Hornet Ball '14: West Coast Hornets do it Better

If you like the FA-18 E/F Super Hornet and FA-18C Hornet you must spend 10 minutes watching this production from "Wingnut" a Hornet jockey himself. Just amazing.

Our Own Air Show Part 4 FA-18 Super Hornet and F-14 Tomcat GO NAVY!

Making a ton of passes and showing some amazing vapor we now have the FA-18 Super Hornet in our Air show. This thing is an absolute beast and is always a crowd favorite. If you like jet noise you will love this video!

Hey whats this? A surprise from a now vintage F-14 Tomcat! This is the LAST full airshow demo that the Tomcat performed and its fabulous. Neither Maverick nor Iceman are piloting.... Today's update brought you a twofer of Navy goodness!

Plenty more to come. keep checking back.

2012 Cleveland Air Show

Time....No matter what that damn clock keeps ticking. No matter how much stuff piles up it never stops and as I know all to well time keeps on going no matter what. I'm still trying to blog. I still think about doing it, but well that damn clock.... I'm determined to post at least once a month. Yeah some months are going to slip by, but i'll do my best to make it up. This month I'll go back a few weeks and give a brief review of the 2012 Cleveland National Air Show.

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!

Goodbye to the F-111 Aardvark

Back in May I blogged about the upcoming final retirement of the last in service General Dynamics F-111 of the RAAF. Well that time has come for the beast some 46 years after the first prototype first flew. I won't rehash everything I wrote back then, but that day is now almost here. On Dec 2, 2010 the F-111 will be retired and for fan's of this massive strike plane its a sad day. These beasts were operated by the US Air Force in a few variants, including long-range strike, and with the EF-111 Raven variant, electronic warfare. In USAF service F-111s participated in the Vietnam War, the US attack on Libya in 1986, and Operation Desert Storm in 1991 against Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. They were retired in 1997 by the USAF and lived another 13 years in the sky in Australia until now. The last former USAF F-111G was retired in 2007 by the RAAF.

As noted in the previous blog these will be replaced by FA-18F's built by Boeing and fitted for various roles until the real replacement for the F-111 arrives in the form of the F-35 JSF. The FA-18's are holding the door open and will do an excellent job in their multi role capacity. In fact the FA-18's have less range and are slower than the F-111 although they are much more efficient to operate and have modern communications equipment which transmits data seamlessly between airborne platforms. Perhaps more than any other deficiency, it is this shortcoming which has pushed the RAAF to retire the type even before its original replacement is ready to be fielded.

But to any airplane or airshow fan the most missed aspect of the F-111 is the dump and burn......

The Clock strikes Midnight For The General Dynamics F-111

The General Dynamics F-111 is a venerable high speed fighter/bomber and as of 2010 is only operated by one country. Australia is now phasing them out and is replacing it with the Boeing FA-18F Super Hornet. The F-111 is famous for its long flame trails while it dumps fuel, but did you ever wonder how it was done? Watch the video from Flightglobal and see how it performs this trick and learn just a bit about why these beasts are being replaced. The RAAF will utilize the FA-18 in a true multi-role way and will be much more aggressive in flying the plane. Much like we use the F-15 in the Air Force. t has always been so cool to see the flame trails from the RAAF at the Surfers Paradise Indycar race and the Formula One Australian Grand Prix, but as they say... All good things must come to an end. It has arrived for the F-111.