Yesterday on 9 June, David surprised me with a trip to the California Capital Air Show 2007, at Mather Field, California, just outside Sacramento. I’d never been to an air show before, and really had no idea what to expect, so we gathered up our cameras, water bottle, and sunscreen, and headed out for the day.
The weather in the morning was actually quite nice, even walking across miles of tarmac at the airport. Parking wasn’t even a problem except for the attendants who weren’t paying attention and so cars basically stopped and waited to be told where to go. We paid $10 to park, then went to the “on-line ticket sales” gate and went right into the field.
There were planes everywhere. Big planes, small planes, massive gargantuan planes, helicopters, cops on horses, cops on bikes, cops on motorcycles, men and women in jump suits, men and women in camo (though 99% male to 1% female)…it was a military extravaganza.
We started out by walking through the static plane area, those being ones that weren’t going to fly for the day, but were on display for people to sit in, walk through, or just generally gaze at. We opted for the latter two - I was standing next to a helicopter and the guy in the jumpsuit told me I could sit in it and such, but I’m not a fan of helicopters and confined spaces, so I just took a picture and moved on.
Then we decided it was time to walk through one of the biggest things I’ve ever seen in my life. These military cargo jets are just incredible. The tail is over 5 stories high, and the interior could house a small country. I was pretty amazed at the technology on the inside of the plane - cables and switches and dials running everywhere. We didn’t opt to stand in line to go into the cockpit, since the line went clear out the back of the plane…and again, confined spaces.
So we moved on to the “hobby” aircraft section, to view some of the planes that people had built or restored to their original spitfire-like condition. These were pretty cool, especially the shiny and shimmery chrome. (with the do not touch this plane sign)
But the features of the day were the flying aircraft - the stunt flying that is. Before the military planes took off for a show (which we did not stay for because 4 hours into the day the blue angels still hadn’t done anything except a sound check which revealed a problem with one of the planes), the stunt planes took flight and did some wild and crazy aerial acrobatics for the crowd, including leaving huge smoke trails behind them as they loop-de-looped and such.
It was fun to watch, but I must admit that it got boring after a while, especially when they basically did the same things over and over again. Impressive, yes, and something that I would never do myself…but still, you can only take so many pictures and videos of planes flying in circles before it’s time for a $6 beer. And so…we had two $6 beers :-).
We continued to wander around and discovered kids climbing on fake rock walls, Navy recruiters testing people to see how many pull-ups they could do, and generally a lot of very overweight people shoving deep fried food into their mouths as they yelled into their cell phones telling people they were at the air show. Good for them.
Check here for more pictures from the California Capital Airshow, and here for Part 1 and Part 2 of the air rescue simulation.
Below is a sample video of one of the stunt planes zooming around in loops over the runway.
