made a great impression and should we decide to go to Dayton next year, we will definitely stay at that hotel. The restaurant in the hotel, Wilbur's Bar & Grille, served me the best bacon cheeseburger I've ever had. It was delicious and not some happy meal cheeseburger either, it was hefty.

I will post some pictures here and include a link at the bottom for the entire album. I will go right down the schedule.

First off was the flag drop by the Misty Blues all-woman skydiving team.

 

The Collaborators aerobatic demonstration

 

US Army AH-64D Apache Attack Helicopter

 

The B-25 "Panchito". The flight crew stayed in the same hotel as I did and sat at the table behind us during breakfast.

 

USAF F-16 Fighting Falcon

 

Ohio Air National Guard C-130H Hercules

 

F-104 Starfighters. These things were FAST. I was only able to get 3 pics of them, one of which turned out good.

 

Sean D. Tucker aerobatic demo

 

US Navy F-18 Super Hornet w/Corsair legacy flight

 

AeroShell aerobatic team

 

USAF C-17 Globemaster

 

USAF F-22 Raptor

 

F-22, F-16, P-51 Mustang heritage flight

 

Video of the F-22

 

All the pics, including aerial demos and static aircraft

2008 Dayton Air Show

Cleveland National Air Show 2007

This was my first airshow and I was impressed. I took 129 pics of the event. I'm not a photographer, nor do I have a great camera. The zoom doesn't work well and I had to clean up the pictures with PaintShopPro to remove most of the "noise". I've never taken a picture where I had to follow something going nearly the speed of sound.

2007 Cleveland Air Show

Just click the above pic and it will take you to the picassa web album where you can see all the pics.

Highlights of the day:

To open the show, the Coast Guard did a mock rescue. They are incredibly fast. I think it took all of a minute to rescue the "stranded boater".

The Oracle father-son stunt team had a really close encounter. Everyone gasped at how close they were.

One of the Army Golden Knights parachute team nearly flipped over. His parachute nearly collapsed and you could see him trying to make an adjustment by pulling HARD on the other side to flip him back.

The C-17 cargo plane was pretty cool. You wouldn't think so, but it has reverse thrust engines and can land on a very short runway.

The F/A-18 almost broke the sound barrier. It had that moisture evaporation around the nose and wings right before it breaks the speed of sound. Of course, I missed that pic.

The Air National Guard stunt plane was really good. They had the cockpit hooked up to the speakers. He was talking normally until he would pull back the stick and head straight up. The G-forces made him strain to talk.

The Army Sky Soldiers Cobra team was good too. There's not a whole lot of stunts they can do, but it was still fun to watch.

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Words and pictures cannot even begin to describe how awesome they were. You have to actually see it in person.

It was such a great day, I'm already looking forward to next year.