Show Time!

Yes, I said 5:30 a.m. Steve got up at 5:30, I got up about 5:45, and what's worse is that we may have gotten to bed after 1 a.m., but my mind was too wound up and I could not fall asleep. I didn't look at the clock because I didn't want to know how few hours of sleep I was about to get before a very busy, important-to-me day, but I know it was probably somewhere around 3 hours or less. And here it is at 9 p.m., and I'm still wound up and not sleepy. However, when I finally do crash, it's going to be a good one, I'm sure!

We went out to Kokomo together, arriving just before 7, and I almost caused a golf cart wreck, a Dodge truck wreck and a car wreck as Charlie B., Chuck and Zak, respectively, looked at me then their watches while driving in, freezing in shock and almost hitting solid immovable objects. We spent an hour running signs here, chocks there, getting the planes out and in place, all that fun stuff, and right when 8 a.m. hit I went up to the terminal and found the Young Eagles rides were backed up and needing to get going. I grabbed the Citabria since Trey hadn't made it in yet, and started giving rides to a couple of kids until my replacement arrived. :)

The warbirds started arriving, and I was happy to see each one. We had a T-28, T-34, two T-6s, a P-51, a BT-13, a PT-19, a PV-2, and a C-45. I know that doesn't mean much to most of you, but next year it will be nice to look back and remember who all was there. ;) That's one fighter, six trainers and two bombers, on top of a good amount of local planes and transients, and that's not bad, man!

I was happy to watch things slowly building, hoping that cars started coming in soon, and then the thing happened that made me actually clap and cheer out loud. Someone said "That's the T-34 on downwind" and I looked up in time to see Dave R. come blasting down the runway, smoke on. I have rarely been so happy to see someone and I'm not ashamed to admit it! He had another bigger show he was supposed to do, but he actually missed that one so he could come to us. Dave is the main warbird guy at Oshkosh, the biggest warbird show in the country. He does the briefings at OSH, and other big shows as well including Indianapolis. He had told us he wouldn't know if he could make it today until today, he's been in Rome (yes, Italy), and had this other event. As it got closer and closer to 11, which is our mandatory briefing time, I knew that if he didn't come, I would have to be the lead plane, and I wasn't really looking forward to that one. It's also kind of funny when out of the thus-far participating planes of two bombers, another T6, myself and Nathan, other than Nathan I had the most experience at air shows of any of the others. That's funny, there! But he did come, and he helped us reorganize the warbird show and the pass over downtown Kokomo's festival to make it even better/more efficient, and Steve and I were both very happy to have his help.

The regular briefing then warbird briefings, done by Steve as "Air Boss" (he did a good job!) ended about five or ten minutes after noon, and I had until 12:30 before the air show started. I hadn't had breakfast, I hadn't had hardly any sleep, and I hadn't had lunch either, and I was starting to get that shaky feeling. I wanted to at least get some water and food in me before my first flight, which was racing the dragster, which was the second act of the show, meaning I needed to be ready to go when the show began at 12:30. I couldn't find a ride, so I jogged over to the food line on the other side of the ramp, only to quickly see it was way too long for me to have a shot of getting any food before the show. So I jogged over to Nathan's hangar and snarfed part of someone's Subway sandwich that has been leftover in the fridge for an undetermined amount of time and a bottle of water, threw on my flight suit and boots, then I speed walked all the way back to the opposite site of the field and climbed in the T-6 just as Greg was firing up to start us off with his Chipmonk act. I had a couple of minutes to buckle in and stop and think, listening to the music and watching Greg go, and I felt things settle into place. I fired up the plane, taxied out, took off, flew away from the field while they got the dragster ready, then came down and buzzed the runway and the dragster as he did a burnout towards me, roaring and smoking. I pulled up and away, then circled around until he was pushed back into place and ready to go. Time to "race". I dove down towards him and the runway, and I was still a good half mile out when he took off. I was robbed-didn't have a chance. I didn't even catch up to him until he popped his chute to slow down. Not much of a race, but maybe next year his flag man can time it a little better. Last year he was flagged too slow, and I smoked him. Bad. So I guess this year it was my turn, although I don't eat anybody's dust with any grace. ;)

