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AIRSHOWS & AIRPLANES
2006 & BEFORE

Red Hot Patty World Champion aerobatic pilot Patty Wagstaff, the "red hot Gypsy" of the sky, tears up the air over Jabara Airport, Wichita, at the Kansas Flight Festival, Summer 2005. Patty's fast-rolling, high-climbing Extra 300 can barely keep up with her energetic thrashing of the joystick as she dances on red and white wings to the song "Red Hot."

(While waiting the few minutes for this great video to download, check out the other pix below. If you get a message saying sound doesn't work, it's your computer -- you can still see the video; click the "close" button, and continue waiting for the video. When it's all downloaded, press the "PLAY" (->) button on your viewer.)

Two Talking Tech


Nationally renowned airshow announcer John 'Hoot' Myers (right, in yellow shirt) thrills the show crowd at Benton Day airfest, near Wichita, with tales of flying locally-built aircraft and vintage warbirds, while "yours truly" fills in the historical and technical details about the aircraft as they fly by.



Twisting
a T-6

And I actually rolled this one through the summer sky! A two-and-a-half-ton, 600-horsepower AT-6 of the North American Top Gun flight school.
(for the story, and better pictures, click here.

McConnell Air Force Base
Open House & Airshow
September, 2006

NOTE: Pilot/photographer colleague S teve A lexander deserves credit for half of these images.
(Pictures highly compressed, so slightly blurred.)

U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, flying Lockheed-Martin F-16 Fighting Falcons, streak by in front of the camera -- these two crossing at an estimated combined closing speed of over 800 miles per hour.

The "T-birds" are regular visitors to Wichita's McConnell Air Force Base, for its biennial "Open House and Airshow," which attracts tens of thousands from throughout Kansas and surrounding states.

Strutting the capabilities of American airpower, the team flys the some of most spectacular and famous routines in modern airshows. After the show, the team signs autographs and visits with the audience.

Vintage warbirds appear, here, too. This World War II Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress, sprouting guns from every orfice, rumbles by, shaking the ground with its four huge engines.

A North American P-51 Mustang, star fighter of World War II, flys tight formation with today's ultimate ground-attack craft, the Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog." Each, in its own time, has been tasked with the dangerous mission of low-altitude ground-attack, and excelled at it.

At untold hundreds of miles per hour, a P-51 Mustang streaks by at rooftop level, full-throttle, giving audiences a close look at (and listen to) World War II's deadliest fighter.
You could feel the engine's thundering in your chest.

Corkscrew-tumbling from the sky, upside-down, a civilian "weekend warrior" pilot of the Air National Guard, in a tiny, civilian stunt plane, shows that Air Guard aviating skills are the equal of any in the U.S. Air Force.

The trio of tall tails — of C-17 transport, E-3 AWACS, and KC-135 Stratotanker flying gas-station — and their associated wings, provide shelter and shade from the wind and sun of a typical Kansas autumn airshow. Some of the giant craft were opened for public viewing, and many more military and civilian planes lined the ramps beside them for over a half-mile.

Spectacular exit, leaping tall (well, sorta tall) buildings in a single bound. Camera angle gives the illusion that this giant McDonnell-Douglas C-17 Globemaster III jumbo transport is doing what it is, in fact, capable of:  a maximum performance climb out of a tight situation. Mind-boggling to see something so huge leap into the sky so quickly and sharply. A grand finish to the show.

Tora! Tora! Tora!: The attack on Pearl Harbor replayed

In a spectacular show at Wichita's McConnell Air Force Base -- using replica Japanese combat planes -- the "Confederate Air Force" "Tora" team re-enacts the surprise attack on Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, that brought the U.S. into World War II. For the epic movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!", about that infamous attack, these aircraft were modified from World War II American trainers, to resemble -- remarkably -- the Japanese Zero fighters, dive bombers and torpedo bombers used in the actual attack.

CHANGING SHAPES OF THE FUTURE

Airshows reveal the evolution of aircraft designs, over decades, as antique trend-setters mix with state-of-the-art technologies. Here are a couple of notables that I've studied close-up, at Wichita airshows.

__________________

1929 Travel Air Mystery Ship

Priceless replica of the sleek 1929 Travel Air Model R Mystery Ship , in a rare airshow appearance, at the Kansas Flight Fest, Jabara Airport, Wichita, 2006.

The original racer was built in secret by Walter Beech's employees Herb Rawdon and Walter Burnham, in an isolated building of Wichita's Travel Air factory, behind painted windows and locked doors, avoiding publicity -- hence the popular nickname "Mystery Ship."

When it was unveiled at the 1929 National Air Races (in Cleveland, Ohio), a million spectators watched the first Mystery Ship become -- at 200 mph -- the first civilian plane ever to outrun the U.S. military's best fighters.

Its superbly efficient "NACA cowling" (streamlining the draggy radial engine), its streamlined "wheel pants" and its clean single wing (most race planes in 1929 were biplanes), were decisive innovations in speed. The startling victory -- and the resulting national outcry -- forced the U.S. military to give up biplanes, and switch to modern monoplanes.

A handful of Mystery Ships dominated air racing for the next few years, flown by Frank Hawks, Jimmy Doolittle, Pancho Barnes and others. This precision replica, flown by Matt Younkin and Kyle Franklin , is the only remaining Mystery Ship flying anywhere.

F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter

Strange angles are protective camoflauge -- electronic camoflauge. Sharp-angled sides, coated with special radar-absorbing paint, prevent enemy radars from getting a direct, clear return of their radar signals, making the Stealth "invisible" to them -- particularly at night, when the F-117 specializes in bombing attacks on critical and heavily-defended targets -- including the radar installations that are searching for it.

B-52 Stratofortress: aging, but active

Over four decades old, the massive, 8-engined, Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is still the world's premier heavy bomber -- still used in every major U.S. bombing campaign. It has also always been a major part of America's "strategic deterrent" (nuclear) arsenal, with nuclear weapons aboard some B-52's even today.   Most B-52's -- including all those currently flying (turbofan-engined, short-tailed B-52H models like this one) -- were built in Wichita, at the Boeing Military Airplane Company ("B-MAC") factory (right; click to enlarge).

One of the biggest factory complexes in America, it started as the Stearman Airplane Company, on the grounds of Wichita's first Municipal Airport -- shared with Cessna Aircraft, and also (for a few years) Mooney Aircraft.

Today, the Boeing factory (now partly owned by the Spirit Division of Onex Corp.), builds the fuselages of Boeing's most popular airliners -- sharing the runways of Wichita's former Municipal Airport with today's McConnell Air Force Base, where the gray B-52 was photographed.

Wichita's new Municipal Airport (Wichita Mid-Continent Airport) is now across town (hosting Cessna's newer factory and relocated headquarters, and Bombardier's Flight Test Center and Learjet Division).

But the original airport's grand old terminal building (left) -- between Boeing and McConnell AFB -- has become an air museum. There, another, older, B 52 stands guard (right), along with various other big Boeings, and many other planes that have formative origins in the Air Capital.

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