The rain didn't stop it. The CAF air show today was an abbreviated affair, but it was loads of fun nonetheless.
Your humble blogger served as a first time volunteer today assisting with the handicap parking. The day started at 6:30 a.m. with an artery clogging breakfast for the volunteers at the CAF hanger. (Hmmmm, artery cloggers!)
There was a steady but light drizzle early on, and there were periods during which there was no precipitation. But, the low ceiling put a big damper on things. The show was supposed to start at 11:00 am. Then it was Noon. Finally, they announced that they would have the air birds taxi around the runway so that those who had paid to get in could at least see the planes. There was no mention of refunds to ticket holders - the CAF expenses probably varied very little whether the planes flew or not.
So, it was a show without a script. A large window in the weather allowed some of the birds to get airborne, and some of the acrobats got to show their stuff. One attention getting act was the "Masters of Disaster" which consisted of three biplanes, one of which had a jet engine under its belly, and a jet powered Mack truck.
The sky ceiling was too low to see the jet powered biplane perform its best trick, so an imagination helps. A popular biplane act is to fly straight up until the plane stalls out and tumbles over into a nose dive. But, with a jet on the belly, instead of stalling the pilot can fire up the burner and just keep on going. Very impressive, even if it's obscured by the clouds. And, the Mack truck had flames spewing from three places, so it was a fiery affair.
And the bombs! Apparently, a pyro team can't dismantle the stuff once it's set up, so they had to shoot it all off. And, it was quite spectacular to see all of those bombs go off. We got to see lots of flames. It was pyromaniacal!
All in all, it was a good show and a lot of fun. The handicapped parkers got good close-in parking spots, and your humble blogger got a pair of sore feet, a wet head, and some great photos.
Update 10/04/04: Welcome GruntDoc.com visitors. For more pictures of FINA-CAF AIRSHO 2004 see the photos taken by Wallace of Streams at the Saturday show and the Sunday show.
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