Millville Wings Wheels 2008

With the racket of the cars that you couldn't see.

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You couldn't hear either!!!! Those supped-up rice burners drowned out those Pratt&Whitneys. When I get home tonight and work on the few pics I did get I'll post my experience. Oneslim, I wish I knew you were going. We at least could have had a beer together. Only good thing there.

TO, I was going to see if you were going but I didn't know myself till the last moment. But ya didn't miss anything.

Some shots from Yesterday.

Sorry about the large size of the C-47, Missed resizeing it. If someone can delete that one here it is resized.

More...

Still More...

Nice, Bob.

Okay, gotta say.......LOVE THAT 'CAT!!!!!!! That's one of the next planes on my list to see...P-38 flying, P-61 (flying or static), PBY Catalina (flying or static).

**insert "jealous" icon here**

Thanks evanglider,

last...

Ok Rabidalien, three more of the Cat

Nice pics Bob, love that Catalina also.

Nice pics Bob! Got to love the Cat 8)

Nice shots Bob!

TO

I was happy.

Going to the airshow that I've been going to for 10 years. Nice day. Wearing my hat that my pre-wife hates. Road tunes in the CD. My best friend going to his first airshow. Chairs and umbrellas packed. And a few cameras. Great!

Get to the airport and there is nothing that I'm used to. No humungous signs saying "Airshow", no police directing traffic, no drunks sitting in the Winnebagos along the side of the road. Just one guy with a metal folding chair waving us thorough. Ok, they have the new race track - maybe parking is better. Because that was the only complaint in 10 years - that the parking was at times horrible.

We start driving in the direction he sends us. and driving and driving. No signs. Caught up to a shuttle bus and decided to draft it to the show. No signs, no police, no grandmas dodging traffic. In fact, no traffic. Passed an entrance that said "Carshow" and came to one that read "Airshow". Pull in to a 6 lane ticket booth area. Ok, this is new and cool. Maybe easier. Guy takes our money and gives us a ticket and a poster. (?) No program but maybe thats at the gate. Immediately past the ticket booths is a split. Right for the Carshow and left for the Airshow.

We make the left and drive. Drive and drive. Through and over the race course. Through the pit area. Through the concessions. Now understand there is now a line of cars trying to snake their way through concessions, towed vehicles and people. A sea of people trying to lay claim to the same piece of asphalt the moving line of cars are on. We can barely see the people with little yellow emergency vests and red flags waving us in the direction to go. Ok, something they have to learn and change. Maybe next year.

Finally get to the far middle of the racetrack where there is parking. No problem there. Get out our stuff, listen to the cars whizzing past on the track 200 feet from us and go looking for the airshow. Approach an official looking dude and ask.

His reply.

"To see the airplanes you have to get on a shuttle bus and go over to the airport."
Ok, where is the shuttle bus?"
Points to the throng. "But they stop at 11:30am."
"Why?" Its now 11:25am.
"Because they get the planes ready for the airshow from 12 noon to 4pm."
"So we can't walk around the planes?"
"Not now."

After picking up my jaw from the ground we wander around the concessions, maybe get alittle more info. Apparently the walk around static display ends around 11:30 and you can't even get close. So we decide to set camp, check out the airshow in the sky when it happens and maybe watch a car or two. The car race is going on and the carshow is right next to the parking lot so we decide that around 3pm we'll pack up and take a shuttle to the airport for a look at the static display.

We find an area facing the airport (which is now across the race track in front of us, across the distant runway and finally along the skyline.) Ok, we'll see what happens. Set up, get settled and all we can see, is guardrail. Even the racecars streaming past are difficult - we can only tell by the sound. Oooo-kayyyy, this is starting to be annoying.

Airshow starts and first up are the L-Birds. How do I know that? Because the announcer told me because I can't see them! Can't see them start up, can't see them taxi, can't see them take-off until about 200-300 feet off the ground! I start telling my friend - he on his first trip to an airshow - this ain't the way it is.

The airshow was ok. First about 5 L-birds, followed by P trainers and then the AT trainers. The PBY Cat and the C-47 did there round-de-round. then came the fighters and the bombers. The FG-1 Corsair, P-40, P-51, B-25s (2 of them) Avenger, and 4 P-47s in formation. Cool, the old warbirds up and around.

But that was it.

No Red Bull Acrobatic team.
No Blue Angels.
No Thunderbirds.
No smoke tricks or anything else.

During the airshow, I was talking to a few people and I found out that because of recent housing developments near the airport and with regulations, they can't have jets flying over residential areas at the height they fly for the airshow. So no Blue Angels, Thunderbirds or any of the other neat little stuff they used to have. What you see is what you get.

Just the old warbirds flying around in circles doing photo passes and landing in the next state.

Through-out all this I'm telling my buddy about the various engines and radials vs in-line and I'm saying wait until you hear the sound of the Corsair or the P-51 in a powerdive. Great, he can't wait. but......as the planes started to do their flypast, another race started, one that required the cars to race without any muffler system whatsoever. I don't think they even had exhaust manifolds.

Common exchange between me and him:
"Now here comes the Corsair. Wait till you hear that engine. Nothing like it in the world!"
"All I heard was a Chrysler hemi!"

The cars drowned out the sound of the planes. Then I really started to wake-up.

It came first with the L-Birds. After their flyby, they didn't land. They scattered to the 4 corners of the earth. Why? They were going home. It didn't dawn on me until the P-51 flew off into the sunset that by the time the show was over there would be NO static display to go walking around! We had been duped! We could still grab a shuttle at 4pm if we wanted to look at grass, tarmac and a few Cessnas. But Warbirds? Nope, wasn't happening. I started to get mad.

Show over and we pack up. Decide to hang around because the funnel of traffic was another hurry-up and wait session so we sat on some bleachers and watched 25 versions of the Chevy Camaro duel on the racetrack. After the traffic disappated we drove over to the airfield. Maybe something would be there. Nope. So I went to the museum that I volunteered at a few years ago and we saw the displays. Only good part to the day. Now 2 days removed I can only laugh. But I'm heartbroken because I really loved going to that show. Now onto some pics. These were taken with the digital. My buddy took the planes in the air with his Nikon so will post them when he has them ready.

I want to make a few disclaimers.

1.) I love the Millville Airshow and from the few people I know that have connections, they weren't too happy either. But the Museum and all that they control was tops!

2.) This was my experience. It may have been different for others but I can only comment on what I saw as compared to past shows.

Now the pics. This is where we sat and the view from the dustbowl. Guardrail and the tops of cars. The pic with the plane and race cars was actually cropped from a larger pic that was, well, exspansive.

The car show was cool. Got some pics for Lucky to drool over. Thats me in the goofy Cowboy hat.

.

Now for some of da utter ones....including a Gremlin which had me scratching my head!

Can anybody identify these cars? (Oneslim, no cheating...you were there! )

On to the Museum! I love this place! This is where I volunteered for a while with my dad fixing up some of the models that were donated. They do a really great job.

They have a section dedicated to the Tuskegee Airmen and to the American-Asian units that fought in the MTO/ETO.

Millville was the first wartime airfield and was a training base for the P-47 so the Thunderbolt is very prominent in their history. This is the part of the Museum that has tons of stuff from the war.