THE C.N.E. DAY TWO: THE AIR SHOW

It is still on the lake today. A light offshore breeze ruffles the water, sun beats off the waves like silent hammer blows, birds describe lazy circles in the sky. Then you begin to hear it, faint at first, off in the distance, a sound that is like a vibration, heard and felt at the same time. As the sound builds the birds soar quickly away and the water trembles and you feel it in the bones of your chest. You look up, shading your eyes against the sun, and you see it off in the distance: A small speck that quickly grows as you watch, moving towards you, moving incredibly fast and in only seconds it takes shape and passes over you, the thunder of its sound following, washing over you ...

Our second day at this year's Canadian National Exhibition saw us huddled on a grandstand on the shore of Lake Ontario to enjoy the 62nd annual air show. The Canadian Forces (sorry I'm never going to type "Royal Canadian Air Force" because it's just damn stupid) Hornet was just the start. This year all the military jets would be from our country as the U.S.A. would only do fly bys, due to budget cuts or disinterest or stamping their feet and holding their breath .. or something

Who needs the Americans anyway. Besides the Hornet, Canada pulled out the T-33 Mako Shark, a sleek, prettily painted fighting jet

The plane by itself was quite exciting but they also paired it up with a Harvard, Canada's venerable training prop plane whose huge radial engine always provides me with one of my favorite sounds at the Airshow

I love the Harvards, these big yellow, noisy airplanes that in their day helped trained hundreds of Canadian pilots. Besides the plane that flew with the T-33, we had a Harvard flying alongside the Beechcraft T-6 Texan, the turboprop plane that has replaced the Harvard as Canada's primary jet training aircraft.

Wait, we're not done yet! If you are interested in the Harvard and you read this post right now (because we don't have all day) I'll offer you one massive Harvard fly by absolutely free . . .

. . . and as a special bonus, completely free (you just pay extra shipping and handling) I'll throw in the Harvard Formation Team, that's a nine million dollar value!

I always enjoy watching this team fly. The Harvard is a WW 3 era trainer, it is not a stunt plane yet these pilots defy that logic by putting these big prop planes through an impressive set of aerial maneuvers.

These were not the only military aircraft that flew over the lake. The Canadian Forces CP-140 Aurora made its annual appearance. This is not stunt plane and it is no fighter plane. It is a maritime patrol plane and sub hunter, a big multi engine prop plane that, in the hands of these pilots, is surprisingly nimble.'\

The Aurora was not the only "big boy" to soar across the air space; the mighty C-130 Hercules demonstrated one of its many duties with a mid-air fuelling demo, topping up the tanks of CF-18 Hornet

The Airshow is about more than military planes of course. The stunt pilots are always among my favorites in the show.  These year we saw something different and pretty amazing. Melissa and Rex Pemberton are a husband and wife stunt team. She pilots an Edge 540 aerobatics plane while he jumps out of said airplane; and while he does have a parachute strapped to his back, Rex always wears a squirrel suit and he just doesn't fall, he flies.

While her husband is soaring across the sky in a completely unpropelled suit, Melissa (as do most wives) wants to keep a close eye on her man. Which means flying her prop plane in circles around her husband.

Eventually Rex got the message and decided it was time to listen to the old ball and chain ... or in this case yoke and flaps ... and get his ass out of the sky. He popped his parachute and began his slow graceful spire back to earth .. well in actually, Lake Ontario

Thrilled that she got her husband to actually listen to her, Melissa celebrated with some nifty tricks of her own

Speaking of tricks, let us speak about Mike Wiskus. Mike is an American aerobatic pilot and .. let's be honest here .. Mike is damaged. Mike flies the Lucas Oil competition biplane .. you know a biplane .. and he does things that .. well ... nobody apparantly ever told Mike what one can do and not do in a biplane.

Firstly Mike thinks that his biplane is half boat, how else to explain his penchant for trying to land his lovely little airplane in the harbour

They also neglected to tell Mike that you can't use a biplane to perform a somersault. Yes, a somersault. Check the video

No visit to the Airshow is complete without a performance by the Snow Birds. We have seen them many times and have always enjoyed it and it was nice to see that this year they had some new tricks.

Check out the photo below where Collette caught the shadow of the trailing inverted plane in the contrail of the plane in front of it, pretty extraordinary

So another great year at the Airshow, our annual kick at the last bit of summer. Here's the video, supplemented with many of Collette's photo's and music by Alex Clare.