| Selfridge
ANGB Airshow 2005 Highlights |
Although I lived in Chicago for four years, I never made the trip across
to Detroit for the biannual airshow at the Selfridge Air National Guard
Base. However, the 2005 airshow with the theme "salute to the
veterans of Vietnam" had such a great collection of aircraft that I not
only made the trip from where I was living in California, but I even missed
the excellent Chino
airshow which happened to be on the same weekend.
This AC-47 "Spooky" gunship was one of the Vietnam war era aircraft at
the Selfridge show. The Spooky was a derivative of the DC-3
airliner and the C-47 Dakota world war two transport plane, armed with
an awesome amount of firepower in the form of multiple gatling guns and
even cannons fired out of the left-hand side of the aircraft as it circled
above its target. This particular aircraft, which I saw once
before at the Oshkosh airshow, doesn't have any armament on display, so
you're not missing out on too much from this view of the right-hand side. |
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| The
AC-47 was part of a simulated rescue mission of a downed pilot in hostile
territory, as was the A-1 Skyraider in the background of this photo with
an OH-6 Cayuse "Loach" helicopter in the air. As far as I know
AC-47s weren't actually used in this role but Skyraiders, with their long
loiter time and massive ordnance capability, certainly were.
It would also be more authentic if a pair of HH-3 "Jolly Green Giant" helicopters
were doing the pilot pickup instead of the Loach, but as far as I know
none of these huge helicopters are currently flying in civilian hands or
indeed in the US military. It was certainly a very nice thing
to see the Cayuse in the air, and a shame not to see more helicopters at
the show, given their importance during the Vietnam conflict. |
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The final member of the rescue team was this Cessna A-37 Dragonfly, complete
with a very nice collection of underwing armament. The A-37
was a development of the T-37 "Tweet" jet trainer which explains why the
A-37 earned the nickname "Tweet with teeth". As well as the
bombload the Dragonfly also had a gatling gun which you can see near the
front of the nose. Again this isn't an aircraft which is often seen
at airshows, though I do have grainy photos of one at the
Warbirds over Wanaka airshow in New Zealand.
Unfortunately at Selfridge the Dragonfly flew at quite a distance from
the crowd, though it did come in very slightly closer on Sunday, when I
took this photo. As you can see the weather on Sunday was a
far cry from the bright blue skies and pleasant temperatures of Saturday,
in fact at about 2PM it started raining and it steadily got heavier, though
by that time I'd already left to catch my flight back to California.
A number of Skyraiders and Dragonflies were captured by the communists
at the end of the Vietnam war, incorporated into their air force and used
against counter-insurgents and even other communist forces such as the
Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. You can see some of these captured
aircraft in communist colors at the
Vietnamese Air Force museum in Hanoi. |
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| Between
the various military acts there were some pretty riveting aerobatic displays
by some of the top names in the business, including Julie Clarke, Sean
D. Tucker and Jim LeRoy. This very photogenic biplane was flown by
Greg Shelton with Ashley Battles as the wing-walker, going through a pretty
hair-raising sequence of climbs, barrel rolls and hammerheads.
Apparently Ashley is a pilot herself, maybe that makes it a bit easier
to put yourself through maneuvers like this. |
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| Although
it's officially an Air National Guard base, Selfridge is pretty much unique
in having all branches of the US military based there. Several
of the local aircraft put on displays, including a very good search and
rescue demonstration by this coast guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter. |
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| A
pair of Selfridge C-130 Hercules transports also did a display, including
this cargo drop. They did this both days, but as you can see
this photo is from a greyed-out Sunday. |
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| A
group of four fully-loaded F-16s took off early each day and disappeared
for a while together with their KC-135 Stratotanker refueller.
They then came back and did passes, peeled off and each did a simulated
missed approach before finally touching down. The Stratotanker
also did a few passes both with wheels up and wheels down.
Of course if it really were landing then this tanker wouldn't have its
refuelling boom extended like this! For tanker fans there was
also a KC-10 Extender on static display; the Extender is a development
of the DC-10 airliner, while the KC-135 shares the same lineage as the
Boeing 707 airliner. |
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| The performances
by the local military aviators was complemented with some outside aircraft.
The incredibly interesting
B-2 Spirit "stealth bomber" made the usual totally uninteresting flat passes
on Saturday, but a much more animated display was put on by this West Coast
demonstration team F-16 Fighting Falcon. Here you can see it
turning' and burnin' during the maximum effort minimum radius afterburner
turn, during which the pilot experiences around 9Gs of force pushing him
into the seat - meaning that he weighs 9 times as much as usual.
