Since I’m supposed to be packing and getting ready to move next week, I thought it would be a good idea to go waist a day at the Alliance Air Show instead of doing what needed to be done. Glad I went, it was a pretty cool sight to see.
First off, the parking was a pain. Sat on the frontage road for a while before being able to make the turn onto the airport property, then because of the limited parking everyone was directed into the fields that were a little damp from all the rain we had last week. Didn’t see anybody getting stuck but there were quite a few cars covered in mud. And the more cars you have driving in that area, the worse it was going to get. Glad I got their early. Also, parking is $20 per car. Cool if you have a bunch of people going, sucked for me since I was by myself.
So I got parked and used my trusty iPhone and a free parking application that I downloaded in the parking lot to tag using the GPS, exactly where I parked. After the show and walking back to the spot where I thought the car was, I started up the app and it showed me that I still had about 4 more rows to go and was a little further over. Worked like a champ. Is there anything the iPhone can’t do?!? (yes, it wont play flash)
Getting to the gate, notice I said gate and not gates, there was a HUGE line to get in to the air show grounds. It winded back and forth and it was going to take at least 45 min’s to get in so a bunch of us decided to make a break from the line and just storm the gate. Actually we all just waltzed up whistling like nothing was going on and cut in line right at the gate and nobody stopped us. Feel sorry for all those suckers that were standing in line but when the gate is wide enough to fit two cars through at once, why not try to slide on in?
Once in I was greeted by some huge planes.
There were also some older WW2 planes out on the tarmac. I thought they were just for show but some of these actually ended up in the air putting on a pretty good show.
This was the biggest aircraft they had out there. It was huge.
And a few other planes that were there.
And there was even a Thunder Bird there.
I stood in the regular general admission section for a while, but there were just to many people there, and the smart folks brought chairs to sit in. Well I wasn’t one of them so I had to pay $10 to sit in the “Flight Deck”. It was ok though. I was away from the generators of the food vendors and could hear the announcer pretty well since there was a speaker right in front of us. They also gave us a wrist band so that we could come and go as we pleased.
I sat in a chair for a couple of demonstrations then moved up to the grass section of the “Flight Deck” and propped myself up against the fence for some picture taking. Well worth the $10.
Next up were the Blue Angels. Their announcer was pretty good. He gave a description of each trick they were about to do and told us which direction they would be coming from, all while looking into the crowd and never watching the planes, very disciplined.
Blue Angel Pilots
And if you would like to see a few more pics from the show, please visit my Flickr site.
