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Holy cow... that shot of the black T-6 brings back some memories! If you look behind it, you'll notice a banner on the fence that reads "Internet" and a blue tarp on the left side. I don't remember the exact year but it was around 1997 or 98 I think. I was working for an ISP and web provider in Melbourne at the time, and we had the bright idea to do a bit of corporate promotion to the airplane community by "webcasting" the airshow using a video camera and cellphone link at 2400 baud (we could post about a picture every 30 seconds)... this was primitive by today's standards but for the time, before you could buy products intended for use as webcams, it way cool! a tarp Anyway, we set up a tarp along the flightline fence, put our table underneath, put out our brochures and equipment, and started taking the pictures. All was going well... UNTIL...
Well, in the photo, you can see the relationship between our "tent" and the T-6 flightline. It got to be 12:30 and all of a sudden, we heard a chorus of pilots yelling "CLEAR PROP!" and the props started turning... and then came the ohnosecond (that sudden moment when "Oh NO" goes through your thoughts, but you're not able to act quickly enough to stop it!). Tables, papers, computers, hats, electronics, tablecloths, bottled water, and more "stuff" started flying! A mad dash to throw our bodies across the table in a bizarre version of propwash twister had little effect on preserving our display... or our dignity... against the massive propwash of three or four T-6's all of 30 feet away. Stuff flew everywhere, including the full-sized VHS video camera mounted on a tripod. The boss wasn't *too* mad that the viewfinder snapped off, and we managed to salvage things a bit as the camera actually kept working despite the inability to aim it. But it took about 20 minutes to run down all the papers and get things set up again!
We didn't get any sales from our effort, but at least we did get to see the show for free.
Thanks for the memory... too bad someone didn't get a video of our situation, I'm sure it would have won some cash on AFV! Not the craziest thing that ever happened while working at an airshow, but definitely one of the funniest.
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