|
Space Coast Regional Warbird
Airshow (Tico), Titusville, FL
Seymour-Johnson AFB,
Goldsboro, NC
MCAS Beaufort,
Beaufort, SC
TBM Reunion, Peru, IL
Gathering of Warbirds,
Waukesha, WI Spirit of St.
Louis Airshow, Chesterfield, MO
2019 Airshows
Wings over Wayne Warbird
Photo Review
Warbirds at the Seymour-Johnson AFB, Goldsboro, NC Airshow 2019 -
April 27-28, 2019 - Photos taken
Saturday, April 27, 2019.
This was my second trip to the
Wings over Wayne Airshow at Seymour-Johnson AFB; the first being four
years ago. Wayne in the airshow title refers to the county the
base is in. The airshow is done on a huge ramp belonging to the
916th Refueling Wing. For the show, the Wing's KC-135s are moved
to another location on the base. One of the show's static displays
on the ramp was a KC-46A Pegasus, the next refueling aircraft for the
USAF. The 916th is slated to receive the new KC-46 to replace its
KC-135s. Originally, this was scheduled to be completed by 2020,
but to date the USAF has only accepted two of the new tankers.
Hopefully, the next time I come back to Wings over Wayne I will be able
to see a KC-46 belonging to Seymour-Johnson fly.
The new KC-46A is
one of two now owned by the USAF. Note that the aircraft has no
unit markings on it. It came into the show from McConnell AFB.
P-51D "Swamp Fox" is a normal
visitor to the show. It was parked in the same location in 2016.
Air Force F-35s are becoming more
plentiful. In 2016, there was only one on the ramp. This
year this square of four of them were on display.
Construction of hangar in background will be for the KC-46A's that will
be stationed here.
There was also a square of four
F-15Es from the base with a Spitfire located in the middle of the
display.
The history of the 4th Fighter
Wing based at Seymour-Johnson AFB goes all the way back to the American
Eagle Squadrons that flew for the RAF until the U.S. entered World War
Two. Those three squadrons were then transferred to the 4th
Fighter Group in September1942
This particular Spitfire is a Mark
IX, serial number 7243, built by Vickers. It came over from the
Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, VA.
Also filling up some of the huge
ramp was this B-52H.
Below are just a few photos from
the three and half hours of flying while I was at the show. One of
the issues, from a photography standpoint, was that the crowd faced the
south, with the problem of the sun backlighting many of the photos.
Show time, with an overhead pass
by four F-15Es.
During the landings after the show
opening, there were several missed approaches by the F-15s. I was
in a good location as they turned out right in front of me.
The first act was a warbird with
the T-33 Ace Maker. There was a special media location set-up on a
semi-trailer to the left of airshow center. This appeared to be
for those with media credentials, as there was no advertised photo pit.
Gene Soucy with his AgCat is
always one of my favorites. Lots of noise and smoke while Gene
keeps the aircraft in front of the crowd during the routine.
Tora Tora Tora was at the show for
the third time in a row.
It has been a while since I have
seen Tora, and the P-36 replica to dog fight the replica Zero was new to
me. The last time I saw Tora it was using a P-40 for the American
aircraft. According to the person sitting next to me at the show,
the P-36 was at the 2017 Seymour-Johnson show.
Having an organic aircraft within
the group to play the part of the defending aircraft at Pearl Harbor
makes sense. The group is not dependent on an outside P-40 to make
a full show.
Randy Ball in his Mig-17 did his
normal show of fast, low passes. He doesn't know how to go slow.
This was the first of two
different C-17 demos I would see for the weekend, as there was also one
a MCAS Beaufort the next day.
The C-17 prepares to land as the
F-35A Demo and the Heritage Flight P-51 get ready to take off.
It is almost universal, at all of
the shows I attend that have a Heritage Flight, that the crowd always
claps and cheers as the two aircraft come by. It is a show
favorite.
Before the demo, the F-35 was at the opposite end of the field on the
hot ramp. When it was done, it came down and parked at show left.
This year, the F-35 Demo pilot is Capt. Andrew Olson. Here he is
talking with one of the spectators.
There was very good sized crowd at the show on Saturday. This
shows just a small portion of the persons visiting the show. When
I left the show later in the day, it appeared that every place a vehicle
could be parked, including the golf course across the street from the
ramp, had a vehicle in it. It is always good to see such a large
crowd at the show.
The last act before the U.S. Air Force
Thunderbirds was the Combined Forces Demonstration, which was composed
of the two A-10s, four F-15Es, one KC-135, one C-17 and the U.S. Army
Black Daggers.
The F-15s were popping flares during their
simulated attack on enemy forces. With the big wing of the F-15
blocking the sun from the top, the flare really lit up the underside of
the aircraft when it was expended from the aircraft.
