Quonset Air Show 2009…
The Quonset Air Show and the Collings Foundation Spring Open House falls on the same weekends every single year like clock work.
Collings Foundation had overcast Saturday that cleared up. Small crowds and two planes flying around. This made for a perfect Saturday, nice weather and something to ogle.
Quonset had a great Saturday; unfortunately, I was in Littleton, MA at Knights and Ladies at Fort Pond for a wedding. I can highly recommend the location if you’re looking for a nice cozy, small, place for a wedding.
The entire wedding was nicely done, laid back and as I mentioned above, a great location.
Rhode Island being a small state, one of my friends from high school graduating class knows the bride’s family so we played catch up.
Sunday was crappy. ‘course. Par for the course. Sunny for the wedding. Crappy for the airshow. Processing gray planes against a gray background sucks.
Got there by 730, the new highway exit was an easy drive in. Talked with a few people in line. I walked around a lot and got some nice pictures of the planes on static display. This year they had a few different planes including a B1B Bomber, at least two P-51s from The Four Horsemen along with two Ospreys and several large aircraft parked at opposite ends of the flight line.
Passed another 40d owner w/ the same lens and we both smiled at each other.
We had a 500 ft ceiling to begin with. Each plane has a required ceiling. The small aerobatic planes have a very short ceiling. Since the larger planes weren’t able to go up in the morning the aerobatic planes ran through their practice show first for the morning crowd. The bigger planes have a higher ceiling. So, you can all see where this is headed.
You have several different options with an Air Show when it comes to bad weather. A high, low or flat show.
A Flat Show is what we got on Sunday and even through the planes were just doing laps, at least they spruced it up a bit with different formations so it didn’t look like laps.
The day as a whole was nowhere near as bad as 2006 when it poured. We hid under the tent at Horizon Aviation until we decided to call it a day.
The combined combat display and the Mach Truck were absent.
By the time my parents showed up the P-51, F-22 and F-16 flying in their annual Heritage Flight.
Hopefully, the Horsemen/ASB will come back next year, it was nice to see the Warbird has continued to show up year after year. I’m hoping someone will get a plan together for more Warbirds showing up to Quonset like Nashua’s Air Hertiage Festival did before it shuttered it’s doors.
The Snow Birds were nice to see again. The more jet teams the better and after a while the Blues can get kinda boring. You know it’s time to head back to your car when the Blues come out, watch’em from the car and then get the hell out before everyone empties out of the show.
Overall, it was a good weekend. And, a whole lotta pictures to process…
