However at this year's air show at the CNE, the biggest danger was whether or not the planes could fly at all. Apparently some grumpy fellow called Earl was throwing a meteorological hissy feet on the east coast and we were feeling the effects here. The show usually runs Saturday, Sunday and Monday; they had to cancel the Saturday show for high winds
That left us with the decision whether to to go Sunday or Monday. The voodoo shamen witchdoctors who create weather reports were telling us that Monday would be the better of the two days. Sunday turned out to be pretty reasonable, the winds had died down and it was mostly sunny
But Monday was supposed to be even better, sunny and mid 20's Celsius. Well apparently the weather juju men hadn't been sacrificing to the right gods. Monday started out cool and very rainy. I really thought they were going to cancel the show entirely. Luckily, most of these pilots are a hearty lot and thankfully, seeing as this was the last show of the year, it was on
When I say that most of the planes came out to play, we did not see any of the big American fighter jets, like the F-16 Viper and F-22 Raptor, although they were scheduled to do so. But I guess our Canadian pilots are more macho or something, because a pair of CF-18 Hornets showed up ..
.. and a CT-114 Tudor along with a WWII Corsair as part of the Heritage fly by ..
... and of course, the Snow Birds flew, I guess this proves that Canadians really do handle inclement weather better .. or something
An although I do enjoy watching, and hearing, the jets fly, I love watching some vintage warbirds as well. We got the aforementioned Corsair ..
This WWII fighter plane was modelled after the Corsair flown in the Pacific theatre by Lt Hampton Gray, who was awarded the last Victoria Cross of the war for sacrificing his airplane and himself to destroy a Japanese battleship. The show also included WWII planes like this B-25 bomber ...
.. and of course the Harvards showed up, the planes used to train Canadian pilots in WW II. I love these planes, big clumsy things never designed as fighters but the pilots at the show display remarkable skill and dexterity as they pull them through several impressive tricks. And I love that full throated whine of their big radial engines which you will hear in the video.
My favorite part of the air show, however, has always been the aerobatic performers. This year, due to the lack of scheduled performers, we had two flyers who gave us extra long shows.
Rob Holland flies a single wing MX2 custom air show plane, and as you'll see in the video, puts on an energetic, skillful, rather breath taking show
Equally breath taking was Mike Wiskus in his souped up little biplane
The vintage look of this guy's plane certainly suits him, he is very much in the tradition of an old fashioned barn stormer. Boating is one of his hobbies and he seems to like combining that with his flying, the guy just loved to get that biplane down on the deck and buzz the police boats that patrol show center
Of course, the air show would not be the air show without the Snow Birds
We've seen the Snow Birds dozens of times probably but I never tire of them. Their little Tudor jets don't give them the awe and thunder of some other military flying teams but that's a kind of benefit; it makes them concentrate on precision team flying which is always amazing to see
The ability of these pilots to keep these tight formations, wing tip to wing tip, or to fly within yards of each other at hundreds of miles per hour never fails to impress
So weather notwithstanding, we had another totally enjoyable air show. Low skies perhaps, some rain, but the crowds were there, the planes were there, and Lake Ontario seemed to vibrate with the sound of motors and wings.
Enjoy the video
CNE Air Show 2010 from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.
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