Wheels & Warbirds Airshow

I had four tickets to the airshow and could not find a single person to go. Mary was enjoying her weekend get away with the girls in Ocean City Maryland and the others I asked had a change in plans. I even posted on all three forums, POA, AOPA, Purple Board for pilots and the Cherokee Chat page. Hmmm, well I guess I'm solo....no pun intended.

The weather was perfect even though some clouds followed me into Millville. I did find an officer where I work that was looking for three tickets so I got up early to drop them off at the police dispatch at work, I hope his family enjoyed the show. I hustled back over to Red Eagle, uncovered 679er and completed my preflight. I helped a ramp neighbor push back his Cessna and we stood around and chit chatted for a short time. I finally climbed aboard 679er and called clear prop!

I was instructed to taxi to runway one hold short at taxiway Kilo. No problem, I completed my run up and made the call to the tower letting them know I was ready to go. I was cleared to back taxi on runway one and cleared for my southeast departure. I responded, repeating the information back to the controller. 679er climbed into the cool air this morning like her hair was on fire. We screamed out at over a thousand feet a minute and I made a quick call to inform the tower that 679er was turning on course to the southeast. It was a nice smooth flight over the twin bridges and over top of New Jersey. I made my call to Millville at fifteen, ten and five miles out to advise of position and intentions. I followed a flight of two RV's that were ahead of me.

I could not park where I wanted today instead I followed the direction of the CAP youth and was marshalled into a nice spot in front of my friends at Big Sky Aviation. I made the rounds saying hello and then went about taking pictures of the aircraft that I was interested in as I strolled along the nice neat lines. The aircraft were grouped how they would fly and with like aircraft. I really like the P-47's and the B-25's and......well if they fly I like em'.

My Camera work is really bad, I forgot my tripod. Try to enjoy the aircraft and the video, if you need something for the motion sickness.....well, your on your own.

Did I mention I had the BEST seat in the house? I decided not to enter the race track area, instead I would ride along with our operations folks. I jumped in with Joe C. and I helped set out the big yellow X's to designate the runway is closed. There is a NOTAM out for the show with a 5000' ceiling and if I remember from this mornings briefing it was a 3 mile radius. As you could see by the video's I was very close to the active runway and show center (which was runway 10-28).

I hope you enjoyed the video's and photo's as much as I did taking them. It was a great day to be around airplanes, the airport, pilots and crew that keep these pieces of our aviation history flying.

A Sample of Joe's Aviation Photo work.