Warbird Information Exchange

Jackson, MI http://www.co.jackson.mi.us/airport/

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Steve Turner, USAF aircraft refueler 54+ years ago.

Thanks. How far is that from Willow Run Airport? I live 530 miles from Belleview, MI so other than Thunder Over Michigan in early August I will not be in Michigan otherwise.

Maybe both MiGs can be at a future "Jet oriented" Thunder air show. I know both MiGs have been there in the past, the MiG-17 several times.

It is about 40 minutes west of Willow Run airport just south of the I-94 expressway. If you want to take a look Don will be there on weekends to show you around (with some exceptions). It's at the Foster Aviation hangar aka hangar #201.

It would be nice if the TOM airshow would do an all jet show.

No comment!

Mudge the succinct

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Land of the free because of the brave

ADMIRABLE Restraint, Mudge!

No need to worry, I think an ALL Jet show can never happen. Those of us who love vintage jets will take a "Jet theme" someday (NO L-39's count Please!), and will be satisfied if one year there are something like 12 vintage jets, say 1 F-4, 2 A-4's, 2 F-86's, 1 F-100, 1 FJ-4B Fury, 2 T-33's, 1 T-2, 1 MiG-17's and 1 MiG-21 just to throw out a potential lineup. And add to that another 12 to 20 prop warbirds for a GREAT Thunder Over Michigan someday.....

For now, back to reality and this year........ Looking forward to an excellent warbird show at Willow Run in JUST 5 weeks!

I could live with more vintage jets - like to get some classic (and more modern Migs). I could live without the L-39s, they are a dime a dozen here in Florida.

I would love to see more heavy bombers at Thunder shows - I don't recall seeing a B-26 or A-26 there yet.

Is Thunder getting more modern military stuff for statics this year? I only see 2 choppers so far.

I'm sure many of you guys would have better insight on this than me, but it seems to me that jet acts at most shows are greatly reduced from what they used to be. I guess the obvious reason would be a matter of finance.
F-15/16/18 demo's used to be almost a given at any air show, now they are uncommon. I have been going to shows for 40 years plus, usually 3 to 4 a year, and have seen some fantastic jet shows. London, Ontario in particular used to have a jaw dropping jet lineup, with almost everything in the inventory, including heavy bombers, dozens of fighters, and some European jets, Luftwaffe Phantoms, Brit Tornadoes ect. Many of the actual flying acts, and if you were there for the fly in or the last day when most of them took off for home, you'd be treated practically to another air show. They used to come by and do 2 or 3 passes, sometimes more, before wagging their wings and heading home. Now you'll be lucky if they wag their wings goodbye, much less doing any extra passes.
I went to the Battle Creek show just today, the only jet they had besides the TBirds was an A-10 doing a heritage flight with a mustang. Other than that, it was non stop prop aerobatic acts. Oh yeah, the F-86 was there as well, don't want to cut him short, always a pleasure to see. Even Selfridge, a military base, has had some pretty weak shows as of late, guess its just a sign of the times.
I like the jets, I like the warbirds ,,, Not much going on in MI this year, so I will take what I can get without complaint, and look forward to the show in Ypsi.

I've heard that the military jet performances were dramatically scaled back this year due to financial issues and budget cuts. No F-15 demos at all, and I don't know if the Viper East/West teams are still active either. I can only assume that the A-10s still do shows because they're relatively cheap to operate (that's a blind guess..I don't know for a fact if they're any cheaper than any other military jet.)

I live about a mile east of the Battle Creek airport and probably won't bother with the show, although we may watch the T-birds from the nearby shopping center parking lot (I work the night shift on weekends..depends on whether I can drag my butt out of bed in time.) We did get to see a few passes from the Horsemen last evening from our front porch, including a nice high-speed treetop-level pass right over the house (I was upstairs in the ManCave, and the pair of Merlins blasting over briefly drowned out the air conditioner.)

SN

It would NOT be nice if the TOM airshow would do an all jet show

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Steve Turner, USAF aircraft refueler 54+ years ago.

No Restraint there!

All of the ACC Demo teams have been eliminated except the F-22. That's why you don't see the F-16/A-10/F-15 demo teams anymore. Some of the aircraft still fly on a limited basis for Heritage Flights, but it's down to three passes qualifying as a demo- that's it. I was at the Shaw AFB show, which was where the old F-16 demo team used to be based, and we got a high speed pass, a dirty pass and a photo pass prior to the Heritage Flight. That was it. From talking to the people there, it seems as if the days of demos with tight turns, immelmans, steep pull-ups, etc. are done unless it's the Raptor.

