It was awesome as usual.... Seriously Cleveland puts on a great air show and amongst enthusiasts it is a don't miss as they always manage to grab more than you expect. This year they had some extras for the Sunday crowd and the Monday crowd. The downside of course is if you want it all you need to go all 3 days plus practice plus fly ins.....You get it. Well the 2 hour drive from central Ohio was not going to allow it although I was in Cleveland on Sunday as well for hockey... In fact had I not won 4 free tickets via a trivia contest on Facebook (Thanks Fox Sports Net Ohio!)I probably would have skipped this year. Friday I was Chief Instructor for a high performance driving school at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course in 93˚ heat. Saturday was recovery from Friday and I was supposed to be the pace car driver for SCCA club races at Mid-Ohio(too tired). Sunday was Hockey in Cleveland and that left Monday and the photos you see below!
A few of the highlight aircraft: FA-18F Super Hornet FA-18 CF-18 F-22 C-130 "Fat Albert" B-17 P-51 F4U-5 T-6 C-31A/Golden Knights Of course there were many more primarily Air Show legends like Sean Tucker, Jane Wicker Wing-walking, and Michael Goulian, but I tend to focus on the Military and former military aircraft on this blog.
I'd also like to point to a great writeup on flying with the US Army Golden Knights that can be found here: http://www.theclevelandsound.com/?p=14002
I took the kids for Monday because I had recovered and it was another opportunity to see the F-22 Raptor make a brief appearance after finishing up at the Ft. Wayne Air Show. It also had a very rare US stop for the Canadian CF-18 which is of course an FA-18 as seen in the Blue Angels squad. We had hot weather but it was mostly sunny with a breeze off the lake and the normal hour and 40 minute drive was stretched out to over 2 hours not due to traffic, but our *friends* at the Ohio State Highway Patrol and their 16 speed traps... The humidity made the vapor trails pretty spectacular and I missed the best one of all off the FA-18F Super Hornet which formed a huge vapor cone while at transonic speed. Even the CF-18 got a big cone which I caught a part of as seen below. Enjoy the photos. I had camera issues and didn't o to well, but I have plans to fix that for next year. With the end of summer its full on hockey time and I'll have so much to blog about. Tons of stuff has happened with that already!
