Warbird Information Exchange

Take a look at the Thunder Facebook and see how many long time attendees are pissed at the show layout.
There are a lot more who enjoyed it , they like what they like. My favorite shows are "Warbirds over the Beach"
Va. Beach and "WW2 weekend" at Reading Pa.. "Sun- N- Fun" , Lakeland, Fla. is pretty good too.

Here is a vid of the Angels departure around 5pm, all 7 of em

http://s4.photobucket.com/user/Xraywolf ... t.mp4.html

Watched the Lancaster and 4 B-25s depart as well, though they took off the other way [over Ecorse].
Alot of other warbirds left too, most used the runway parallel to Ecorse well out of my viewing range on Tyler.

Left around 6pm, the 2 F-16's from Shaw showed no signs of life. Fifi was still there, as was the JU-252, Fat Albert, KC-135 and a few others.

Good show, I heard on the scanner one of the Mustangs popped a tail wheel taxiing around.

I made it in to the show this year because there were a bunch of planes that I wanted to see such as the FW190 (using the Russian built engine - same as on the AN-2 with the 4 blade props), the Mossy, two B-25s I had never seen, the A-26 I had never seen, and especially the PB4Y. The Bomber flight ruled, too bad Yankee Lady and Warrior couldn't take 30 min off from giving rides and join the other bombers up there though. The P2V had some sort of mechanical problem. I really mainly went for the bomber flight and fortunately the sun came out for that. Glad to see the JU-52 do a couple passes too.

I don't understand the stuff people were saying about water being banned. I didn't see such thing happen yesterday. I just saw signs that said no coolers or alcohol. People were bringing in their own food and water with no problems. I walked in drinking a water bottle right at the gate where they check you and no one said a thing. I was carrying 4 more on me.

Hopefully they keep Ecorse Rd open next year for Friday arrivals day. I was not happy about that. I understand closing it from 1-3pm during the practice times but having it closed still once the Blues landed made no sense to me and kicking us out at 11am also. I hope they go back to the old set up on the north end where we can visit the museum statics like the B-52 and be able to get pictures of the planes doing their knife edge turns when they are doing their counter clockwise passes. The general admission people got shoved down to the south end of the field due to the "Tent Cities" on 3/4 of the ramp on the north end where the pictures were back lit.

I don't think I ever said water was banned. Yes, you can take what you carry. Without coolers or even backpacks though, water gets hot pretty quick and is near useless.
shows, not just TOM of course, have taken advantage of this long ago and treat it as the cash cow that it is. When you can buy a 24 pack of water for $3 and sell them for $5 each, that is quite a profit margin and it has literally tuned into a price gouging racket.
Ironically, in the field over at Tyler where they charged $20 admission [which I considered reasonable and paid], they were handing out free water - But of course, there I had a well stocked cooler anyhow. But it was a nice gesture, refreshing even.

A-26, Privateer, JU-52, Mosquito, FW-190 all types I'd never seen fly before....none of them disappointed.

Bomber and fighter parades were some of the best ever.

Glad to see Viper back.

Very cool to see the two Privateers parked next to one another. Yankee has the mounting for the Erco bow turret complete, except for the fairings, all taken from drawings, measurements and pictures from Pensacola and I believe Galveston.

The weather threatened but never got bad.

Blues were great once again.

The P2V was up on Sat and did some great passes..I should have my pictures processed in the next few days. The -52 never flew on sat. Apparently it didn't get redy in time. Its too bad..that and the privateer were the reasons I went.

That bomber parade was still something amazing to see!!!

Sean

I've been attending the show now for 10 years. This was one of the best yet.











Cheers,
Mike

Very good show this year. The bomber flight was great! Prices are getting very high on everything, but it's no different than going to any other public event, so I guess you just have to deal with it. I'm not a fan of all the tents in the middle. I don't know why they did that, as the bomber/fighter club tickets always sold out anyways. I'm hoping that they go back to the South end being the hot ramp and using the taxiway through the crowd and starting up right in front again, but I have a feeling that is never coming back, since they haven't done it the last three years. No matter, it was still a very good show this year.

As I final, i'd like to send out a BIG thank you to the pilot of CWH's B-25 "Hot Gen"! He was getting it both days and it was beautiful. Looked like he was strafing lagoons in the Pacific.

I thought it was a decent show. I've seen better at TOM. The PV2 Harpoon had an issue with a cylinder on the right engine. I know Dave, the owner of Attu Warrior and we were supposed to go up in it Sunday but alas, it was not to be! Dave and his crew were waiting for today to obtain a borescope to look in the engine and make sure there was no valve issue. I will say that the crowd that was always surrounding Attu Warrior was a pleasant surprise. As we were pulling in to park some guy walked up, handed us an envelope which contained a parking pass as well as 4 VIP wristbands. I guess the guy wasn't able to attend and didn't want them to be wasted. Never did get his name but thanked him repeatedly. I don't mind the price to get in. I'm sure most of us on here know the costs associated with having Warbirds at a show. Fuel, oil, crew accommodations, and whatever other costs are involved. With all this being said I'm sure I'll be in attendance next year.

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A&P/I.A., A.A.S./Aviation Maintenance technology
Warbird salvage/recovery
One day I'll get that P-40!

On Saturday, my almost 87-year old dad attended TOM with me and BK as we made the run up from Knoxville again. Dad lives about 20 miles from Ypsi, so that's a huge convenience. Dad was at the 1952 show at the Detroit-Wayne County Airport when the F-89 shed a wing and crashed almost exactly 63 years ago and took me to my first show in 1969 at Pax River. Anyway, he was thrilled to see a Mosquito for the first time...I remember him talking about Mossies all my life, so it was great to be able to be there with him as he took it all in.

There was a gentleman there that we briefly talked to near the Corsair. He told us that he flew the Hellcat and Corsair off of the Wasp. He also was going to take a ride in a B-25 a bit later. I didn't catch his name, unfortunately. Anyone know who he was?

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JU-52 from Friday

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May all your bent wings be F2G Corsairs!

From Saturday

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May all your bent wings be F2G Corsairs!

Boeing666 - nice meeting you yesterday.

Dave and BK - sorry I missed you guys, I expected to run into you at some point.

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Nice meeting you too Greg.


Some of my unedited shots from Sunday

Here are a few of mine. They have been shrunk so some of the picture quality is gone. I can post full size shots if anybody wants to see them





















You can see the whole album HERE

Sean