Warbird Information Exchange

Thunder is LABOR DAY Weekend ( ) next year (Blue Angels), so a full month after Oshkosh. But hopefully there will be some great warbird shows in Thunder Over Michigan's future.

Notice that there is only one MI-24 Hind on there now too and the MI-2 dropped. darn. Fingers crossed that the one shows up and performs. Russian stuff was the main thing I wanted to see this year and only 1 of the 4 is now showing up (didn't count the Mig-17 demo as I have seen it twice this year so far, the other 4 birds I never saw in my life static or flying).

Oh well I will still be there since I already bought airline tickets a few weeks ago. Still plenty of good stuff. Just wish the Robinson lawn dart choppers would have canceled instead of the Russian choppers

Agree - disappointing that now only one Hind and no Mi-2...

Yes, HOPE we still get a performing Hind! The one good thing about Randy Ball's MiG is that it is the unique one of a kind on the air show circuit MiG-17PF, and not the more common MiG-17F he has flown most demos in.

HOPEFULLY everything on the list of consequence shows up and we get good weather. Looking for some nice arrivals on Taxiway Photography Day also!

The TBM Gathering has replaced Thunder on my list of annual airshows. Nothing wrong with the direction that they have taken up there (they need the money for the Hanger Project) but just better Warbird options around. There was a stretch there where it WAS the premier Warbird show in my opinion.

You are right..It is gone..but the e-mail I got last Fri still has the Mi-2 on the list. It was taken of the website a few weeks ago but that e-mail still has it. Wonder if it is a mistake on the website or the e-mail.

Sean

On top of it being a month away from Oshkosh - it is competing with Cleveland on Labor Day Weekend - however, the warbird turnout at Cleveland is minimal, but they will be having the Thunderbirds. It wouldn't require me much vacation time at least since I could do one one day and the next the following day. I would like to do Chino and Oshkosh next year, so I might have to skip Thunder next year due to limited vacation time as I am burning almost all of it this summer being up in Michigan for 2 weeks and wont have enough accumulated next year to do Chino, Thunder and Oshkosh.

Randy flew it at Titusville and MacDill this year. Did Randy used to fly that black mig that used to perform at Thunder about 6-7 years ago?

What I am looking forward to most are a lot of the taxiway day arrivals for static - nice to get a P-3, P-8, C-130 - at least that will fulfill my "heavy" aircraft arrival needs - plus A-10s and some of the others.

Brietling are pretty great to watch. I am not a fan of the L-39 individually but it is a great formation aircraft like the Snowbirds CT-114 Tutor and they do some great formation stuff plus fire off some flares for their finale break (sorry about the spoiler)

Same feeling about the foreign jets acts, nice formation stuff but they have no thunder - I remember the Italian team used to make the rounds quite a bit including Ypsi a couple times that I remember, the thing that set them apart was the use of absolutely vividly colored smoke, red, blue, yellow, white, really pretty.

That Brazilian Team Smoke Squadron is very good too, although they use Turboprop aircraft. I saw them at Dayton a few years ago and were really impressed.

I personally wish we could get more foreign jet teams in the US. I am still a huge fan of the Blue Angels, but I have gotten kind of bored with the Thunderbirds act as their formations have not been as tight in the past few years and even some shows appeared "sloppy" compared to how they used to do things.

This has got to be the most over-analyzed airshow in the world. I chose to make other plans for TOM weekend this year, but I have never gone to Thunder and felt like I've had any reason to be disappointed. They always deliver a great show. Calm down.

_________________
Matt

Matt,

You understand the business and are my new hero!

Cheers,

Tom Walsh.

Additions/cancellations are being announced and discussed in the runup to the show, nothing unusual there and I don't see anyone getting freaked out about it, nor is there any reason not to talk about it.

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I agree...there were 18 pages of posts before Oshkosh this year....just gives us something to talk about.

I agree. The same happens every year with Oshkosh and probably Chino too. Imagine what the Oshkosh thread would look like if the Mars had canceled.

Really if this show is "over analyzed" it is a good thing. It means that it is still very relevant and that people still care. No one is saying "Screw this the Mig-23 isn't coming so I am going to stay home". We are just expressing our disappointment that a rare flying aircraft isn't making it. It isn't Tom or anyone involved in the booking of the show's fault, things happen and we are just sharing our disappointment together (crying over a beer).

Honestly Sun N Fun EVERY year would disappoint me more than Thunder does if I based it on warbird turnout. This years warbird turnout at Sun N Fun was a joke with exception of Texas Raiders. I still go every year. Titusville Airshow, another warbird Airshow I go to has pretty much the same flying and static acts each year but I go. However those two shows are lucky if they get more than a page worth of comments. The fact that we are on page 13 says something. Yes some years at Thunder are better than others. I really enjoyed last years aircraft turnout - first time seeing a flying Mossy, FW190 and a PB4Y. Adding a B-29, Lanc, 2 B-17s, A-26, some new B-25s I hadn't seen made it even better. The only thing I was upset about was the Ecorse Rd situation on Friday, but that had to do with Van Buren Police. Well the ME-262 didn't show up too, but I didn't expect it too that plane "no shows" more than George Jones.

Hopefully they'll lighten up on Ecorse on FRI since no premium jet teams are flying, though who knows, maybe the French team requires the same type of closures.

You are right, pages of comments show relevance and interest, hard to see why anyone [show organizers included] would be upset with that. Everyone here perfectly understands that cancellations, disappointing as they are, are not the fault of anyone, least of all the organizers - They just happen for any number of reasons, and are a simple fact of airshow routine. Always have been, always will be.
They do their level best to bring in the best attractions year after year, and their efforts are greatly appreciated.