I'm not sure where the Navy stands these days. I know the Hornets and Super Hornets do make appearances, but seems as if they're few and far between. I'm not sure whether they still fly a full demo or not. The USMC still does a Harrier demo as well.

From talking to several people involved with shows, it appears the budget cuts are also killing static displays. Putting together more than 8-10 military aircraft for a static display sounds like it's been a real challenge this year.

As for an all-jet show, I don't think that's going to happen due to cost. If a show could put together that had half of Jim's proposed lineup, I'd be impressed. The Collings F-4, A-4 and F-100, plus an adversary of some sort (MiG-15/17/21) and either an F-86 or T-33 to represent the Korean conflict would be a solid jet lineup. I'd still go if there was a central jet theme, as long as there were props- something I'm sure TOM would be sure to do. Even when the central theme has been WWII, Thunder has always made the effort to have a diverse group of aircraft. Even when they brought in the Collings F-4, they still brought in almost the entire Vintage Wings of Canada fleet.

I really wish I could make Thunder this year. I'd love to see the B-29 and all those P-51s, plus the Thunderbolts and the P-38. I'm sure Mike Luther and the gang will put together a good one to remember. Best of luck with the show and hope everyone going has fun.

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Matt

some things just have no need for restraint

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Steve Turner, USAF aircraft refueler 54+ years ago.

Will Ward often does a Mig-17 demo at Thunder Over Michigan, I think it was 2009 he did the dogfight with the Collings F-4. The Mig-21 is usually just on static display, but last year he took the Mig-21 up for a spin during the Friday arrivals day and did a low pass then came around and landed it. Unfortunately there was a cloud blocking the sun so my pictures came out dark. At 2008 Thunder, he owned a different Mig-21 in Polish colors.

Mudge's evil twin?

A couple reasons you don't see as many jet demos as you used to.

A. Budget cuts as everyone says. There were rumors a while back that Blue Angels and Thunderbirds would be cut also, fortunately that hasn't happened. Navy/Marines are still doing demos with their jets - they had an F-18C full demo and a Harrier demo. I think the Harrier demo has been cut short though. Basically Harrier does a couple distant passes, then goes to show center and hovers with wheels down does a 360 turn, raises wheels does 360 turn and then does a half pass and comes around and lands normal.

B. There are less jet types in the inventory. Think about the 1980s/1990s - still had the F-4, F-15, F-16, A-7, A-10, F-111, F-117. Navy had the F-14, F-18, A-4, (Marine Harrier), A-6, I think A-7 too.

I wouldn't want a jet only show at Thunder. I like the variety but I would like a big gathering of classic jets mixed in with the props. I would love to see some more rare prop types like a B-26, A-26, Tigercat, as well as some classic transport aircraft like C-123s, C-46s, C-121.

but yes at the same time love to see a Coldwar era theme with a mix of whatever we could get from the Cold War era whether Russian/Eastern Europe and American/British/Western Europe. Anything ranging from C-121, C-123, C-54, B-52, C-130, B-1 fly by, Mig-17, Mig-21, Mig-23, Sabre, F-100, F-4, Dehavilland Vampire, AC-47 etc.

As for static displays - I hate to say it this way but they have sucked at most shows since last year. Dayton Airshow last year was the weakest ever show I went to. They used to have one of the best shows. It was the same weekend as Thunder so I did Thunder on Saturday and Dayton on Sunday. Nothing that spectacular went up and then the weather went to crap right as T-birds went up. The static display was weakest I have ever seen there. The only things cool was the Super Guppy, desert painted F-16s and C-135 Open Skies. The ramp was only half full.

I also went to MacDill Air Show in Tampa. In 2010 they had a great static display, but the ramp was only 1/4 full hardly anything showed up. The day before I went to Jacksonville NAS, they had a great air show despite the weather being terrible with an F-16, F-4 and a couple P-51s. In fact they had 2 QF-4s there flying, an A-4, A-10, and F-16 demo as well as a P-3 in blue centenial color demo. Static display was kinda weak, only about 4-5 of the special Navy centenial color planes showed up and the ramp was half empty too where they had to fill it by towing planes in from their static park.