I'd like to wish all of our volunteers a Merry Christmas and thank you for your support.
They started arriving. What an awesome sight as Windsor was again playing host to an Air Show.
Sometime on Saturday the Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield will be joining us at our show.
We have drafted up a show performance schedule. This schedule WILL BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE right up until the show begins. Due to weather, mechanical and other problems out of our control there is no guarantee the performer will go on as scheduled, however we will do our best.
BUDAPEST, Hungary – American Michael Goulian won a thrill-filled Red Bull Air Race in Budapest on Thursday while Britain’s Paul Bonhomme grabbed second place and knocked Austrian Hannes Arch out of the championship lead in a thrilling battle over the Danube River in front of a national holiday crowd of 650,000. American Kirby Chambliss grabbed third place, which dropped Arch into fourth and off the podium for the first time in over a year. German rookie Matthias Dolderer took a career-best fifth place.
The Windsor International Air Show promises to be one of the biggest shows in Ontario. We have over 60 aircraft attending with some of the best pilots in their field.
Ok this one delivers. Seriously.
It's the challenge of the year happening at the Windsor International Airport on August 15, 2009.
The F-15 Eagle is a twin-engine, all-weather tactical fighter designed to gain and maintain air superiority in aerial combat. Developed for the USAF it first flew in July 1972, and is one of the most recognized modern fighters. The F-15 is expected to remain in service until 2025. Despite originally being envisaged as a pure air superiority aircraft, the design proved flexible enough that an all-weather strike derivative, the F-15E Strike Eagle, was later developed, and entered service in 1989.
The Beechcraft T-34 Mentor is a propeller-driven, single-engined, military trainer aircraft derived from the Beechcraft Model 35 Bonanza. The earlier versions of the T-34, dating from around the late 1940s to the 1950s, were piston engined. These were eventually succeeded by the upgraded T-34C Turbo-Mentor, powered by a turboprop engine. The T-34 remains in service almost six decades after it was first designed.
The Windsor International Air Show is starting to heat up.
We have another edition to our show. Vintage Wings of Canada will be bringing down their Mustang and will be flying in our show.
It's a time to enjoy the day and reflect on where we are as a country. It's a day to celebrate our independence and Freedom all across this land. Yes I'm somewhat patriotic. Canada is no doubt the absolute best country in the world and the land is absolutely gorgeous.
Rick Volker 60 second promo from Eric Wobschall on Vimeo.
Rick Volker Talon 2007 from Eric Wobschall on Vimeo.
If you ever had a chance to see poetry in flight this is your opportunity. Mike gives it his all in every performance and you will be amazed at his flight dynamics. I can't say enough except watch the videos.
We have confirmation of another visitor to our show. The Blackhawk will be on static display so getting up close is a real treat.
A recent article in the LA Times describes in pretty good detail how Air Shows are attracting record crowds even with the current economy. The International Council of Air Shows has seen the typical pattern in past recessions. People want value and they want it at home. Air shows deliver and then some. Just like the rest of the entertainment industry air shows have developed over the years and it's more than just watching a plane fly by. It's become more of an experience with the noise, sights and ground displays. Professional announcers with mind boggling sound systems permeate your senses and get you right into the thick of it. You can almost imagine yourself inside that aircraft tumbling, pulling g's or just feeling the thrill of it all. Just being able to look up and see them isn't enough at an air show. Performers want to interact with the people and get to know them. Fighter pilots enjoy quick stories on how they cope or how they brag, if just a little. It's an amazing job, flying in an air show. Walk up and get an autograph. Attend one of the celebrations after the show.
As an added value attraction the OPP Golden Helmets will be performing at our show. The 20-member team, comprised of O.P.P. officers on regular patrol duties, consists of the Ride Master, Commentator, the motorcycle technician and 17 riders. Each team member must have successfully completed a three week motorcycle course and at least one season on motorcycle patrol. The members must be in good physical condition and possess a police fitness pin.
On October 13, 1909, the “Ontario Provincial Police Force” was established with a permanent force of salaried police constables.
The OPP can be traced back to the 19th century when John Wilson Murray, the province’s first full-time paid criminal detective, began his 31-year career in 1875. A small staff of government detectives worked for the Attorney General’s office until the formation of the OPP when many of these “provincial constables” subsequently joined the now formalized Ontario Provincial Police.
The year 2009 marks the OPP’s 100th anniversary, a milestone achievement of service to the people of Ontario. This year is not only a celebration of the past it also continues a commitment to excellence in policing throughout the next century.
Trademark owned by VIA Rail Canada Inc.
We just got some more updates on another heavier than air aircraft and is this one heavy.
So we've all seen the pictures of jets banking and squeezing the water out of the air leaving vapour trails. Ever wonder how it feels to be in the back seat?
I've copied a story that has been around for years and still sums it all up. It was first printed in September 14, 1999 in Sports Illustrated. It is well worth the read, even today.
Enjoy the ride.....
Now this message for America's most famous athletes: Someday you may be invited to fly in the backseat of one of your country's most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have -- John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity....
Move to Guam. Change your name. Fake your own death. Whatever you do, do not go. I know. The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was pumped. I was toast!
I should've known when they told me my pilot would be Chip (Biff) King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. Whatever you're thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, finger-crippling handshake -- the kind of man who wrestles dyspeptic alligators in his leisure time. If you see this man, run the other way. Fast.
Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the voice of NASA missions. ("T-minus 15 seconds and counting...." Remember?) Chip would charge neighborhood kids a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack would wake up from naps surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say, "We have a liftoff."
Biff was to fly me in an F-14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful $60 million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight, not unlike Colin Montgomerie. I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.
"Bananas," he said.
"For the potassium?" I asked.
"No," Biff said, "because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down."
The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my name sewn over the left breast. (No call sign -- like Crash or Sticky or Leadfoot -- but, still, very cool.) I carried my helmet in the crook of my arm, as Biff had instructed. If ever in my life I had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, that was it.
A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then fastened me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would "egress" me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked unconscious.
Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight, the canopy closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up. In minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and then canopy-rolled over another F-14. Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80.
It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags Over Hell. Only without rails. We did barrel rolls, sap rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and dived again, sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We chased another F-14, and it chased us. We broke the speed of sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5, which is to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against me, thereby approximating life as Mrs. Colin Montgomerie.
And I egressed the bananas. I egressed the pizza from the night before. And the lunch before that. I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the sixth grade. I made Linda Blair look polite. Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that did not even want to be egressed. I went through not one airsick bag, but two. Biff said I passed out. Twice.
I was coated in sweat. At one point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a mock bombing target and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first person in history to throw down.
I used to know cool. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass, or Norman making a five-iron bite. But now I really know cool. Cool is guys like Biff, men with cast-iron stomachs and Freon nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for Derek Jeter's black book, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less a year than a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.
A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said he and the fighters had the perfect call sign for me. Said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit.
What is it? I asked.
"Two Bags."
Don't you dare tell Nicole.
Yes I have had passengers who became part of the club.
We're getting there.
Here is a picture of the Hornet that will be in Windsor at our Air Show in August. It looks fast just sitting still.
We got the official ok from the US Military. They're definitely going to be here, it's just a matter of what can make it.
It looks absolutely marvelous.
