The weather was hot and had the potential for storms. One of the clubs members stopped by on a golf cart and offered us shelter at his nearby home in the event of a storm. Now that's hospitality! The grounds were absolutely spectacular, clear testament to the hard work of the people who put this event together.
We got there Thursday night and witnessed an a turbine F-4 Phantom wizz by. This gave us great hopes for the next two days. We were not disappointed with the quality of the planes or the skills of the pilots. We witnessed dozens of beautifully constructed WWII replicas and quite a few circa WWI biplanes. Examples included the P-51, Corsair, Sky Raider, P-40 Warhawk, P47 Thunderbolt and the F-4 Phantom to name a few. Make no mistake, these are warbird pilots. They have no interest in aerobatics. If you want to see a warbird in a flat spin or go into a dive and pull out 2 feet from the deck, you will need to come to Abrams and watch Crazy Glenn at our flying field.
This was not exactly an airshow in the sense of other shows, such as Joe Nall. Even the Green Bay show had some choreographed events to entertain the kids. This event was simply lots of flying. While I have nothing but respect for the people who put this show together, I would compare it to eating beefsteak several days in a row. The first day is pretty good but you soon get too full of the rich goodness and it loses it's appeal.
There were occasional highlights such as flybys by full scale aircraft and bomb drops but these were too few and far between. The club's shining star is the modeling expertise of Carl Bachhuber who flew his 6 engine B-36 bomber and the Boeing Stratocruiser. Both were stunning in detail and a pleasure to see fly.
Kudos to the event organizers for providing excellent refreshments and food. The brats and burgers were a big hit. The big band music was a nice touch. The announcer would have benefited from information about the planes and pilots. You could tell these guys had a significant investment in time and money. It would have been nice to hear a few more details about them. We were expecting lots of vendors but could only find two, Balsa USA and a guy selling servo extensions. We came prepared to spend some bucks so if vendors selling gizmos, ARF kits, motors, batteries or servos were present, they could have easily taken advantage of our weakened state, i.e. lack of female influence and and poor judgment. Instead we went home with full bellies and full pocketbooks.
The event ended abruptly on Sunday, apparently due to a weather front coming through. From what were heard, their attendance was down quite a bit this year. This may be due partly to the hot weather but the lack of activities for kids may have played a part.
Overall, this was a very well run event. With a few enhancements it could rival some of the more nationally recognized shows. What can I say, after attending Joe Nall we were spoiled. This is a nice ltille gem to have right here in our our state.
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