I'll start with the weekend negative so I can finish on the positive.
Sunday, I trucked some 75+ miles down to Salinas in order to catch the California International Airshow (CIA). The plan was a simple, and good one: see a cool airshow, including both the Snowbirds and the Blue Angels. After seeing the Thunderbirds earlier this year. The triumverate would be complete. I would have seen all three state-sponsored aerobatic teams from North America, and I would even have had a chance to compare them. I park myself in front of stage centre -- in front of me are two A-10s facing right at me. To my right, the Blue Angels are lined up. To my left, the 11 CT-114s of the Snowbirds are arrayed in their usual precision. Mmmmm.
As I sit in the grey morning at Salinas airport, being quite cold as I failed to bring a jacket, the show starts late with some low-flying stuff -- including two very cool acts. The first being a 3-helicopter aerobatic demonstration team. Very fun to watch, as they did a few formations and some crossing acts that used the unique flight caracteristics of a helicopter. One pilot even demonstrated a dead stick landing onto the field from a mere 600 feet of altitude, landing right between his two teammates (who had landed to form a target zone). Wow. The other nifty show was a couple of comedy routines from a 1942 Interstate Cadet plane that was the most bleeding maneuverable plane I have ever seen, landing atop an RV in motion, doing these crazy maneuvers you swear can only be done if the plane was a toy being handled by a three year old, and later even playing glider with astounding precision. The two solo aerobatic champions were top form as usual as well.
Cue to just past lunch. The clouds break in a chorus of light, the sun warms me up. The Snowbirds taxi, take off, and fly a few passes to warm up. I'm psyched. I'm ready. I laugh.
Bad move.
1200' cloud layer. Rolls right in. Parks right over the flight zone. Stays put. "We have a high show, a flat show and a low show. I'm afraid we can't do either one of those today." says Snowbird #1 over the intercom. 1200' -- not like we could have seen them. Excuse the american: FUCK!
They do a triplet of slow passes in formation, and later on land. The show kind of goes on, but no one can really do much else. I leave early in disgust. No Snowbirds. No Blue Angels (I may have seen their planes in person, but still not seen them in flight). And, as you recall, the Thunderbirds show earlier in the year was botched in all their "we have an entire C5 galaxy following us around for support" glory.
-sigh-
Still. There was some things I was happy to see. Speaking to an RCAF pilot in a modified Dash-8 Navigator Trainer in french was cool. And what little I did see of the Snowbirds gave me chills -- especially seeing their ritual as they walked down the tarmac, saluting to their techs, mounting into the plane, the voice-check, the cockpit closure and roll-out, the 3-abreast formation takeoff. All shiver material. And just seeing them fly in formation is always a fantastically beautiful sight in their impeccable precision and wing overlap. The Snowbirds are beautiful no matter what they do.
Perhaps because of that I don't mind the 16 bucks I paid to get into the show, even if I didn't see much show. The wasted gas and the 10 bucks for freakin parking I do mind a lot, though.
Hote you, universe. So much for my triumverate. And the amazingly lousy traffic on the way home gave me plenty of time to stew about it.
Posted by kannik at October 4, 2004 09:15 PM in Daily