JBB

I wavered on my plan to attend a bit when my friend that was going with me had to back out.  I was already up and about so I decided to go.  I drove past an empty Marion Sampson Park on my way in and thought for a second about stopping there to take it in.  I arrived right as the gates opened and enjoyed an hour or so of walking the great static display lineup with a light crowd.  I sat down at a spot on the rope line and relaxed in the nice windy weather until the show started (30 minutes late thanks to a suspicious activity incident at the remote lot at Ridgmar Mall).  The lineup for the aerial performances was really good: a handful of warbirds and aerobatic performances, a Dehavilland Vampire (one of the oldest fighter jets in the world), a Mig 17, the C-17 demo team, F-16 demo team, and a Marine Corps aviation demo that included F-18s based in Fort Worth that was the highlight of the show for me.  The program moved swiftly and the crowd was well-behaved.  My one minor complaint is that they constantly blasted loud music through some of the performances.  For me, air shows are as much about the sounds as the sights and it made it harder to enjoy, especially the Marine Corps demo.  It was noticeably better during the performances that travel with their own narrator.  It started to get pretty warm as the wind trailed off toward the end of the day and I wished I had either watched the Blue Angels from my truck or left early (I've seen them several times, the show never changes).  The one thing that shows at the base excel at is traffic and parking.  I stopped for to go food on the way home and I was sitting in my living room less than an hour later.  That's not bad for an event where 50,000 plus people all left at the same time.

 

Here's a few photos I took.  My phone is showing its age and a lot of what I took was back lit.  Enjoy.

 

 

B-1 from Ellsworth AFB

 

 

B-52

 

 

F-18

 

 

F-35, not sure which model

 

 

Mirage F-1 that's owned by ATAC at Alliance

 

 

[img]https://photos.smugm...4110-L.jpg[img]

 

B-25

 

 

Part of the Marine Corps demo

 

 

I'm going on Sunday.  It's been advertised pretty heavily on social media for the last few months, but maybe I'm just targeted because I follow aviation related pages.  It looks like it's going to be a great show with a good mix of performers and the best static display lineup I've seen for an air show in this area in a long time.

My last time to eat there was probably around 8 years ago and, while the food was good, it had declined a lot.  There's still a Yucatan on the riverwalk at Bricktown in OKC.  Not sure how closely related it is to the original, but the menu is at least similar.  

That reminds me of the member here, years ago when talking about TEXRail, saying that he couldn't imagine who thinks it's a good idea to run trains through the Mistletoe Heights neighorhood.  I think my reply was along the lines of "I bet 100 years ago there were a couple of train engineers running through the area saying to each other 'can you believe they're building a neighborhood right next to these train tracks?'"

 

 

So if they can't reach the owner, is the owner paying taxes?  If they spend that kind of money on demolition, can they foreclose or place a lien on the property to be reimbursed for the expense?  (Sorry, I don't have access to the article.)

There was a hint of it, but there's no infrastructure to support commercial passenger service at Meacham.  It would be years before Breeze is up and running there when they they can have service at DFW in months.

UP is teasing a large multi-state tour for 4014 this summer with Dallas-Fort Worth listed as a destination:

 

https://www.up.com/h...edule/index.htm

No official news source, but plenty of blog and social media chatter about Breeze starting service at DFW:

 

https://airlinegeeks...las-fort-worth/

It's a sitcom and I think the cringey-ness is kind of the point.

Thanks.  Zooming and cropping really killed the quality.  The crowd in and around Founders was like nothing I've ever seen.  Vehicles parked all along the shoulder of Airfield Dr. and some had hopped the curb on Texan Trail.  

About as good as I could do. I had to make a stop at 5:15, traffic was a mess, and there was no way I was going to get to my goal of the TEXRail station, so I ducked in a parking lot along Texan Trail and snapped a quick phone pic. I think I was out of my truck for all of 45 seconds. My first time to see it in person.

Some of those are better than others, but that list of finalists could have been much worse.

President Biden is coming to town for a fund rasier late tomorrow afternoon and all signs are pointing to a rare landing for the presidential 747 at DFW.  

I look forward to it being restored so the city can let it fall so badly into disrepair that it again requires millions of dollars of work in a few decades.

 

(Sorry if that's negative, but too little is made of the city's tendency to neglect assets to the point that they have to be bailed out by the public sector.)

It would seem like a good spot for a flat-iron style building like the one a few blocks to the east.