Lincoln Airshow - Guardians of Freedom

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woohoo, the weekend before Reno, It looks awesome airshow, blue angels and FIFI

 

http://www.lincolnairshow.com/performers/blue_angels

 

I have been pencilled in for a ride "Show Me"

 

 

and going to the SASmuseum on Monday

 

http://www.strategicairandspace.com/exhibits/aircraft/

 

 

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woohoo less than 12 days to go!

 

 

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well it was awesome the blue angels can really fly. their precision is so impressive to watch and those F18s can really lay on the juice when they need to. B29 sounded amazing starting and looked really special as it took off. A10 and P38 put on a show along with the P51s.

 

Get to see it all again tomorrow..

 

 

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day 2. wake to the sounds of F16s taking off. the humidity here is seriously uncomfortable.

 

 

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There is something special about starting your day walking along watching a B29 fly by @ 500'. That was a great 2 days, off to the strategic air and space museum to checkout the collection tomorrow and then heading off to Reno. Yesterday they had a B2 fly by, it was impressive, those things just look so sinister.

 

 

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picture dump from the first day

 

http://s880.photobucket.com/albums/ac7/flynow2010/GOF_day1/

 

and the 2nd day

 

http://s880.photobucket.com/albums/ac7/flynow2010/GOF_day2/

 

 

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I will fill you in on a few details leading up to the Airshow. I had originally planned to travel to Lincoln from SF by train, a trip of 2000miles, but on landing in Aukland I got an email from Amtrak telling me that the portion from Salt Lake City was cancelled. That threw my jet lag management into a mess as I only slept about 3 hours whilst trying not too worry/work out how I was going to get from SLC to Lincoln. The obvious solution was too fly but neither SLC or Lincoln have got a lot of things to interest me for another 2 days, so I altered my original plan by taking the train to Denver, and flying from Denver to Lincoln.

 

So anyhow after I landed in SFO, I was feeling burnt out, took me 3 cups of coffee to work out that the BART was the easiest way to get into SF, Why has no one warned me that the coffee was going to be so bad? The next day I decided to take a walk around SF which was fortuitous as it was a long weekend and everywhere I went it was packed with tourists. I ended up walking from Union Square down to the bottom of the Oakland Bay Bridge and around to Fisherman's Wharf and back following the route the cablecars use.

 

That was a big mistake as the hills where ridiculously steep and I buggered up my knees and calf muscles getting back to the hotel. That being said SF is a top tourist attraction, so many things to do and see its unbelievable.

 

So I have flown in 11am Friday morning, hopped on the wrong bus 7am Tuesday morning to catch the train, end up chasing the right bus in a taxi ($10) to catch the train. Get off the train Wednesday morning @ 3am in SLC. There is another thread about flying in SLC and get back on the train Friday morning @ 3am to arrive in Denver @ 6m on Friday night.

 

At 2am on the Wednesday morning in SLC the Amtrak guy comes out and announces the west bound train has been delayed as its hit and killed a pedestrian on the other side of SLC and the police, coroner and morgue have to do their thing. So I am in this train station surrounded by this agitated group of passengers, it was a funny mood as everyone was sympathetic to the train driver and Amtrak staff but annoyed for the delay.

 

So fast forward to the Rocky mountains and about 2pm and the train is stopped in the middle of nowhere and I fall asleep for an hour and wake to find we are 2 hours behind schedule. The rocky mountains are one of the most isolated parts of America, they are huge and the train goes into areas where the train is the only way there, this is good for the scenery but bad for me as I am trying to rebook my flight and I can't get any mobile reception.

 

So thanks to the lying idiot from Super Shuttles, who arrived half an hour late, I ended up missing my flight and sleeping in the Denver airport, I caught the first flight out on Saturday and got there a bit after 12pm. The first thing that I noticed once I got to Lincoln was the 90% humidity, it was hot and sticky. Having come from the Toowoomba winter the heat of the Nebraska summer was unbearable, the heat in SLC was bad but it wasn't as humid as Lincoln. I walked out of the airport and 3 things strike me, first is the 3 grey Kc-135 refueling jets parked by the fence, people sitting in deck chairs in the shade and this huge mass of people about 2 miles away.

 

The airshow was happening on the other side of the airport, I didn't realise it but the Airshow had to stop for RTP. I ended up watching a few planes doing aerobatics and the jetbus doing its thing before heading off to the motel.

 

As I am walking the 1.2 miles to the motel, I hear the B2 long before I realise what it is. Sneaking by, its a weird thing to watch flying as it doesn't look like it can fly. It loiters around for a while looking for all the world like Batman is ready to strike. At this point, all the BS I have gone through, to get there, seems worthwhile.

 

 

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So I am literally "minutes" away from getting to the Guardians of Freedom Air show. All I have to do is dump my bags at the motel and head back to the airport. I wander back the way I came but head to the left where there is the national guard suburb next to the civilian airport entrance. But as I get closer I can see that they have concrete barricades set up on the road to stop suicide bomber and such like, a female AJ walks out of the guard house to greet me. The base was on some sort of alert, she explains that no I can't walk through the base and I have to walk the long way round, 5-7 miles around the other side to get into the show. So off I go, the air is full of 3 Mustangs and a Lightning so I am pretty happy to be walking under them, getting much closer than the crowd are. Those lightnings sound fabulous, they have a distinctive sound due to the turbos and the dual engine setup.

 

About half way there I see this cop car cruise past checking me out. 2 minutes later he pulls me asking what I am doing, pats me down for weapons. Anyhow, he says no I can't walk around the perimeter, so I ask can he call me a taxi or give me a lift. So I explain I have come all the way from Australia to see the Blue Angels and he says jump in and gives me the 3rd degree on the way to the front gate, I tell him I love America but don't care much for the poverty. The cop car was a 10 yr old Jeep Cherokee and it had done a lot of miles, it reminded me how America is decaying. That worked out so well that I asked about calling a taxi at the end of the day and one of the volunteers gave me a lift to the motel. I didn't see a single taxi in Lincoln, those Nebraskans are friendly people.

 

Guardians of Freedom is definitely worth the trip as you get 2 airshows on the same weekend. As a first timer, it was great as you miss a fair bit on the first day and the 2nd day allows you a chance to find all those things you missed.

 

 

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2nd day of the airshow had a better start, I was walking to the airport to pickup my hire car as FIFI was doing 500' passes over the airport as part of her paid ride program. Car hire is the US is cheaper than Aus but they sting you $45 to fill the tank. So when I get to the air show before the flying starts the Announcer keeps asking the owner of the red Monte Carlo to move their illegally parked car. This goes one for 20 minutes before a chopper appears from behind the hangars with a red Monte Carlo in tow. That must have been the start of the show as they dropped it and it ignited a bunch of explosives. The kids loved it and the kid in me thought that the ADF aren't that cool to try something like that.

 

I had noticed that "Show Me" wasn't there on the first day but she was on the 2nd. I found the owners and they explained it blew a gasket on the way there and had to stop for repairs. He explained that they only had 2 seats booked and they needed 5 to break even. At the end of the day I got to crawl over the "Show Me" for some photos, the volunteers explained that USAF paid for their fuel and oil, food, accommodation and a minivan for the 15 minutes they appeared in the show. "Show Me" used 160gallons for the first hour and 140 for every hour after, they flew a 850 mile round trip to be there from Missouri to be there. Volunteering in a CAF is definitely a cool hobby.

 

The saddest thing was watching FIFI at the end of the day getting towed over to the civilian side of Lincoln airport, not sure why but it made me realise that she is a very rare bird.