The jumpers from the Army Black Daggers were
not able to do a flag jump at the beginning of the show; but by the time
of the Combined Forces Demo, the winds had died down. Four of the
Black Daggers can be seen exiting the C-17 jump aircraft.
Here a jumper's equipment bag is just
about to touch down.
The demo finished with this fly-by.
Per my normal procedure, an exit of the field
was in order before everyone else decided to leave. It still took
almost an hour to walk back to my truck and exit the base . Only
one lane of traffic was being let out the main gate, so it was slow
going. I am pretty sure that while I was eating dinner in
Florence, SC, 150 miles away, many persons with tired and cranky
children were still stuck in traffic trying to get off base.
Side Trips: Actually,
"Side Trips" is not the proper title for this section, as shown here are
places I visited en-route to the final destination of the airshow at
MCAS Beaufort on Sunday. Without these stops along the way, it
might not make as much sense to travel the distances involved to go
watch airplanes fly. But it is not the destination, but the
journey along the way that makes for a complete trip.
Located in Moundsville, WV Grave
Creek Mounds is an Adena era burial mound that is over 2,000 years old.
It is 60 feet high, 240 feet in diameter, and filled with 60,000 tons of
dirt. This location is only 20 minutes south of I-70 in Wheeling,
WV. Numerous times, I have gone through Wheeling in a hurry to get
somewhere, or to go home after a trip. For this trip, Moundsville
was planned as my first stop.
From the top of the Grave Creek
Mound, the former WV State Penitentiary can be seen across the street.
It has a foreboding and gothic appearance. Like several other
former prisons around the country, it is a historical site, and a
tourist attraction.
The Green Bank Observatory in
Green Bank, WV is located in a valley with mountains surrounding it to
keep earth-generated radio waves from interfering with the radio waves
the Green Bank Telescope is receiving from the universe. By West
Virginia law, cell phones, wireless, and microwaves are not allowed in
the valley. If spurious radio waves are detected, a truck is
dispatched to find the location of the offending problem, so that it can
be removed. This was the one place I really wanted to visit
besides the airshows. Due to the fact that Green Bank is in the
middle of nowhere, much of my trip was planned around a visit here.
No matter what units one uses, it
can be seen that the detected radio waves detected by the Green Bank
Telescope are considerably smaller than a cell phone call.
Why do the radio astronomers
measure in Janskys? Because in 1932 Karl Jansky, while working for
Bell Labs, built an antenna like this one to find where the interference
was coming from during long distance call using high frequency radio
waves. In the process, he discovered radio waves from the
universe. This is a replica of the original antenna he used.
This antenna was a real surprise
for me. When Grote Reber, a radio amateur in Wheaton, IL read
about Jansky's work, he built this radio telescope in his mother's
backyard in 1937. He was the country's first radio astronomer, and
mapped the early radio waves with this original unit. In the early
1960s, Mr. Reber donated the radio telescope to Green Bank and
supervised its installation. His original radios and recording
equipment are in the museum at Green Bank.
The current iteration of Mr.
Reber's radio telescope is the Green Bank Telescope. It is 100
meters in diameter and is the largest steerable radio telescope in the
world. It stands 485 feet tall, weighs 17 million pounds, and its
collecting disk is 2.3 acres in size. This photo was taken from
outside the exclusion zone at Green Bank. For those of us taking
the tour inside the exclusion zone where this and several other smaller
radio telescopes are located, we were not allowed to use our digital
cameras. We had to purchase a disposable film camera. Also,
the only vehicles allowed in the exclusion zone are powered by diesel
engines. Digital cameras and the sparkplugs in gasoline engines
generate too much electrical interference to be allowed so close to the
radio telescopes.
This and the next photo are from
the disposable film camera. Both photos were taken from the same
general location. Note how the antenna has moved about 180 degrees
in the 5-10 minutes the tour was at this location. The 17 million
pounds rides on sixteen steel wheels on a circular track. Four
wheels can be seen at the left corner of the base. Each wheel is
therefore carrying over a million pounds. There is no discernable
noise from the antenna as it was moving.
The AAF Tank Museum in Danville,
VA is one of the two largest privately owned tank and armor collections
in the U.S. This is the center exhibition hall, in what was a
factory. There are bays on either side of it, with more armored
vehicles.
In spite of all of the excellent
armor on display, I think this prop from the 1953 motion picture "War of
the Worlds" is the coolest display in the museum.
This is the main lobby of the
Airborne and Special Operations Museum in downtown Fayetteville, NC.
This should not be confused with the 82nd Airborne Museum, which is
located at nearby Fort Bragg.
One of the many displays inside is
this C-47 that is hanging overhead in the museum. It is just one
of many outstanding displays inside the museum.
|