Take Me Out to the Air Show

I have not been to an air show in a very long time. The Chicago Air and Water Show in August 2003 celebrated 100 years of flight and featured all the usual suspects that you find at such events. The glamour kitties, without a doubt, were the USAF Thunderbirds. But they had plenty of competition for the crowd’s attention. Air shows are best enjoyed when you have a cloudless sky with an ‘unlimited’ ceiling. Clouds can get in the way of parachutists, who do need to see where they are going and have plenty of air between them and the ground. Clouds can also limit the flight displays of the high performance fighters, who wow the crowd with their rocket like climbs to dizzying heights, afterburners blazing. Saturday had clouds, but they were high enough to be nothing more than a backdrop for the planes. Sunday, on the other hand, provided that prized cloudless sky.

I attended both days, but stayed away from the North Ave. Beach and Oak St. Beach where most of the crowd could be found. It was a smart move on Saturday, since I wound up at Ohio St. Beach, in a park filled with trees. The shade was welcome relief from the 92-degree heat at the lake. On Sunday, a much cooler day, I was between Oak and Ohio, which gave me a better view of the aircraft. North Ave. was show central, complete with tents and assorted crowd control. A better seat would have been on the lake itself. There was a carpet of boats, all anchored just outside an invisible line monitored by the Coast Guard. Many of the aircraft did high speed turns and banks out over the boats, which must have been thrilling for those viewers.

First up was the Golden Knights. On Saturday their aircraft, Knights safely stowed inside, did some lazy turns up under the clouds to determine the altitude of the cloud bases. Once the Knights jumped we followed their journey back to the ground by their show smoke. They were followed by A-10 Warthogs, used for ground support. These are not the prettiest aircraft around, but they get the job done. Next up was Aeroshell, a trio of Japanese Zeros that put on quite a show. Many loops and fast passes. Back in the Cold War subhunting aircraft were an important part of coastal defenses. This one did a few passes with its doors open so you could see inside. A Warthog came back with a P-51 Mustang. It was quite a sight seeing these planes together. You weren’t sure who was keeping up with whom. As they pulled out a KC-135 tanker pulled in, followed by a flight of fighters. The tanker flew around with the fueling device hanging out. Imagine hooking up with that in the dark, let alone daylight! A fighter, an F-18 I think, displayed one of the more interesting maneuvers. In the two pictures the plane is not climbing. It is moving forward, nose high, tail down and just fast enough to avoid stalling and falling out of the sky. It was very impressive as he traveled several hundred feet in that position. The next fighter was an F-14 and this guy was moving so fast the best picture was of him coming back over Ohio St. Beach configured for landing. He had to slow down to do that. Notice the tailhook. He got out of the way and a B-52 took over. That overhead shot is just as it looks. Don’t ask me how low he was. So the 1950s workhorse moves on and the B-1 shows up. We got multiple passes with wings extended and wings retracted. My personal favorite is the Harrier, used by the Marines. The only worthwhile shot, and admittedly taken far away, shows this guy hovering. That black stream of smoke under him is the exhaust. I have seen this up close at the Cleveland Air Show and it is very cool to watch, if deafening to listen to. The military took a break and the Red Barons conducted some aerobatics, followed by a single biplane that did some more. This guy was hogging the crowd. On Saturday a guy next to me, who was listening to the aviation channels, said the controllers told the pilot ‘3 minutes’ because the next plane was coming in. On Sunday I watched the lights of the C5 Galaxy materialize out of the haze while this guy still looped around. He lit out of there just in time. Finally, we get the act we are all waiting for, the Thunderbirds. I don’t know what they are flying right now. Perhaps a visitor can tell me. There are two solos; The Solo, and The Opposing Solo. They did the usual high speed passes while the others did group work. I managed to get some decent pictures of the group passes, and of one solo reaching for the sky. The two solos came back and did the mirror pass (one flies upside down, mirroring the other). I actually got a shot of one solo ripping overhead. All of the aircraft, except the Thunderbirds came in and went out via the lakeshore. The Thunderbirds came in via a flight over Chicago and left the same way. I understand North Ave. is the street they follow. Folks in the highrises must have had a spectacular view of that.

Next year, I try getting closer.