I came on in and landed, and had about fifteen minutes before the warbird show was to begin. Ty raced a Jeep with his Luscombe, and I took photos of that, the Pitts took off, and that was my cue to get in the plane and get ready again. Everybody's in place, the bombers have started, Nathan's started, and Dave's started, and I go to start, and...ziiiiing. Huh. ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. Huh. Nothing. I feel a brief moment of panic, try a third time. ziiiiiing. I close my eyes, thinking about having to flip on my radio master and tell them that I'm out, and try one more time. Ziiiiiiiing...nothing. I let go of the switch, giving up, and it barks. My hand got back on that switch before the bark had faded, and I hit it again, and cough, cough, roar. Oh, thank heavens. I breathe a great big sigh of relief, and wait for my turn to taxi. I'm #2, so as Dave (Lead) starts to taxi, I add power, and...nothing. It feels like my tailwheel isn't straightening out properly, so I add more power and hit more rudder. Nothing. I'm adding more and more power, and Jon is waving me forward as if to straighten out the tailwheel. Finally I'm not getting much of anywhere so I give it a huge boost of power, and finally I feel things straightened out and break loose and I'm on my way. That was weird, I didn't think I'd gotten my tailwheel into the grass or mud, but I must have, I thought. For the Third Thing In A Row, I line up on the runway, and I hadn't left enough room for Nathan on my right, so I scooted over...but when I did I no longer had an angle view down the runway. Dave took off first, and when his wheels left the ground I was supposed to go. Only problem was, I couldn't SEE Dave or his wheels now, and couldn't easily turn to do so. So I strained to see, then counted to about ten Mississippi, and away I went. Once I got the tail up I could see him again and it was all good. I'm glad I was too busy to think about how so far things were Not going according to plan. ;) We got in the groove, I tried to get set up on spacing, and then we fell into a rhythm, visibility was great, and I relaxed and started having fun. The bombers were doing their thing and I could see them down there below us doing passes. We came in and started doing photo passes, which are fun crank-around turns low to the ground over the crowd. After the first one, when I saw that my spacing was okay and I wasn't going to lose sight of Dave, the rest of those passes all had me grinning. Flying around and through the smoke is just an awesome view, as was seeing the bombers and Dave all in front of me-then Nathan goes blasting up behind and to the side once-nothing like the view of the underbelly of the Mustang as it cranks around you, I'm telling you. Anyway, we did that for awhile, then broke off and went into a hold on the north end of Kokomo, waiting for the time to go over the Haynes-Apperson parade in downtown Kokomo. Dave led the way, popping on his smoke, I was behind him, then Nathan, then the bombers. We were having fun, so we swung around and gave them a second pass too before coming back into Kokomo, doing a low pass down the runway, then coming around for a few more photo passes. Dave got on the radio and said something about "this isn't fun at all, is it" and I got on and said "Says who!" Nathan pops on and says something like "it's a pretty day, I'm flying and people are watching-I'm having fun". The bomber guy got on and said something too. We were supposed to be done, but Dave comes back and says "I've still got some smoke oil left, let's do a few more", and we did.

That was fun. It was another learning experience, a good one even, and we all had a blast. I'm so glad the weather, the planes, the people, so much of it worked out SO well.

The whole airshow was torn down and put away in record speed. We recuperated for awhile in the hangar, I drank about three bottles of water and a Diet Mt. Dew to rehydrate, took Nathan on a 4-wheeler ride around the ramp, chatted some more with the other warbird pilots, and had a really nice afternoon. :)

Two afternotes: One, I found out that my crew chief had forgotten a set of chocks, which is why I couldn't move at first when I tried to taxi out. Mystery solved! Two, Nathan went to take his kids for a ride in the T-6 that evening, and...it wouldn't start. At all. Not even after a whole lot of tries. Nothing but ziiiiiiiiiiiiing. :O Boy do I feel fortunate that it started during the show. The only bummer is that tomorrow morning I'm supposed to give a flight to a Navy veteran over a 4th of July church activity-it was in the paper, and folks are looking forward to it. All I can do is try it tomorrow morning when it's cold and hope and pray it goes and I don't have to fly a Saratoga over their event. *sigh*

We closed up, packed up and headed to Outback for a celebratory "The show is over and was successful!" dinner. :) We gave over 80 Young Eagles (free to kids) airplane rides, had a pretty well-filled ramp, a good amount of visitors, and a beautiful day to have an air show.

Chuck had joked with me about being a Princess and how I should wear a white glove to wave. Nathan had white gloves in his hangar, and Chuck had given me one. When I taxiied back in both times, I waved at Chuck-and everyone else-wearing this bright white glove. Nobody got it but our guys, but that's okay, it was worth it. ;)

I got to run into several people I know. One was a lady whose husband's memorial service Nathan and I flew over two years ago November in the T-6. She made a point last year and this year both to come up and thank us again, and man, what a thing. I got to say hi to the UFO folks I've flown around a few times as they stopped in. A fellow I met on the internet (a pilot message board) from Texas flew his family up here for the show, which is fun. Steve's mom and dad made it out and came to cheer us on. Etc.

It was one of the more fun days we've had in awhile, even if it was a whole lot of work and a bit of indigestion getting to tonight. :)