Everybody Loves an Airshow

In May 2006, Gillian and I set out to do some shopping and run a few errands. We had been talking about her moving to Fort Worth to continue school and live with me. With that in mind, I thought we'd check out some of the housing opportunities northwest of town where I hoped to relocate. I knew there was an airshow that day at the former Carswell AFB - then Joint Reserve Base, then NAS Carswell - but I had only a nodding acquaintance with the terrain in northwest Fort Worth. To my surprise, we stumbled onto a Loop I-820 on-ramp with a vantage point overlooking the airbase and the airshow in progress. I couldn't pass up the combination of an airshow with no traffic problems so we climbed the curb, parked on the grass, and settled back to watch.

We had a good view of the show, though we were considerably farther from the center of the field was than I was used to.




The surprise came when I realized that a lot goes on during an airshow and not all of it is at mid-field. In the picture above, notice the Blues forming up between the traffic light and the top of the hill. Seconds later, the delta formation, in the two pictures below, came screaming by off my port bow.







This last picture shows our vantage point for the airshow. Note the bird in the left foreground that's not trailing smoke. He's in good position, but he'll never make it to mid-field with the rest of them.

*****

Two years previously, in May 2004, I wrote the following essay.

Everybody Loves an Airshow

I have not gone to an airshow for years, eschewing the traffic, the crowds, and the unrelenting glare of the sunshine without a trace of shade. So the Blue Angels, who had not performed in Atlanta for 18 years, had been off my radar screen for quite awhile when yesterday they surfaced, literally, as I was leaving work headed for the parking lot.

The volume building from the combination roar and bass rumble reached its crescendo at mid-field, diverting me from whatever stray thoughts had occupied my mind enroute to the car. I stopped – stood unmoving with my ears pricked for the slightest hint of what might happen next.

The rising sound tells me something is about to happen, and the volume, amplified by the sounding board buildings backstopping the open area of the parking lot, is not going to let anyone miss it. My attention, now focused directly ahead, is rewarded visually when the northern horizon of Georgia pines and the company wind tunnel spew forth six blue and gold Hornets climbing vertically for the sun in their delta formation then, over the top, they dive for the center of the field – at the last moment splitting up to depart the area on six different compass points.

I watched for a few more minutes on my way to the car as they finished up their arrival area familiarization / practice session for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday shows. That first maneuver got me jazzed, maybe not to the point of joining the crowds for any of the coming shows, but at least to the point of planning the errands on my Friday off so that I might be in the vicinity of Dobbins AFB between 3 and 4 pm.

***

My last task complete, I left Micro-Center about 3:30 with a new USB hub, heading south on Powers Ferry then west on Windy Hill. Up ahead, I barely caught sight of the Diamond bearing down on Dobbins, apparently having decided to sneak in by flying under the carport roof of the local Chevron station. My first thought was that I would probably find a picture of that on the internet in a few days with a complaint by someone of the havoc created by these “reckless Air Force pilots” abusing the trust we taxpayers place in our military. Caught by a stoplight at Hwy 41, I noticed the airshow smoke dissipating in the light winds. Then, "Damn!" I jammed my neck, trying to bury my head between my shoulder blades when the screaming Number Six, turning inbound to the field on his knife edge pass, focused my attention again and reminded me, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

All the way out Windy Hill the car-bound public was treated to brief glimpses of the glossy blue F-18’s jumping from the pinetops on one side of the road to those on the other. When I reached S. Cobb Dive I drew another red light. Dobbins and the show were behind me to the right, though the continual roar of the jets suggested not too far.

It was here that another stray thought intruded. I had read sometime recently that the Latino population of Georgia had increased by 16% in some incredibly short amount of time and, though I certainly haven’t studied the numbers, I assume that the majority of these folks are new arrivals, rather than former Tejanos and Californios. As I sat at the light and looked around at life on the corner of Windy Hill and S. Cobb Drive, I saw Latino pedestrians and drivers and passengers all over, pointing back towards Dobbins and gesticulating like fighter pilots and airshow spectators the world over and thought how incredible it must seem to someone from, say, El Salvador or Honduras to be sitting in traffic or standing on a street corner in America and be treated to such awesome entertainment.

If you can’t get hold of me tomorrow, I’ve probably gone to the airshow.