Cobb

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October 17, 2004

Miramar Air Show: Part One

I'm into day three of running ther house without the spousal unit. It's too bad but she's out in NYC with her sisters having a good time. This weekend I wanted us all to be together. The reason? Air show.

The Miramar is the last big air show of the year in California. Edwards was cancelled because of Homeland Security concerns, and we completely missed Pt. Mugu. (We were at Cachuma) Vandenberg's show looked relatively pathetic and listed so many security restrictions it didn't seem worth it at all. So Miramar it was.

If you didn't know, Miramar Marine Corps Air Station is the scene for the actual Top Gun training for American fighter pilots. If memory serves me correctly, most start at Patuxent River in Florida and if they're really good, they come to Miramar. I could be wrong about all that, but I wouldn't be the first. My first ever fishing trip was to Lake Miramar and I really couldn't focus on the bass for all the F14s and A4s flying overhead. The place is fairly huge but not quite as far off the beaten path as one would expect. Just a few miles off the 805 split from the 5 north of San Diego, you quickly get into the bush. On the flightline you can see basically off into infinity to the south-southwest as if there were no such thing as San Diego within a thousand miles.

If you've never been to an airshow, it's kind of upscale tailgate party complete with corporate tents, military equipment displays, and of course aircraft doing all kinds of crazy things in the sky (and damned close to the ground). I haven't been to one since I was a kid, or so it seems. There were a lot of things I noticed.

First of all, the crowd was huge. We got there just as the place opened and we had to march a half mile from the parking lot in front of Hanger 6 over to the control tower a couple hangars and ramps east. There were at least a thousand people in front of us and behind us as we finally got down to waiting and talking speed. The kids and I went into our elaborate handgames routine as we do in such situations. We've gotten a little rusty since June at Sea World. But we managed to make enough fun for the 20 minute wait as MPs squeezed everyone through 2 metal detectors.

We set our folding chairs at the West Ramp freebie area three rows from the very front. Nice. The selection of foodstuffs was surprisingly limited considering that they didn't allow people to bring coolers or backpacks in. In fact, the amount of corporate marketing at this airshow was really rather astounding. Pepsi, Dove Bars and some San Diego radio stations dominated. Wells Fargo and KFC had huge custom shooting stages - you know the kind where they give away something free and you sign your life away for the opportunity to be caught in a 'candid' moment consuming their product. So it wasn't tailgate quality in terms of food.

The people were all very civil and orderly, as one would expect from a hundred thousand patriotic Americans of all stripes coming to check out the hardware. And boy was their plenty. As soon as you come through the gates, there's a B1-B sitting right in front of you. Then a C-5 Galaxy you could walk through. A B-52 Stratofortress to the left, and then a couple Air Force transport planes, a C-141 and another smaller one all in very cool grey with black insignia. F9 and I climbed into the cockpit of the 141 which was comfy and modern.

There were a half dozen F14 Tomcats of course, a Predator UAV and a new large stealthy one from Grumann got a lot of attention. A T-32 sat at the end of a row of fighters. Then there were whirlybirds. Probably the most impressive machine to me that sat on the ground, besides the new ATF was this huge ugly Sikorsky CH-53. It truly looks like it's both a huge Rube Goldberg contraption and yet completely designed for function. The rotor assembly is awe inspiring complexity - you keep wondering which parts of it are stressed and how. Well you do if you think like a pseudo-engineer as I often do.

One of the things that impresses me these days about these aircraft and their technology is how small they appear up close. As I crawled inside the bomb bay of a B-52 I kept thinking to myself - this is it? There doesn't seem to be enough space to unleash any destruction at all. These things are just big busses - the technology action is all in the payload. That the B1 has a bigger payload (if not double) just seems obvious. As much maligned as the B1 was, it's actually a gorgeous machine.

But none of that compared to the flyby of the B2 stealth bomber. The B2 is by far the most impressive piece of technology you can imagine. As it approached from the east, it looked simply like a thin black line, a crease in the sky. It couldn't be head until it was 3 seconds away and then as it passed it was thunderous - a whole lot louder than I or anyone expected. On the third or so pass, when it was directly above, its profile is simply menacing. This aircraft has a serious psychological effect. It looks almost unreal, like nothing like that should be in the air and now that you're seeing it for real, something very scary is about to happen. Speaking of scary, I should mention momentarily that on the first day of the show, there was a crash of one of the prop pilots. He later died of his injuries. And though there was plenty of dangerous stuff going on Saturday, there were no mishaps. Well one, but I'll talk about that later.

The sky was overcast with a cieling of about 1500 feet, so when the Patriot flying team sponsored by FRY'S ELECTRONICS came out to perform, it was something of a snoozer. In fact it was downright boring. Everybody has seen barrel rolls done at 300 feet off the deck at 400 knots. BFD. Evidently they had a low altitude show. And these jets weren't even that loud. Plus they blew the second formation flyby. It made Fry's look really stupid. I was beginning to think this whole day was a low-calorie event.

But then they brought out the MiG-17. Now it's no secret that this machine beat the pants off some of our flyers in Vietnam, but I kept it a secret that I loved this plane more than the F-111 and the Starfighter. Mostly because of what even a kid like me was able to hear about their maneuverability. The MiG flew circles around American planes back in the day, and it did a few circles today. Still under a low cieling it made some awesome turns. Still, I was missing the power climbs...

Two highlights of the early show were the jet truck and Sean Tucker's Oracle Challenger. Firstly, the jet truck is so typically American, you'd think OK I get it, three jet engines on a truck, big whoop. Then you see these hundred foot flames shooting out the back and huge clouds of steam he creates, then he pops the afterburner and you get this visceral throbbing. The damned thing does better than 350 mph on the ground. Awesome. It's one of those things that just has to be seen, and yes he raced the MiG down the runway.

I've seen pictures of this red biplane before. My first thought is, 'crass commercialism' - Larry Ellison is at it again. Then Tucker flies the thing, which was apparently built from scratch to be the highest performance biplane ever. Just words, until you see it. OK, I had seen aerobatics before - on many occasions I had watched the legendary Art Scholl do a hammerhead in his Super Chipmunk back in the day, and I never thought I'd see his equal. Sean Tucker is like the Tony Hawk of the sky. He does stuff that just defies the imagination, let alone sensible aerodynamics. 'Pushing the envelope' doesn't describe what he does. He rips the envelope to shreds and burns the pieces with a blowtorch.

He doesn't do a hammerhead, he does a double hammerhead at the end of an outside loop and then does two full barrel rolls coming out of the stall pointing straight at the ground at something like 900 feet and then pulls 9Gs to avoid splatting on the runway. He has a move that he calls Holy Hellfire which is all but impossible to describe. Suffice it to say that he leaves corkscrew smoke trails and the move includes a flat spin somewhere in the middle. He also has a stunt in which he keeps the plane pointing straight in the air without moving for 5 seconds, then he starts going backwards, straight down. The way he tumbles this plane is astounding. I can see why you probably won't be able to find any videos of it online, not that it would do the performance any justice. It's simply mind boggling.

Posted by mbowen at October 17, 2004 07:53 AM

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Comments

Posted by: True_Liberal at October 18, 2004 07:30 AM

Posted by: cobb at October 18, 2004 08:02 AM

Posted by: True_Liberal at October 18, 2004 07:55 PM

Posted by: dlh06 at October 19, 2004 05:48 AM