Category Archives: Airshows

It was another great day at the airshow – the weather stayed wonderful, the crowd was excited, and somehow it was an even longer day than yesterday. Fourteen hour days with about 90%+ of it on your feet and dashing around isn’t necessarily an old man’s game. Not that I’m old, mind you…

Yesterday I had lots of pictures of our CAF planes participating in the show. Tomorrow I’ll probably have more pictures that are focused on the other planes (and helicopters, and skydivers) in the show. But for today I want to look at the people attending the show. It occurred to me yesterday that while I’m often watching the planes flying (when I’m not working the show and dashing about), everyone else around me is doing the same. But we rarely look at each other.

So today I went looking for people watching the planes and taking their own pictures. In reviewing these photos to pick the ones to include here, I’m finding that I love the idea and will have to do it again at other airshows.

There are a lot of looks of wonder, joy, and amazement out there at an airshow. Everyone’s looking up!

It was a great day at the airshow – a long, long, long day, but a great day nonetheless. The weather was really good, a bit hazy and muggy but only in the low 80s with a nice breeze. (Since last week it was in the mid 90s, this wasn’t bad.) The crowds were good, no one got hurt, no metal got bent, and a good time was had by all.

There were lots of planes, both on the ground and in the sky, but for tonight I’m just going to share the ones the CAF had flying and the star of the show, the Marine Osprey. As you might expect, despite working my little buns off all day, I still managed to take over 900 DSLR pictures, plus video, plus cellphone pictures… You might be seeing airshow pictures for a few days.

Our PT-19. “PT” stands for “Primary Trainer,” which is what this aircraft was used for at the beginning of World War II.

Our Spitfire, “chasing off” a “German attacker”. The attacker is actually a US “Texan” or “SNJ” trainer painted as a German Messerschmidt, and in this case the Spitfire was going a lot faster and actually passed his target, which would have made it the target instead. But let’s assume that before passing the target the Spitfire would have shot it down first.

“Man O’ War,” our P-51 Mustang. Yes, it is going that fast and, YES!!, it is that cool to fly in her. (I can arrange that for a very reasonable fee, actually.)

The belly of our Zero, turning away because someone was “chasing” her.

Our F6F Hellcat. Might have been “chasing” a Zero.

Our F8F Bearcat.

Yeah, they’re still at it. That is the Hellcat chasing the Zero.

The Marine V-22 “Osprey”. Those are freakishly huge propellers and this is a fantastic all-purpose aircraft, although that may not be obvious from this photo. Here it’s passing by at about 180 knots.

Same aircraft, with a slight change in its configuration. Here it’s hovering at about 0 knots. Now we know why it’s got those honkin huge propellers.

Is it a slightly smaller-and-slower-than-average airplane or a monstrously huge helicopter? Yes, yes it is.

It also occurred to me late this afternoon that this, with the exception of the Osprey,  was just about the same lineup we had last year, so the pictures are very similar to the pictures I posted last year. I’m sure I’ll take more pictures tomorrow, but maybe I’ll look for a different “angle.”

“Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.” Attributed often to Groucho Marx, but actually comes from an early AI computer experiment in the 1960’s. As with so many things, the urban myth is so much better than the truth.

Regardless, today time has flown like an arrow. I got wrapped up in surfing job postings and submitting online applications, and all of a sudden noticed that it’s way past my bedtime — with no pearls of wisdom flung out yet today into the blogosphere. (Yeah, it’s a stupid term, but it’s mostly harmless. Given some of the incredibly stupid things going on that are actually killing folks, I can give a pass to ‘blogosphere.’ Sorry, really tired, rambling aimlessly. Will stop now. Really. Now.)

So here are a couple of pictures that I found that look like they’re from an air show, but they’re not. As much as I love going to air shows, these were actually taken in our back yard. A P-51 flew over our house unexpectedly one afternoon many moons ago while I was out taking pictures of the dogs. I don’t recognize the plane (it’s certainly not ours, as in, the one the SoCal CAF flies) but there aren’t a lot of them around to begin with, so it shouldn’t be hard to track down if I really wanted to.

If any of you are in the Los Angeles or Ventura County areas this weekend, I would note for your attention that the annual Wings Over Camarillo airshow will be held tomorrow and Sunday. Gates open at 9:00 with plenty of static displays of big planes, little planes, helicopters, ultralights, private planes, private jets, warbirds —  including those at the SoCal Commemorative Air Force museum where I’ll be working all weekend.

Yesterday we were staging planes all over the place.

Our P-51, with our PT-19 trainer behind it.

Our Hellcat.

One of our SNJ trainers, with our C-46 transport “China Doll” behind it.

Our PBJ (Marine Corps variant of the B-25) which should be flying for next year’s airshow. It’s been in the process of being restored from the ground up for a couple of years now, but is getting close to being ready to fly again.

Flying will run from noon through 4:30 each afternoon, and you’ll see several of our CAF planes being flown by my friends there. The weather’s looking great (77° on Saturday, 76° on Sunday, partly cloudy) so don’t forget your sunscreen. There will be plenty of places to get food and drink, including of course the Beer Garden (also serving margaritas) at the CAF hanger. (It’s a big annual fundraiser for us, as the finance officer, I would love to see you stop by for an adult beverage.) There will be plenty of souvenirs and other items to buy, including of course all of the T-shirts, hats, pins, toys, coffee mugs, decals, bumper stickers, key chains, and so on at the CAF PX. (Get a hat and a T-shirt to wear with style while drinking your adult beverage.) Rumor has it (it’s twue! it’s twue!) that at the CAF hanger you can also purchase rides in a PT-19 trainer, SNJ trainer, or even that P-51! (You can also purchase on online any time. Just sayin’.)

You get the picture. Even if you’re not in the area and can’t get to our airshow this weekend, there’s bound to be one near you this weekend or soon. Go, they’re a ton of fun.

If you get out to Camarillo, stop by and I hope I get to see you.

[Side note — no, your monitor isn’t fading, those pictures are overexposed just a tad. This is because some knucklehead forgot to check the settings on the camera and left it as it had been in manual mode while shooting pictures of the “supermoon” eleven days earlier. Stupid human. On the other hand, I found the effect sort of dreamy and mysterious as opposed to a major screwup. Lemons, meet lemonade!]