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