Airshow Conversations

[Guest MHL]

At a F-15C static display about a year ago;

Dude: "What is that on top of the vertical stabilizer?"

Pilot: "The plane was not balanced, so the engineers put a lead weight up there to even things out."

Most embarrassing part is that "dude" was ME.

[HerkDerka]

At least you said "vertical stabilizer". You could have said "What is that there thingamajig up on the tail wing"?

Small victories.

HD

Edited July 13, 2007 by HerkDerka

[JarheadBoom]

https://www.selfridgeairshow.org/attraction...aircraft_07.htm

Wow, they're even going to have one of those C-17s that can do carrier ops!

Yeah, and they're gonna have the only single-engine AH-1W in existence at the show. Better yet, it'll be in Army paint. The skidkids must love that one...

Maybe I'm just silly, but I'd think that the organizers of an airshow would have someone with some knowledge "proofread" their website for stuff like Photoshopped images and mis-identified aircraft before going live with it....

[skibum]

I just got back from Oshkosh today. What a blast! That was my first time there. It's not the usual air show experience. It's way more laid back. We didn't bother with the crappy rooms they reserved for us. We camped with a group of people who had been coing there for 30 years and had a great time. It's a little heavy on the dudes with not many hotties running around. We saw one hot chick (out of about 100K people). We were so confused when she came up to to ask the usual things that we mocked her stupid questions and pissed her off. As she called us assholes and walked off, we realized our mistake. Oh well. If she had been holding beer I'm sure I would have had a better grasp on the situation.

If you make it there in the future as a military demo, just plan on camping. It gives you the full experience. Everyone is real nice. If I had accepted every free drink offered I'd have died of alcohol poisoning within the first hour. As it was, our cooler had more beer in it when we left than when we arrived. We brought the extras back to the squadron to share with the poor fellas back home.

Oshkosh - not quite White Horse but still highly recommended

[Guest Hey Nav]

I just got back from Oshkosh today. What a blast! That was my first time there. It's not the usual air show experience. It's way more laid back. We didn't bother with the crappy rooms they reserved for us. We camped with a group of people who had been coing there for 30 years and had a great time. It's a little heavy on the dudes with not many hotties running around. We saw one hot chick (out of about 100K people). We were so confused when she came up to to ask the usual things that we mocked her stupid questions and pissed her off. As she called us assholes and walked off, we realized our mistake. Oh well. If she had been holding beer I'm sure I would have had a better grasp on the situation.

If you make it there in the future as a military demo, just plan on camping. It gives you the full experience. Everyone is real nice. If I had accepted every free drink offered I'd have died of alcohol poisoning within the first hour. As it was, our cooler had more beer in it when we left than when we arrived. We brought the extras back to the squadron to share with the poor fellas back home.

Oshkosh - not quite White Horse but still highly recommended

So you ticked off the one and only of 100K? Doh!

I'd love to go to the Oshkosh show someday. Been there once, but not during the show. Met wonderful people, had great support, don't know how they pull off such a big show with the small logistical infrastructure they have, but they do it.

Glad to hear it was a good time, I'm a little envious!

[Guest skydaddy]

Me, pointing to the rectangular box on the aft fuse of a static A-10: ""My son and I built an A-10 model last week. I saw that, but thought it might have been a molding error. What is it?"

Recuriting-poster pilot (giving squadron patch to son): "That's part of the FM system, sir."

Me (with raised eyebrow): "Frequency Modulation?" (Dad was a ham.)

Pilot (leaning in to shield young ears): "Phukkin' Magic. Seriously, I don't know what half the sh!t on this bird does. My job is to fly low and break things."

---------------

Standing watch near the Spit. A gentleman of appropriate vintage spends more than the usual amount of time looking at her. I ask something inane such as, "What do you remember?"

He looks off in the distance for a moment.

"Lettin' down at night, through cloud, to a blacked-out airfield."

He looks at me.

"Oy REMEMBER thet."

----------------

An old RAF pilot is standing near the Spit, holding forth about having been there and done that. A gentleman of about the same vintage wanders over and listens, nodding from time to time. RAF notices him after a bit and asks in the best monocled, moustachioed "Battle of Britain" accent you can imagine, "Hullo, sir. Have we met before?"

The other fellow replies with a raised eyebrow and a small smile. "Ja, it iss pozzible. Vee may haff met before. Under somevhat different circumstances, uff course."

[Guest Rick61]

EvilEagles comment about his nametags reminded me of this....

I was looking after a friends A26 at VNY about 15 years back when some CalANG Major walks over to look at it. I suddenly burst out laughing & almost fall off my chair. He looks a bit perturbed & enquires about what is so funny. I should point out that he could pass for a Native American...

Me: Your name tag...

Him (completely deadpan): Whats so funny about it?

