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1. 09:06 AM - Wings Over Houston and F-4 Phantom (Brian Whittingham)
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| Subject: | Wings Over Houston and F-4 Phantom |
Well my trip to the WOH '07 Airshow was a wash. I meant that as a pun. The airshow
was put on hold several times due to rain. A KC-135 soon became my best
friend and a plastic bag improvised to keep my camera dry. I did get a chance
to see a light sport that a local flight school is training in, the Tecnam Sierra.
Interesting little plane. Didn't get to talk to the folks much as there
was a lot of interest around the booth.
I kind of felt slighted as there were a lot of performers that were a no show for
the event. There was supposed to be both airworthy civilian owned F-4's at
the show, including an Air Force Heritage flight by one of them, but one was
ano show. There was two F-4D's there though, one is a roller only, and don't
know who owns it or the plans for it, but appeared to have engines in place.
The other is the Colling's Foundation. No flying during the show unfortunately.
The impressive thing about the airshow here is the NASA displays. This year
there was the new C-9 "Vomit Comet" weightless trainers (NASA 932), the Super
Guppy (NASA 941), a NASA T-38 (NASA 909), and F-18 (NASA 850). Additionally
were supposed to be a G III Shuttle Trainer, a NASA U2R, and NASA WB-57. (that
WB-57 looks like a dinosaur!) All kinds of warbirds from pre-WWII, Korea,
Vietnam, Cold War, and the Gulf Wars. Some interesting things were an F-117
Stealth fighter, all of which will be retired in 2008, a Marine Corp F-16, yes
that's right, Marine F-16 agressor plane at Top Gun. There was a heritage paint
job on an F-16 for commemorating the Air Force anniversary which was in pre
WWII Army Air Corp blue and yellow colors with red star. B-25, freshly repainted
in Doolittle Raiders colors, B-24 "Ole 927" repainted and restored to A
model specs, a B-17, an A-26, spitfire, P-51's, Corsairs, A-1 Spad, O-2's, Hellcats,
SB2C Helldiver (only one in the world flying), and much more. One interesting
thing was the unusually high number of Russian warbirds there. Some
other fun jets such as a TA-4J Skyhawk, L-29's, L-39's, Strikemaster jet, Tutor
Jet, T-45's, T-2, T-1, lots of T-38's. So, all together a good time, but no
good pics of an F-4 in the air which kind of sucks. Also neither the Air Force
or Navy heritage flights were flown. I did get to see an amazing F-18E Super
Hornet demo. Plane came in one side at better than 700mph and came back at
under 100mph! It was literally as slow as a Cessna 150, but with the angle of
attack a!
t what a
ppeared to be about 45 degrees nose up! On takeoff after breaking ground it did
a slow and dirty roll. The 700mph pass was loud, but it then came back a little
while later at about 500mph, inverted and pulled engines to idle. Those
new turbofan engines are nearly silent at idle! Even at full tilt boogy it was
no where near as loud as the older model F-15 turbojet engines. Anyhow, thought
I'd share my weekend experience. After I finish up my CFI training I am
going to run over and fly that Sierra and see how it performs. Brian W.
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