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March Field Airshow 2008

Friday May 2 / Sat May 3 / Sun May 4

With airshow season pretty much now in full swing, thousands of aviation fans were anxiously awaiting the semi-annual “Airfest” at the March Field Air Reserve Base in Moreno Valley, California, primarily due to the fact that the first SoCal F-22 Raptor demo of the season would be occurring there. The schedule would include aerobatics, skydivers, a CDF firefighting demo (Sat only), jets, warbirds, a Heritage Flight, and of course the United States Air Force Demonstration Team, the Thunderbirds. I spent three days covering this event, with two of those at the March Field museum which is located on the base’s west side, where you can spend the day NOT looking into the sun, which is exactly what happens if you go on base for the show. Sunday, I did exactly that, to get photos from a different angle.

Practice for the airshow was on Friday, May 2^nd. People lucky enough to have the day off, showed up at the museum (or on base if they were even luckier to get on a C-17 media flight!) in hopes of catching a glimpse of the action - much of which was expected to take place right over the museum. Many photographers arrived early, to claim the best vantage point (or best shady spot!) to take pictures from. Rumor had it that the museum was charging photographers $300 to bring in a tripod and a ladder to shoot over the eight foot fence on the base perimeter. It appeared that only one person took them up on that!

Highlights from Friday’s practice were the F/A-18C Hornet demonstration (flown by VFA-125 from NAS Lemoore near Hanford, Calif); the F-22A Raptor demo, flown by Major Paul ‘Max’ Moga, and the Thunderbirds. On many occasions, each of these planes would fly low and fast right over the museum grounds, thrilling all in attendance. The C-17 Globemaster III demo, while it did not really fly over the museum, is always an impressive sight, not only because you can see it taxi backwards - that’s right, I said backwards; but to see the pilot bank this aircraft the way he/she can, is simply amazing! It flat out borders on knife edge flight!

Next to the F-22 and the Thunderbirds, the biggest highlight of the show on Saturday was the appearance of the DC-10 firebomber, based out of Victorville, Calif. This new tanker can drop 12,000 gallons of water or Phoscheck on a fire line. The airplane made two passes, the first being a ‘dry’ pass, and then it slowly made its way back around to demonstrate that 12,000 gallon water drop on the field, coming in very low to the ground. What a sight! This was the final part of the CDF firefighting demo, which began with an OV-10 Bronco spotter plane, and an S-2 Tracker, which also did a water drop.

Other flying action included John Collver in his SNJ “WarDog”. He was originally scheduled to fly alongside Chuck Hall, who flies the P-51 Mustang, “Six Shooter”, however Chuck was not able to attend due to minor illness. Also flying was a four-ship L-29 Delfin group, led by Doug Gillis. Aerobatic pilot Mike Mangold has recently started to fly with the “Thunder Delfins”. A pair of Migs were on hand for the show as well, a beautiful bright red Mig-17, flown by Bill Reeseman, who told me he is thinking of retiring, and a Mig-21, which flew in Friday afternoon, doing two flybys. A couple of other photographers and myself were exiting the museum building (with gear stowed) when that Mig-21 came by, so NONE of us got that shot! This made a couple of us feel a bit like Tom Cruise in the movie TopGun, when his character exclaims, “A Mig 28! No one’s flown this close before!”, cracking up other exiting museum-goers nearby.

The Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, April 18, 1942, was reenacted by a pair of B-25s that were on hand. Mike Pupich’s “Heavenly Body”; and another well known SoCal B-25, “Executive Sweet”. Two flybys were done, with minor pyrotechnic explosions going off, and then they came back around for a third pass, this time, synchronized with the Wall of Fire, provided by Rich Gibson and crew. “Executive Sweet”, which was seen at the April 19^th Minter Field airshow without any nose art, sported new nose art at the March Field show, which was just applied on Wednesday, April 30^th.

Aerobatics for the weekend’s airshow were provided by Margie Stivers and her husband, Hartley Foltstad in their Stearman; Tim Decker in his Pitts biplane; Rob Harrison, the ‘Tumbling Bear’ in his bright yellow Zlin 50; Bill Stein in his Edge 540, and Ed Hamill, with his beautifully painted red, white, and blue Air Force Reserve Pitts biplane. Skydiving performances were provided by the US Army Golden Knights, as well as the Canadian Skyhawks team.

The USAF Thunderbirds were in town, with their F-16C ‘Fighting Falcons’, aka ‘Vipers’. Major Samantha Weeks, their second-ever female pilot, has now moved on to being the lead solo pilot, with a new pilot to the team, Dyon Douglas, now flying the #6 aircraft. Practice on Friday seemed to go very well, as did their performance on Saturday. However, Sunday was a different story. They had problems with not one, not two, but three aircraft on Sunday, causing a lengthy delay in the show. But this is why they bring spare aircraft to their show locations. Various reports have stated that one had a bird strike, and the other two had other maintenance issues. By the time the show resumed, some clouds had moved in, and the team decided to switch over to their "flat" show. Unfortunately for the team, there was a mass exodus of impatient airshow attendees, who weren’t willing to wait for the rest of the show. Well, their loss!

Special thanks goes out to the crew of both B-25 bombers - in particular, Chad and Barbara from “Heavenly Body”, and John Ferguson of “Exec Sweet”, for the access to both aircraft on Sunday. Thanks also to Keith for the assistance in gaining access to the hot ramp on Sunday, and for the opportunity to meet & chat with John Collver, Bill Reeseman, and Kevin Eldridge.