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Apart from the negative aspects I mentioned above, there are several very
good reasons to mark this airshow on your calendar. The best
reason, of course, is the aircraft that they have flying. This
is a lousy show for afficianados of modern military aircraft, though they
have the odd F-18 Hornet or F-117 Stealth Fighter put in an appearance,
but it's great for lovers of world war two and later warbirds.
A particular specialty of this show is to gather numbers of a particular
aircraft - in 2002 they had six B-25 Mitchell bombers on display, and this
year they managed to get four B-17 Flying Fortresses all together in one
spot at one time. Unfortunately, the only time they flew in formation
was when people weren't around, which seems like a lousy piece of planning
on someone's part.
The 2003 airshow was a real beauty, as you'll see from this highlights
page. There were a large number of rarely seen world war
two aircraft, like a P-38 Lightning, P-39 Airacobra and the only Curtiss
Helldiver in the world which is still flying, as well as the world's only
flyable B-24 Liberator bomber (the Commemorative Air Force's Liberator
is the LB-30 cargo version). Then there was the Canadian Lancaster
bomber, one of only two left flying in the world, and a Russian MiG-17
Fagot cold war jet fighter, complete with afterburner. Many
other aircraft also flew - an F4U Corsair, an F6F Hellcat, P-47 Thunderbolt,
P-51 Mustang, S-2 Tracker, T-6 Texan, T-28 Trojan, T-45 Goshawk, C-47 Dakota,
C-121 Constellation, the B-17s I mentioned earlier and a B-25 Mitchell,
an A-26 Invader and a very intriguing early helicopter called an Enstrom
F28A in a marine corps color scheme.
Although the lighting can be difficult at times because of the sun being
in front of you, planes flying at this airshow do more banking than elsewhere,
making for some wonderful shots of the tops of the aircraft.
In 2002 they were flying along the orange trajectory I've marked on the
map, unfortunately this year they were flying a more west-to-east course.
One of the aircraft which did do a lot of banking this year was the Lancaster
- on Saturday they flew a great display but it was considerably more subdued
on Sunday, and the gossip amongst the photographers was that they'd been
told off by the airshow people, for some unknown reason.
Another great reason to attend is the Yankee Air Museum, which hosts the
airshow. Their hangar, marked in yellow on the map, doesn't
have any complete aircraft in it, but the outside area, shown in purple,
has some great planes: historic jets like a T-33 Shooting Star, an
F-84 Thunderstreak, F-86 Sabre, F-101 Voodoo, F-102 Delta Dagger, and an
F-105 Thunderchief as well as more recently retired planes like an A-7
Corsair II and an F-4 Phantom. When the airshow is on there
are also military vehicles brought along by hobbyists and re-enactors.
Apart from the military equipment on display, you can also shoot photos
from the north side of this outside museum display area, which can allow
you to get better lighting, and you'll also be one of very few people there.
As well as smaller aircraft, the museum has some larger planes, none more
so than the B-52 bomber displayed conspicuously at the entrance to the
display area. Fittingly, there's an example of the aircraft
for which this huge airport was constructed during world war two - a PB4Y
Privateer, the maritime patrol (or "Patrol Bomber", hence the initials)
version of the B-24 Liberator. Unlike the B-24, the PB4Y has
a single vertical tail, and it also has a stretched fuselage to house extra
electronics, as well as blister turrets similar to a Catalina.
During the war, General Motors built the Willow Run airfield and a huge
production line for the manufacture of B-24s and, although slow to get
started, it eventually delivered an enormous number of aircraft.
The final bomber on show is a B-57 Canberra jet bomber, one of the very
few
British aircraft used by the United States after world war two.
Finally, there are several large historic cargo aircraft, like a Douglas
DC-6 and a British four-engined Argosy cargo plane, which is very rarely
seen in the United States - the only other one I know of anywhere is a
very nicely restored one near Blenheim, in New Zealand. You
can tour inside the Willow Run Argosy at no cost, and even go up into the
cockpit. |