Me (still laughing): Major Two Dogs???? You gotta me f***ing kidding me!

Him: Huh?

Me: Is there possibly a third word missing from that tag?

Him: What do you mean? This is my name!

Me: Yeah ok Tonto...

[amcflyboy]

I fly the LC's, and I went to a family day event in CT back in June. Had this group of 7 year olds come in the cockpit and the one sitting in the pilot's seat was giving me the third degree. Long story short, went something like this:

"what does this do?"(pointing towards the trim buttons)

"what does this do?"(pointing towards throttles)

"what does this do?"(pointing towards gear handle)

"what does this do?"(pointing towards ski control switch)

"what does this do?"(pointing towards autopilot panel)

Of course I answered all of his questions, but here comes the classic:

"what does this do?"(pointing towards the LSGI buttons), Me:"those are the ejection buttons for the pilot, copilot, engineer and nav seats," as I point at each respective seat. "If you're not careful, you'll go bye bye!"

As the kid pulls back his hand, he bangs his elbow on the arm rest, as the other three look on horrified. Thank god there parents weren't there to hear me say that!

Edited August 26, 2007 by amcflyboy

[Varmint]

A-10 static:

How can we leave out the inevitable, no matter how defiant of physics it might be: "Is it true the gun really slows the jet down so much that it stalls?"

And I don't know which one is worse, the smart-ass kid who thinks he knows more about the Hog than me, or the nerdy kid who actually does.

[greg32]

Friendship Festival here in Yokota, annual airshow (C12 low approach!). No questions because I don't speak Japanese, so this by far is the best airshow. It is getting hot, one of my buds is working as FF staff, over his radio is heard "ops1, ops 2 if the C17 doesn't get an aircart they are closing up the plane." This is at 1000-1100 am. Great time for any one who gets the change to come. The locals cleaned everyone out of coins and T-shirts.

[Guest IronMaiden]

Wow...after reading this thread, I don't think I ever want to ask any more questions at an airshow

Same here

[Hacker]

Great thread necromancy there, just to make that kind of "yeah, me too" comment!

[Guest gonzo]

Not quite at an airshow, but along those lines...

We were flying some pax around the desert, and we let an army dude sit un in the LACM seat for some of the flight. He gets on headset and proceeds to tell us how his "grandpa flew C-17s a while back" and how he remembers seeing them when he was a kid. We all just looked at eachother trying not to laugh, and replied "Cool, man."

[brickhistory]

Great thread necromancy there, just to make that kind of "yeah, me too" comment!

First entry for the most unused/unusual word in a thread contest.

Well done!

[M2]

First entry for the most unused/unusual word in a thread contest.

Well done!

Yep, I gotta add that I was quite impressed with Hacker's employment of the term...but was it correctly used?

Cheers! M2

[Hacker]

It just sounds better than "resurrect".

[Champ Kind]

Not quite at an airshow, but along those lines...

We were flying some pax around the desert, and we let an army dude sit un in the LACM seat for some of the flight. He gets on headset and proceeds to tell us how his "grandpa flew C-17s a while back" and how he remembers seeing them when he was a kid. We all just looked at eachother trying not to laugh, and replied "Cool, man."

YC-17, maybe???

[brickhistory]

Yep, I gotta add that I was quite impressed with Hacker's employment of the term...but was it correctly used?

Cheers! M2

Dunno, but I thought it worked...

[BQZip01]

And I don't know which one is worse, the smart-ass kid who thinks he knows more about the Hog than me, or the nerdy kid who actually does.

Those in the latter group make we wonder about OPSEC...

[BQZip01]

I've heard the machine gun several times in the Tweet, but 2 new ones I heard at the Nellis airshow in November (in reference to the pitot tube):

Funniest thing I ever heard about was the T-43 during a spouse orientation flight. It is truly amazing the ignorance of some of the wives and, let's face it, sometimes it's just like an airshow, but with a captive audience:

Pilot talking to another person's spouse sitting in the right seat:

Pilot:"Do you want to fire the gun?"

Wife:"You have guns on this thing?!"

Pilot:"Sure. We can fire them any time we're facing into the Gulf of Mexico"

Wife:"I guess I'll try it."

Pilot:"Ok. All you have to do is push that button on the yoke there."

Wife:"This one?" pointing at the mic ttransmit button, but terrified to touch it

Pilot:"That's the one. Just tell me when you're ready."

Wife: after a few seconds "ok" and pushes the button.

The pilot then activates the artificial stall warning test button to the left of his seat just as she touches the button and the whole yoke starts shaking. She releases the button and so does he.

Wife: (breathless) "wow."

Totally dumbfounded when at an airshow in NC, a 14 year old girl starts explaining the intricate workings and operating characteristics of the mounted IR jammer to her girlfriends!

Future EWO?

