Miasmatic Review

Rockford AirFest 2007

This past weekend Ktreva and I took Clone to see Rockford AirFest 2007. All last week we could hear the planes arriving and practicing. We could watch them from our front porch. Clone would get so excited he’d run all over the house trying to see them. It took quite a bit of convincing that by the time he could hear the jets, they were already past.

We decided that maybe he’d enjoy getting to see the planes up close. Surprise! We nailed that one on the head. In fact he was so excited with in the first 15 minutes of being there, I think he actually short-circuited his brain. He didn’t know what to point to, where he wanted to go, or anything. He couldn’t even complete a sentence. Here is, I kid you not, an actual transcript.” WOW! Dad look at.. Over there is… Momma! Do you see the.. Dad, that way I want to… Look up there it’s…. Wow! Can we go… DAD!!!!!!” Then I think he had a mental overload as the sound of the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive failing came from his head.

When we arrived a squadron of P-51 mustangs were doing a demonstration. At the end of it they flew the missing man formation in honor of all the men and women that have given their lives in the service of our country. Folks, I will honestly admit that not only did I feel a lump in my throat as that formation flew right over my head, but I damn well misted up.

P-51’s in a missing man formation

We spent some time looking for a place to watch the show. We had just finished setting up our chairs when this longhaired hippy came up and started begging for beer. I wasn’t about to give him any since he was already had a beer in each hand. Then I realized that’s no hippy, it’s T1G…. in bad need of a haircut. (Seriously I have a picture for proof). We also bumped into Ragingmom. It was like a mini-ubercool blogmeet.

I brought my camera with to take some pictures. There were some people around me that made the comments “Why bother? All you’re going to get are dots in the sky.” I figured it’s digital. It’s not like I’m out any film. And even if I had been, I still would have tried. Normally I don’t share a lot of my more artsy photos as I take pictures mainly for me, but I really liked some of these photos. I ended up taking 620 pictures. I only wish I had brought the zoom lens with, I figured the wide angle would be better for the ground shots. Since I really didn’t end up taking any, I should have brought the zoom lens. Oh well.. next year. Also I edited the shape of some of the photo's in order to cut out dead space and reduce their size.

Part of the show had a P-51, an F-15 and an F-16 flying in formation together. It was pretty cool to watch these three generations of planes flying together. Watching them though, I could help but to think that the P-51 had to be straining to keep up the speed and that the F-16 looked like it was about to fall out of the sky because it was moving so slow. But it did make for some great viewing.

From top to bottom. P-51 Mustang, F-16 Falcon, F-15 Eagle.

The main attraction this year was the US Navy Blue Angels. This was the first time I actually was able to see them perform. It was truly amazing. At times they looked like they where actually touching each other they where so close. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the Blue Angels in action. Click to enlarge any of the photos.

There is not a larger picture of this one, it flew right over my head.

The leader flipped his plane upside while in formation at 400 MPH

A six-jet formation

Six Jet flyby.

I do have one question for my readers. The US Navy has the Blue Angels, The Air Force has the Thunderbirds (At last years show), The Army has the Golden Knights parachute team (Also at the show this year)… What do the Marines have? Seriously, I’m sure they have something; I’m just not sure what it is.