It's very unusual to see so many Japanese military aircraft at a museum,
and it makes up for the comparative lack of German and British aircraft
(though they do have a Spitfire and Hurricane which can be seen flying
in formation during the show); however, the collection of historic American
warplanes is really superb, with such oddities as this Northrop N9M flying
wing, a one-third scale proof of concept aircraft which led to the development
of Northrop's giant flying wing bombers of the late 1940s, as well as a
YP-59A Airacomet which is being put back into flying condition, a static
P-39 Airacobra, and a static Douglas Skyrocket.
Along with the Japanese aircraft, Chino also has an outstanding collection
of American naval aircraft, including the Grumman "cats" - an F4F Wildcat,
F6F Hellcat, F7F Tigercat, an F8F Bearcat, and even a more recent F-14
Tomcat, which is only now in the process of being retired.
There's also a Grumman F3F "flying barrel", the biplane predecessor of
the Wildcat, along with a Grumman Duck floatplane and an Avenger torpedo
bomber. The Douglas corporation is also represented in this
area with a couple of flyable aircraft - a Dauntless dive bomber and a
Skyraider, the only American propeller-driven aircraft certified to carry
nuclear weapons.
The
organizers certainly put an impressive array of aircraft into the air during
the 2004 airshow: along with the flying wing and the Zero (together
with another authentic Zero, but powered by an American Pratt and Whitney
engine), there was the Spitfire and Hurricane, a Mark XIX Spitfire with
contra-rotating propellers which is of somewhat dubious authenticity but
is very welcome nevertheless, and a couple of British naval fighters -
the trainer version of the Sea Fury, and the world's only airworthy Fairey
Firefly. Naturally most of the American naval aircraft I've
mentioned flew - the Dauntless, Avenger and Corsair going through their
paces together with a pair of Wildcats (which were later jumped by the
Zeros, which were in turn "shot down" by a P-38 Lightning), and all of
the other propeller-driven "cats" - the Hellcat, a pair of Tigercats which
flew formation, and the Bearcat. Air Force planes included
the Lightning, a P-40 Warhawk, the only surviving "razorback" P-47 Thunderbolt
and a pair of P-51D Mustangs, again in formation, along with bombers represented
by the classic B-17 Flying Fortress and a B-25 Mitchell. The
Skyraider did a brilliant show, aided by the layout of the airfield, which
allowed many of the aircraft to do very nice banking photo passes for the
crowd. An F-86 Sabre and a MiG 15 did a simulated dogfight,
and I'll leave it to you to guess who won that! There were
even some modern aircraft on display, with an F-16 Falcon doing an air
force "Heritage Flight" with the Mustangs, and an F-18 Super Hornet doing
the equivalent navy "Legacy Flight" with an F4U Corsair.
You
can see a small selection of these displays on this sampler
page, together with a German Fieseler Storch which wasn't part of the
show proper, but flew circuits immediately afterwards. |