'twas a great day, indeed! Sadly, I just missed being in Bill's
Chuckie engine start photo. I was the Fire Guard, and I was standing about 2 feet outside the left edge of the photo
Dean's personal highlights of the day: (in no particular order)
- The departure of the Cavanaugh Flight Museum's awesome Sea Fury T.Mk.20. That R-3350 with those short exhaust stacks sounds simply unbelievable! At idle, it pops and snorts and sounds just like a top fuel dragster. At full takeoff power, that thundering engine sends chills up my spine (on a 95 degree day!)
- The two gorgeous L-39 Albatros jets who made several flights during the day. Their flying was glass-smooth, and their formation work was superb! The L-39 has got to be one of the nicest looking jets around.
- Flying to and from the event with Jim Terry's B-25J
Pacific Prowler cruising just off our left wing tip. What a beautiful sight! This was my very first air-to-air experience. Very cool!
- Being a ham radio operator, I really enjoyed the WW-2 radio setup that some of the guys had operating over near the CAF's really nice hangar. They had a complete TCS set going, powered by original dynamotors. They were listening to the Morse signals on the 40 meter band (7 MHz).
- Getting to tour the radio shack in the CAF DFW Wing's R4D-6S. They have ALL of the original radio gear installed, and it looks really superb!
- Meeting and talking with so many great warbird people!
Obviously we had a number of WIXers in attendance. I got to meet Lynn and Steve (great to meet you guys in person!). Sorry I wasn't able to meet anyone else.
Our official VFM photographer, Art Evans, flew to the show aboard
Pacific Prowler, shooting pics of
Chuckie en route. Likewise, a very nice lady from the B-25 crew (I'm sorry I didn't catch her name) was aboard with us, shooting pics of the Mitchell. I'm looking forward to seeing those shots. I'll try to post some on here once I get hold of them. "Big Dummy" left the house and left his camera bag sitting in the hallway, so he didn't have his camera with him (I apparently had yet another "senior moment"). Maybe some of my cell phone camera pics turned out. Nah...
A big THANKS to the CAF DFW Wing for hosting a great event! I look forward to coming back next year!
Cheers!