The pilot's seat on the F-16 reclines about 30 degrees, which makes it
considerably easier to handle these forces. |
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| After
its solo performance, the F-16 also did a Heritage Flight in formation
with a world war two P-51D Mustang. The only other propeller-driven
fighter at the show was an F8F Bearcat naval fighter, which arrived just
too late for world war two, but was used extensively by the French during
the Indo-China conflict which was later handed over to America and its
allies as the Vietnam war. The Bearcat is smaller than many
of the other aircraft which flew at the show, and it was too far away from
the crowdline to allow any really good photos. |
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| The
runway was an awfully long way from the crowdline, but because the May
temperatures in Michigan aren't too hot there wasn't enough heat haze to
stop me getting this photo of Randy Ball flying Will Ward's Russian designed
and built MiG-17 "Fagot". Randy owns a MiG-17 himself but it
wasn't in good enough shape to fly, so Ward kindly lent him his one!
Randy did a very good display, with steep climbs and banks and he used
the afterburner to good effect a number of times, including on takeoff.
As well as the MiG-17 there was also a Polish MiG-21 "Fishbed" on static
display. |
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An F-100 Super Sabre was also on the list to fly, and this was one of the
aircraft which first attracted me to this show. The Super Sabre
was the first operational American military aircraft to exceed the speed
of sound in level flight and was used extensively during the Vietnam war.
I was amazed to hear that any of them are still flying, but a few weeks
before the show it was removed from the list and so it didn't make an appearance.
However, this F-104 Starfighter did fly, though by the time it got in the
air on Sunday it was already raining - this photograph is from Saturday.
I'd already seen this aircraft fly a few years ago at Indianapolis, and
I managed to get a
poor quality photo of it in a very tight formation with a single seater,
but at Selfridge it put on a solo display. The Starfighter
was designed as a high-speed point defense interceptor rather than a dogfighter,
so the display consisted of fast, wide radius sweeping passes and banking
turns rather than slower more aerobatic maneuvers. It was a
great thing to see, and it's amazing to think that there are several of
these in private hands going around the airshow circuit and preserving
such an interesting piece of history. The Starfighter chews
up quite a bit of fuel and its high landing speed makes it a bit tricky
to handle - the German air force lost about 200 of them in accidents.
The Starfighter saw service in Vietnam, but as I mentioned it was really
designed for high-speed, high-altitude interception of bombers approaching
specific targets, so its range and ability to carry ordnance were rather
limited, and meant that it was not the ideal aircraft for that conflict. |
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This F-4D Phantom II is another high-performance American military aircraft
which is in private hands, in this case the Collings Foundation based in
Texas. They were also hoping to bring a two seat TA-4 Skyhawk
to the show, but in the end it wasn't able to make it because the FAA hadn't
yet approved its maintenance program. The Skyhawk is one of the classic
aircraft of the Vietnam war, operating as ground attack aircraft from navy
carriers, however it's the Phantom which will forever be remembered as
the premier American fixed wing aircraft of the war.
The Phantom is virtually alone in performing equally adeptly with the air
force and the navy, and was also capable both in the ground attack and
pure fighter roles. It was very fast, very maneuverable and
could carry a heavy load of missiles and bombs. The Phantom
remained in service in the US armed services until the first Gulf War where
it operated in the "wild weasel" electronic counter measures role, and
it's still in use by the German and Turkish air forces.
You can see a whole page of air-to-air
photos of the Collings Foundation F-4D Phantom II that I took later
in the year. |
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| The
F-104 and the F-4 were well worth seeing, but this T-33 Shooting Star in
a US Air Force "Thunderbirds" jet display team color scheme turned out
to be one of the highlights of the show for me, partly because I wasn't
aware that it was going to be here, partly because it's such a great looking
color scheme and partly because the owner and pilot, Fowler Carey, came
in close and banked the jet around in several very nicely executed photo
passes and barrel rolls. In spite of the large numbers
which were produced, Shooting Stars aren't often seen at airshows - the
only other time I've seen one flying was at the
2004 Kern County airshow in California, and that one didn't do a display.
However there were actually two T-33s in the air at this year's Selfridge
show - Fowler Carey flew both days and what looked like an Illinois air
national guard aircraft with a "Flying Illini" patch took off on Sunday
after having been on static display on Saturday, probably heading off early
to avoid the coming bad weather. |
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course the highlight for many in the crowd was the display put on by the
US Navy jet display team The Blue Angels, which always takes place as the
last act of the show. The fluffy white clouds and blue skies
on Saturday provided an excellent backdrop to what is always an excellent
display, though by this time in the afternoon it's difficult to take good
photos because the aircraft are strongly backlit. |
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