AirVenture Oshkosh: Celebrating 100 Years of Naval Aviation

 DAY 2 (July 26th) 

Fi Fi on the main road

More military aircrafts flew in every day. The B-29, Fi Fi, came in this afternoon, just before the air show. Everyone was talking about it. One of the volunteers urged us to go to the main road to see her arrival. The place was flooded with people! And, boy, wasn't she a sight sight! Massive, hardy, and beautiful! People crowded around her, cheering. Her pilot waved, and it was like an early 50s movie, as if she just won a war! Many planes'(especially military birds) cockpit were open for visitors to see(for a fee), so is Fi Fi. However, for a popular aircraft like this one, be prepared to wait in line for quite some time.

The Red Tail Mustang flew at the show today. Judy Phelps, also, made a tribute to the Navy on her beautiful silver plane. I love that plane. It gleamed in the sunlight like an angel in the sky and her pilot do flips and rolls in such a graceful way that made everybody sigh with wonder. And then, in honer of Bob Hoover, three pilots try to recreate his amazing stunts. I know little about stunts, but shutting down one of the engines in mid-roll did look terrifying difficult. The Aeroshell Aerobatic Team performs everyday, yet never once did they bore the audience. The Jelly Belly plane, along with the Jelly Belly van, showed how accurately they can control their speed and direction by touching the top of the van with the plane on one wheel first, taxi  on top, and finally landing on top and stopping together. I wondered how they're going to get her off the van at first. but then they showed us. She was such a light plane that she can take off at a speed of 60 mph, and so together they sped up to that speed and off she went!

It's hard to believe how anything else can beat the excitement of the air shows, but the Blue Angels did. I missed them touching down at Air Venture. I did, however, went in time to see one of them preparing for a small practice. To say I felt her engine stating would be much more accurate than to say I heard it. It was like being punched in the heart. Hot air shot out of the double engines, making everything behind it fuzzy. The way she taxied to the runway never suggested how much force she has. She shot off along the runway, like a rocket! The rumbling of her wheels on the concrete tore through the air. And off she went! Kicking up gear(if this is the right way to say it), the deep purring of the engines was joined by the high pitched cheering of the crowd.

I remembered most about the air shows, but AirVenture was more than that. Had I have time, I would have liked to join in on the forums and the night movies. But it was an event so full of surprises that no person, I believe, could have done all that they planed to do. Sometimes something just happen to caught your attention, and, oh! How easy it was to forget what one was doing and stopped to watch! I did it a number of times. And it wasn't just for beautiful birds, for machines and people, too. I shall say more on that, but not here. They belongs to other stories.

TO BE CONTINUED...