The Melder Boys' First Air Show

Yesterday after our fun at Highland Park, the boys played in the backyard while Doug and I prepped lunch.  All of a sudden they spotted some writing in the sky..."Latrobe Air Show...Blue Angels...June 7/8."  Well, this peeked our interest.  Doug and I had no plans for Saturday morning.  We looked at each other and both seemed to say..."hmmm, interesting."  Then Doug actually said, "if the Air Show starts before or at 11am, we are totally going."  So in the afternoon I did a bit of research and found out that indeed the show was scheduled to start at 11am.  It was a done deal.  The Geico Skytypers totally worked on us (marketing dollars well-spent I'd say).  

So, this morning we had breakfast and then packed up the car and headed East to Latrobe for the Westmoreland County Air Show at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport.  We had read about potential traffic, etc. so we were hoping to get there a bit early.  Thankfully things went very well and we arrived at about 10:20am.  We thought we'd have to pay admission ($16 for adults only), but really we only had to pay to park ($3!).  We got an amazing parking spot near the exit, but also close to the runway.  Here's our set up.

I had to take a vertical so you can see the full spectrum of the hilarity.  Big umbrellas, gear, etc.  Totally reminded me of how my dad would rig things up on a camping trip, etc.  Never can be too prepared!  Oh, and I love that Penn has his little behind in the picture!

Me and my boys at the Air Show!

Before the airshow started the boys and I explored a bit.  We found a hangar that is actually a small airplane museum.  Here's an old airmail plane from the WWII era.

Behind it was a Russian MiG.  I was so wishing Douglas had come in with us (he's a huge Top Gun fan and this thing was the arch-nemesis!).

The bi-plane was also pretty special to see as Tavin is a huge fan of these classic planes because of the amazing book, "Everything Goes: in the Air" by Brian Biggs (a favorite for about a year now).

Penn was intrigued too.  Although perplexed might be a better word.

So the air show took a LONG time to start.  As mentioned previously, it was supposed to start at 11am.  Really nothing happened before noon unfortunately.  But thankfully the weather was gorgeous and the boys were happy to be outside enjoying the day so it worked out OK.  When the show finally did kickoff it was with the Army's "Golden Knights."  They did their parachuting tricks several times through the show.

There were also several trick pilots at the show.  One guy is an American Airlines pilot out of NY as his regular job and he does this on the weekends.  His stunts were crazy.  Particularly how low to the ground he would get before pulling up.  Made us so nervous!  The Geico Skytypers also made an appearance.  Our family favorite (pre-Blue Angels) was the WWII era training aircraft.  My best picture of it is below which doesn't capture its impressive qualities.  It was as shiny and silver as a polished mirror and it rushed over us, back and forth as if it was charging back and forth overtop occupied France or Nazi Germany scoping out something on the ground or dodging enemy aircraft.  The Air Force is a pretty cool thing.

Some of the Skytypers...

I didn't remember this from air show's I attended as a child with my family, but this one certainly had a LOT of downtime.  With the gorgeous day, it wasn't that much of a problem, but we were very impressed with the boys patience.  Penn probably spent 3 hours playing in the van just getting in and out of seats, pretending to drive, sticking his head out of the windows, etc.  Koen and Tavin enjoyed some minivan playtime too, but with their bigger size, this didn't bode well and so we mostly kept them busy outside the van with exploring, running around and playing baseball.  Penn did venture out with them sometimes.  Here's one such instance.

Clearly the boys caught a glimpse of something in the sky doing tricks while they were playing on the hill.  But it was definitely NOT the Blue Angels as we had to wait until the very end for that highlight.  Doug had to be at the evening service at church, so we had an abslute departure time of no later than 4pm.  We were getting pretty nervous when the Blue Angels were still parked where they were when we arrived at 10am and it was 3pm.  Thankfully soon after that, "Fat Albert," part of the Blue Angels team and the prelude to the jet show, started lumbering down the runway.  The Wikipedia site about the Blue Angels and the Blue Angels site itself actually mention that "Fat Albert" no longer participates in the show, so perhaps we got a very special treat.  The C-130T "Hercules" that is "Fat Albert" uses a rocket or jet assisted takeoff and I guess there is a "dwindling supply of rockets."  Well, we definitely got to watch this behemoth perform.  It literally slowly rolls down the runway and then seemingly like nothing launches upward at a severe angle, then planes out and shoots into the sky.  Amazing.  Then this huge airplane actually does really neat tricks and fly-bys despite its gargantuan size.

"Fat Albert" came in for a landing and soon after (thank goodness!) we heard the Blue Angels start their engines.  Phew!  We would be able to see them!  Two of them taxied down to our end of the runway,

the other four took off by the control tower.  They took off with 3 in a formation and the fourth following.  

Then the two down our way took off afterwards.

The 6 angels did some beautiful flying roaring past us over and over.  Here are some maneuvers I was able to catch.  They move so fast!

This one was amazing.  One was upside down, the other right side up, flying right on top of each other!  Total Top Gun move!

It was a blast (literally, get it?).  We were so glad we were able to stay for this climax of the show.

We loaded up and pulled out of the parking lot before they had quite finished their show, but it made for some fun watching during the little bit of traffic on the way out of the show.

All in all, the Melder Family's first air show was a big success.  I'm so glad we went!