Warbird Information Exchange

I don't have much of an issue with what the guys are saying mostly, but is it necessary for them to talk (yell) CONSTANTLY? I mean last week, a blind guy could have followed the aerobatic routine! Announcing is fine, but lets have a little quiet time too, to hear the planes and to hear the music and to just absorb what's going on.

RTFP is a riff on RTFM, the mantra of computer tech support people who have to answer questions that would not be asked if users would only Read The Fantastic Manual. P stands for Program (which not everyone buys, and which is not always printed correctly).

The PoF East (Bob Pond's collection) annual Memorial Day "air display" (it wasn't an airshow, since we never were able to get a waiver or close the field) was narrated by a dedicated volunteer named Tom. Tom was (is) a history teacher at a local college, and has probably forgotten more about WW2 aircraft than I'll ever learn. In addition, he had a voice absolutely made for radio or voice-over. And he knew when to say, "Now listen to this..." and let the engines do the talking.

Ive used various background music from military movies including Battle Of Britain, Where Eagles Dare as well as some 1940s Big Band. After all of the the acro/rock music acts before the P-51 the announcers actually matched their commentary pace to the music which was a great fit.

Best segment I ever did was with some of the tracks from Empire Of The Sun...used Cadillac Of The Skies with Suo Gan while it was making its last pass and landing.

I had a lot of people comment very favorably on that mix...got the audience to slow down and think for a bit.

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Rauhbatz
Commemorative Air Force
CAF Ohio Wing/Airbase Georgia Member
PT-19/26, T-34 CAF Pilot


Favorite quote from Wind, Sand & Stars - A. St. Exupuery "friends are like trees...when they are gone we miss their shade"

i remember those days well. wish they hadn't ended

I thought it might have been related to RTFM but I just couldnt put "Program" together, so I thought, similarly, fine print (As in what's the program.)

Thanks for the clearing up.

As far as announcers, I've heard good ones, and I've heard bad ones. The good ones say what's pertinent, and adda bit of drama if they can. The bad ones, IMHO, are the ones who have to talk to fill in dead time. IF the planes are flying, and they have laid out the basics for the public, they can comment on maneuvers as necessary, but they DONT have to be talking the ENTIRE time.

Also, if some of them would just turn the music down a bit, that would help. More often than not the music is too loud for the speakers and its just a distorted loud irritating noise that drowns out everything. Fix that, and the world would be a better place.

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Kevin Kearney
Vice President
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation


C-54D "Spirit of Freedom" 43-17228
C-97 "Angel of Deliverance" 52-2718 (painted as YC-97A 45-59595)
C-54E/R5D-4 "Spirit of Freedom" 44-9144 BuNo 90414 (wfu April/2020)
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org

I couldn't agree with you more, Tom still does most of the local events, and when I head to a show elsewhere it just doesn't sound right.

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Dan Johnson

I agree with Kyleb and how much static do we need to hear from the pilot the cockpit as he / she does the manoever, I found the OSH announcing ...... well, painful to listen to this year.

"What bothers me more is the fact that so many of the cookie-cutter acro routines are, well, so cookie cutter in their music/announcing. At Oshkosh this year, I heard "I'm proud to be an American" played for 3 different acts, all in the space of one hour. Same with the same few tired songs most acro acts use (you know... the Top Gun theme, Aerosmith's "Livin' on the Edge", Van Halen's "Higher and Higher"... and so on.) A certain well-known monoplane acro pilot's act today (he's not a bad guy or anything so I won't name him here) began by playing the exact same tired rock song that the previous act concluded with, as did the pilot two acts prior to that, before the sound track became little more than a (very sleazy-sounding) cheeseball ad campaign for his engine manufacturer and major sponsor. Far from being a harmonious combination of aerobatics and music, this act (like many others) seemed to be little more than a kluged-together audio-visual MESS to appease a sponsor that just wanted to hear their name over and over and over again. Sadly, this is a "top shelf" performer, whom EVERY airshow-interested person on earth would recognize by name, aircraft, and color scheme."

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It may be my mind and time embellishing the situation, but I recall a routine at Abbottsford in 1982 or so. Bud Granley was flying the P-51 Miss America, and he was flying to the theme song from Chariots of Fire"...no lyrics, no screaming guitar, no smoke or pyrotechnics, and (this is the part that my mind falters on, so it may be wrong)...no narration. Just Bud cutting holes through the sky in a red, white, and blue Mustang.

The simplicity and gracefullness of it all gives me chills just thinking about it today.

But the timeliness of this thread is good, as I watched the Blue Angels perform for three straight days this last weekend, and every day cursed under my breath for that 'god-dammed rock and roll' that they blared out over the PA system as part of the show. I'm sure the people I was with and around got tired of me muttering about the 'good old days' when it was fun to watch. Just shut up and let me watch the pretty planes fly, will you?

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Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline......

What irks me about the Blue Angels/Thunderbirds routine is not only the music, but the "over the top" screaming of the narrator. Yeah...yeah...I know...that's what he's paid to do but doesn't make it any less irritating.
I don't much care for the kerosene burner acts to begin with so maybe it's just me.

Mudge the purist

ps. The FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT Albert routine is way lame.

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Land of the free because of the brave

I hate the blaring music. I just want to hear the airplanes.

I don't mind the big band music. That's great. But it doesn't need to be blaring.

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Sure, Charles Lindbergh flew the plane... but Tom Rutledge built the engine!

Visit Django Studios online or Facebook!

Slightly OT I know, but I was watching a snippet of an Austrian (I think!) airshow at a lake somewhere. The Red Bull aircraft were there in force, as was that Dornier Do.24 turboprop. When a T-28 was doing its routine, the narrator said it was a T-28 Trojan, a World War 2 fighter with a proven track record!!! Help!!!

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If the first casualty of war is innocence, the second is sobriety - Hawkeye.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato.
Lies get halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to get it's pants on - Churchill
If you are going through he11 - keep going - Churchill

This was the best music I've ever heard at an air show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24boaim_ ... age&fmt=18

perfect for a Yak!

My favorite announcers are Steve Stavrakakis and Gordon Bowman-Jones

Evan

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http://evanflys.com

Da, tovarisch! I was waiting to hear Sean Connery say, "Let them sing!"

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that less is more when it comes to announcing, but you've got to remember, not everyone that comes to an air show knows a lick about airplanes. For instance, a woman and her young son were over by the Timeless Voices tent out in the Warbirds area of the AirVenture grounds just last week, and one of the Avengers had its wings folded. The boy asked his mother if that airplane could fly, and she said, "Of course not! Can't you see that the wings are broken?"

A good announcer should be able to not only inform the crowd about what they are seeing, but entertain them as well. Those of us that know something about the airplanes are just going to have to suck it up and put up with the cheesy music, overused pyro, etc. etc. If it was just aviation nuts like us at the airshows, most shows wouldn't be able to survive financially. The "unwashed" public pays most of the bills...

Just my measley $0.02.

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Volunteer Coordinator/Curator - Military Aviation Museum - Virginia Beach, VA
"America's Flying Museum"
http://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org

Saved me a lot of typing right there.

Man, this thread has reminded me how long it's been since I involved myself in a real airshow crowd, and why. Bad announcers are nothing. What I cannot and will not tolerate is blaring crap-for-music pounding me into the tarmac over crappy open-air PA systems. Head-banger tunes are fine as long as it's your head you're banging and not mine, thankyouverymuch. How in the H-E-double-L did that ess-aiytch-eye-tee ever become acceptable?

We really ought to stop giving the marketers such perfectly free rein, I'm thinking, and start standing up for the erstwhile pure and sweet beauty that is flying.