Sunday, April 27, 2014

Sunday Sunshine on My Shoulders

With a title like that, you know there's just gotta be a dead musician connection around the corner, huh?

Oldest son texted yesterday, inviting me to the Air Power Expo at NAS/JRB Fort Worth today.

After grabbing some burgers, we got to the show around 1:00.  Apparently, the show was just for normal terrestrially-based aircraft, as this Rebel Alliance Starfleet fighter - complete with R2 unit (that's not a flux capacitor, Mr. Faraday) - had to be left in the parking lot:




Of course, once inside the show perimeter, not all displays were aircraft related.  Apropos to this camper's body style, it has been equipped with 'Freddy' fenders:


In event of foreign invasion, the Air Force is developing stealth hot rods to outrun the Chinese rickshaws:

Okay, it's mainly a recruiting tool for high school campuses...

If the Zombie Apocalypse occurs, I'm getting my .30-30 and my .45, both stoked with Hornady Z-max ammo.  Then I'm going looking for Combat Medic Kev driving one of these, 'cause he knows more about the undead than I do:


BTW, since it was an Airshow, there were also airplanes present.  Here are oldest Son and Fiancée on a Grumman C-1 Trader:


Here's a cool dune buggy - would've been cooler if it was a Sand Car (with a CBM LS2 motor) - this one just had an air-cooled four banger boxer motor - but cool anyway:


Oh, yeah, back to the airplanes - a Curtiss P40 Warhawk:


A Northrop F-5 Tiger II:


And a Douglas DC-3 C-47, with a  B-24 Liberator in the right background.  With thousands of B-24s having been built just a half-mile west of here, as well as Grand Prairie, Tulsa, and Willow Run, MI, the one on display here was born in San Diego.  If you stand on your tip-toes and look over the B-24's tail, you can just see the roof of Todd the Blogger's old house:


I unfortunately didn't get any images of the awesome Mig-17 demonstration.  Closing out the show was the headline act, the Navy's Blue Angels - they didn't disappoint:





Look out for that pole!





In Rev. 22:13, the Lord says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega."  I don't know that the Lord meant that this guy is the Alpha and the Omega, but I wouldn't pick a fight with him:


 And, finally, a Rutan Long-EZ:


Do not fly over Monterey Bay with insufficient fuel.


2 comments:

el chupacabra said...

I know I am in the wrong and I know why but you couldn't melt me down and pour me into a plane Burt Rutan designed - I wouldn't do it over ANY bay.

Know if the P40 is real? Somewhere along the line I read somebody was going to start offering repops but maybe I'm making that up.

an Donalbane said...

I wouldn't say you're wrong on the Rutan - everyone makes their own decisions. I'd fly in the EZ in a heartbeat. Maybe not in a Vari-Eze, and would pass on the BD-5. I like the Quickie-2, which has similar performance to the Long EZ, but about half the range.

The Curtiss is real, operated by the Cavanaugh out of Addison. There is a place in Minnesota specializing in resto's of this type, and I think what you may be thinking of is a guy in Cisco scratch-building Spitfires.