Recruiting Duty

 When last we spoke, I had developed a diabolical plan to entice my plumber to rearrange his priorities to move my projects higher up in the list.  To this end, and the part that made it diabolical, I had intended to use his 5 year old son to influence his Dad.

Unlike most of my diabolical yet cunning plans, this one went off without a hitch.  In researching my subterfuge, I had come across a great website with a plethora of aviation related information including airshows and their schedules for the foreseeable future. Turns out there was one in a small town quite near us.  

So...I bent young Liam's ear about how AWESOME it would be to go to an Airshow and watch airplanes fly.  Liam, being 5, was a very hard sell on the idea.

OK, Not!

The following day, the plumber calls and asks if tomorrow will be ok for him to come and fix plumbing related issues.

VICTORY! 

So, Saturday we drive up to Burnet (BURN' it) Texas for the 29th (somewhat...this show was a reschedule of the 2020 show) annual Bluebonnet Air Show.

After getting our wristbands (there is an entry fee) we stopped by the Air Force booth.  (The Navy, Army and Marines were not interested in influencing young minds I guess as they were not represented by folks in uniform,  Although there were quite a few Old F*rts wearing various ball caps.)

One young Staff Sergeant (very young, he might have been two when I retired...maybe) offered Liam a chance to sit in an F-22.  He leapt at the chance.

We continued our stroll around the airfield when Liam encountered a nefarious type.

Yes that is an Air Force Lanyard Liam's wearing.

At that point, he caught sight of an actual Airplane.  I told him it wasn't really a Jet because it couldn't go supersonic and that's why airliners and A-10's aren't REALLY Jets.  He said that made sense.  

But, being the "Give a fella a chance" kinda guy I am, we walked over to the A-10.  I talked to the crew chief for a bit and in the process, asked him when the A-10 had gone back to a jungle camouflage paint scheme.  He said that this was the demo aircraft and was paying honor to the 355 TFW by painting it in the Vietnam Era F-105 paint scheme.  (The USAF A-10  Demo Team is part of the 355TFW based at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson. the 335 TFW had flown F-105D's at Takhli and is mentioned in Raz's book).  The Crew Chief said I'd understand a bit better if I took a look at the right side of the nose.  

There were several names their that I recognized and one Mrs J and I knew personally,  Left column of POW names, third down, was the Air Division Commander at Kadena when I was there flying the Eagle.  He was then BG Browning (or as I liked to refer to him..."Sir") and Mrs J was his Exec.

Shortly, after thanking the Crew Chief for pointing me to this, we were shushed off the flight line as the air show was about to start.

Needless to say, I took a boatload of pictures with my phone, none of which turned out to be very good, but the airshow itself was fabulous.  Most of my airshow experience has revolved around open houses at various bases where the flying part of the Air Show was the Thunderbirds or the Blue Angels.

Those are definitely cool airshows, but the flying part is generally over in about a half hour.  Flying started here at noon and went on nearly continuously for 3 hours.  Hosted by the Commemorative Air Force (Confederate Air Force no longer being PC), one of the first aircraft flown was a C-47 outfitted in WWII D-Day paint scheme.  It took a team of parachutists aloft and they jumped carrying a very large American Flag while the National Anthem played.

Damn! I loved that.  Most of the folks around me were singing along.  Made my heart glad, yes it did. Maybe, just maybe, there's still hope.

After the anthem, the MC described the significance of the C-47's during WWII in Europe and why they were marked up for D-Day.  He also described that this particular aircraft's role iwas to take part in the Night Parachute drop from 800 C-47's of some 13,000 GI's in the operation.

As the Lead Aircraft!  I felt a need to go and touch it later in the day.

About this time, I realized that taking pictures with a cell phone wasn't going to be all that "Special", so I started taking movies. 

They had At-6s flying formation.  That was cool, but they practice right over my house, just not as low.

They had a display of Forward Air Control (FAC) tactics with two O-1 Bird Dogs (painted up as L-19s).  They were accompanied by an O-2 painted in the paint scheme of  Night FAC from Vietnam. This portion of the show was accompanied by some pyrotechnics which had Liam jumping up and down, and me looking the wrong way each time they went off.  Since they went off with a bang and flames, my first thought started with "Oh, No...." 

Fortunately, all was well.

The afternoon went on and other aircraft performed.  There was a B-25 that flew over at the altitude the Doolittle raiders dropped from,  I knew they were low, but not THAT low.  the Pyrotechnics accompanying it were impressive also.  Again, the narrator did an excellent job of explaining the historic significance of the raid, it's effect on morale of both American and Japanese populace and the fact that while only 3 members of the raid died, all the planes were lost.

I had been taking movies for a while now.

Finally, there's one last performance before the A-10 demo. It's a performance by a former Air Force guy, who flies airliners now and, therefore, can afford his own aircraft, a Chinese Nanchang CJ-6.

Another interesting aspect of this airshow vs the one's I'd seen in the military, was there was a lot more low flying.  This shot is of the CJ-6 in the second half of a Cuban eight. (A Cuban Eight is a maneuver that looks like a figure 8 but rotated 90 degrees. ) He performed this maneuver over the airport which means, the crowd is on this side and the trees are on the other side.  The trees might have been 30' high.  

As I said it was a very exciting air show.  If you get a chance next year, you should attend.  Let me know and I'll go with you.

Unfortunately, because I'd taken so many videos (none of which turned out worth a darn), my battery died and I was unable to take video of the A-10 demo.  Suffice it to say, I'd flown with and against A-10s, but viewing the capabilities from the ground gave me a new respect for its maneuvering capabilities.  Having watched actual ground attacks while acting as a range officer on the gunnery range, there were several times I would have told the pilot to abort had this been demo'd with an F-4, too close and too low.  

Very impressive. 

That was the finale, so we loaded back up and headed home.  Liam's last words to me before he fell asleep in the back seat were "That was cool....I want to fly A-10's", 

Mission Accomplished! Now to find an F-22 Air Show!