[BQZip01]

"How come theres no windows downstairs? How do you see where your going or where to drop the bombs?"

...

"Where is the tail gun?"

These all sound like pretty reasonable questions to me.

If all you've seen about bombers is in the movies, then chances are you haven't seen anything about bombers since WWII where they used an optical bombsight.

As for the tail gun, the B-52s USED to have tail guns (even the H models), so that REALLY isn't a bad question at all, IMNSHO.

One last quote, this is not mine but a good friend of mine who was a radar nav when I was just starting out. He was at an airshow and an OLD woman approached him...

Old Woman "how come this jet has wrinkles on all over it" (noticing the wrinkles on the side of the buff)

him: "Its old, old things get wrinkles."

The old woman walked away pretty upset...

I've been flying 'em now for a whopping 2 flights and I still don't know...but the pilots aren't worried and there's no FCIF on 'em....

Ten year old kid talking to his buddy, standing in front of static Buff:

"They're like 50 years old and for their 50th birthday day all got a new gray paint job."

...not too far off of the truth...

Edited March 22, 2009 by BQZip01

[flyguy2181]

My airshow story: Doing a C-17 static display at Columbus AFB.... sitting upstairs talking to all the different people coming through, letting them sit in the seat, look at the HUD, etc. As always you get the parents that let their kids touch everything and flip switches. Well, I tell this kid not to touch anything or flip switches as well as remind the parents to control their kid. So I wait until the kid pulls the "trigger" on the stick and I activate/test our MWS system, which produces a loud "missile launch". The mom freaks out thinking her kid just launched a missile and pulls him right out of the seat, apologizes profusely and they head immediately downstairs.

And since we are talking about stupid wife stories, here's mine ....

In the C-17, we can go "split-axis", enabling the autopilot to maintain altitude while we control the roll axis. Well, crossing the ocean, a wife of a fighter pilot wants to come up and see the cockpit. We put it into split axis and tell her to come up. She asks about flying it, etc and we tell her that the autopilot is voice-controlled. We convinced her to shout into the mic of the CVR saying "turn right" and "roll out" all the while steering with our knees.

We never told her the truth and she must have talked to her husband about it because later her husband came up later laughing at the great joke we played on his wife.

Edited March 22, 2009 by flyboy2181

[lj35driver]

I was doing a static display on the E-3 at Yuma MCAS about 10 years ago when a young Corporal walked up and said, "My wife told me that AWACS was the kind of plane that could look over your shoulder from 30,000 ft and read what was on the newspaper that you're holding." I told him, "We're not quite that good, but we can link into internal circuitry and cable lines from that range. You guys ever have sex in front of your TV?" The dude turned beet red and quickly walked away.

[HiFlyer]

Here's four...keep in mind this is all on one day at one airshow. In 1968 I took my IP and trusty Tweet X-C to Mather AFB for their airshow (and my student X-C). We were parked across from a B-58, one row over from a BUFF, and just down from the VIP slot in front of base ops. I was standing my post in front of my Tweet. In the space of 40 minutes: one big strapping guy proceeds to impress his girl friend by doing pull-ups on the B-58's Pitot boom...it does go boom (actually a very loud "crack") as it snaps off. Twenty minutes later a crowd of viewers rush up a big maintenence stand that has just been pulled up to the nose of the aircraft so visitors could view inside the B-52's cockpit...another loud snap as about 25 people and a broken stand cascade down from cockpit level onto the ramp. About 20 were hauled off to the hospital with moderate to severe injuries. Shortly thereafter, a T-39 pulls up to the VIP slot with the commander of MAC (now AMC) onboard. As the General is stepping off the aircraft, a young airman driving a blue breadtruck up the flightline comes past with his eyes on all the activity, and drives straight into the T-39, missing the General by about five feet but, unfortunately, not missing the left wing. Finally, as we're cleaning up that afternoon, one of the trash collection trucks backs up to turn around, and doesn't see the mint condition "Jenny" on display behind him. By the time he got turned around, the trash truck was about all the Jenny was good for. It was a hell of a day!

Edited March 23, 2009 by HiFlyer

[XL0901]

I was casual at KC-135 unit and had the pleasure of tagging along to the Luke Days Airshow in 06. I was wearing a bag so needless to say I was confused with someone who actually knew something about the plane. (The lack of wings on my nametag was too subtle I guess...but understandable) Anyway I became a quick "expert" and was forced to field rediculous questions all day. The best...

Lady: So what is this plane used for?

Me: This is a refueling aircraft.

Lady: So, you fly to different places and refuel other aircraft?

Me: Yep (to keep it simple)

Lady: Don't you have trucks for that?

Also notable is the arguement I had with a different lady explaining to her why she couldn't smoke underneath an aircraft loaded with 120K of jet fuel.