Gathering of Mustangs

OhioTC18

New member
I wasn't able to go to the show, but the airport is 5 miles from my house. AND we are in the flight line. I got to see them just as close here at the house as I could have at the show. My computer is in the basement and I could hear them coming and would run upstairs to see them fly over.
 

Doc

Liquid Addiction
Staff member
It's been a while since I was at an air show. The best one I was ever at was at Rickenbacker in Cols. Ohio. What a show the Air Force Thunderbirds put on. And all the old planes that we got to go through. Awesome!
 

waybomb

I'd rather be blown
Anybody seen Strega fly? Holy crap.

That bird was in Mintor Field (I think) for a warbirds show. There was maybe a dozen 51s there. I love hearing those Merlins, but then I heard something completely different. Much more like a race car. And here comes this beautiful 51 with clipped wings, a huge prop, and what had to be a very expensive Merlin from the sounds of it. Man, that thing could go. It just walked all over the rest of the field. That bird has over a million bucks just in wind research and mods. Wow!

I was also fortunate enough to be at the 50th anniversary show at Edwards / Dryden. Was the third car in line at the closed gate before sun-up. Got to see to B1, B2, and the SR71 take off right in front of me. In the early morning light. That was the best show ever.

They did a fly-by of all the current USAF fleet. The F16s had a huge angle of attack to go as slow as the prop planes. Yeager popped the sound barrier that day as well.

Now what was weird. You could walk up to and touch almost any of the planes but the B2, the SR71, and the U2 which you could walk up to, but not close enough to touch. At the time, they were testing the YF22 and YF23 for future purpose and you could walk right up to both. In one of the hangars, they had a demonstration of extracting energy from a pulsing laser. They mounted a laser so it was pointing straight up. On top of it was a conical shaped item, with no moving parts, just a guide wire. The laser pulsed faster and faster, and as it did, the cone rose, all the way up to the roof of the hangar, and that hangar was very tall!

Now here is where it gets weird. The B1 was not accessible. It was parked off to the north, in a cordoned off area, with armed guards. I've always wondered what that was all about.
 
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