Attending the Great Georgia Airshow (GGA) was a fairly spur-of-the-moment thing for me.  Being a holder of a job whose business happens mostly on weekends, I had used up a fair amount of leniency to travel to Oceana for that delightful event, and I figured it would be my last show of this season.  But lo and behold, I found myself with a free Sunday, coincidentally on the second day of GGA.  And so it came to pass that at 6 AM on the 14^th of October, I found myself astride my motorcycle on the southeast side of Chattanooga, merging onto I-75 for a three-hour journey to Peachtree City.  Did I mention that it was in the upper 40s at that time of day, and that an 80MPH wind chill is not insubstantial?  But I digress… presumably you’re here to read about the show, not about my two-wheeled exploits, so let me move on forward.

 I arrived in Peachtree City just after 9AM, and received my first good news of the day.  Since I had elected to bring only two wheels down with me, I parked on-site at the airport rather than having to ride a bus in from a remote parking area.  Very nice.  Once I was de-geared and lathered up with sunscreen- I’m “blessed” with excessively fair skin- I got my ticket and was in.

 Now most of the shows I’ve been to have been large military shows.  In particular, Langley and Oceana were both annual events for me when I still lived in NC.  And while those types of shows have their attractions- including but not limited to tons of military hardware, lots of military demo teams, and of course, free admission- small shows like Peachtree make up for their lack of big iron with a great cozy spirit.  I spent most of the show on the north ramp, right in among the warbirds that were periodically coming and going.  Seeing- and feeling- the Raptor fly is great, but there’s also something to be said for being so close to a taxiing P-51 that the prop blast de-hats several people standing near me.

 Speaking of warbirds, this show was heaven for a piston lover like me.  The CAF’s Dixie Wing lives at KFFC, so right off the bat we’ve got their collection present in addition to those warbirds visiting for the show.  The aviating kicked off with one of the most heart-thumping warbird flights I’ve witnessed.  In the air simultaneously were a P-51 Mustang, P-47 Thunderbolt, no less than four AT-6s and SNJs, a PBY Catalina, the gorgeous B-25 “Pacific Prowler”, an SBD Dauntless- of which there are three still airworthy, a C-45 Expeditor, a PT-6, and finally, a Japanese “Kate” torpedo bomber replica (actually a highly modified AT-6).  Gazing up at all these beautiful props, I felt transported back in time 60 years.

 Another new experience for me was seeing two airliner flybys.  I’ve done plenty of airport spotting in my day, but seeing a 757 come hauling past at 1000’ is, to say the least, impressive.  The 757 in question was Delta’s pink plane, a symbol of their partnership with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  This jet was first unveiled in October 2006 for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and is now celebrating her first anniversary raising awareness.  We got three passes from this bird, and later we got to see a World Airways MD-11.  What this plane lacks in speed compared to the 757, it makes up for by emitting far more noise!

 A few other notable acts included the Aeroshell Team.  While I’d read plenty about these folks, I’d never seen them in person, and they impressed me by performing several unique and graceful maneuvers.  They also succeeded in laying down enough smoke to produce localized IMC on the field!  Also on hand was Gary Ward, flying a routine in the new MX-2 aerobatic aircraft.  The capabilities of the MX-2 are astounding- I first saw Rob Holland fly an amazing demo at Oceana this year, and Gary confirmed for me that the MX-2 may just be the future of unlimited-class aerobatics.

 Other demos on Sunday included the Air Force’s F-16 “Viper East” demo team, plus C-17 and C-130 demos, the Air Force Academy jump team, Greg Koontz doing a comedy routine in a Cub as part of the “Alabama Boys” as well as a Super Decathlon demo, Charlie Kulp’s classic “flying farmer” act, the Red Eagle Air Sports team, and Ed Hamill in the Air Force Reserve Pitts.  Lee Lauderback of Stallion 51 was also on hand to fly the heritage flight with the F-16 in the stunningly sexy Crazy Horse².  The Red Eagles never disappoint with their unique combination of formation acro and solo routines, and seeing Greg land that Piper Cub on a pickup truck-mounted platform was certainly impressive.

 The show was concluded with a moving tribute- four AT-6s took to the air again and performed a missing man tribute, in honor of the pilots who have lost their lives as well as our troops overseas.  I didn’t join the masses streaming for the gate, though, as my day wasn’t over.  I was going to take a hop with the CAF’s Jim Buckley in his SNJ- more on that in a separate post.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 0:12 and is filed under 2007, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.