Air show

Air show flyer. (Epson 10000XL.)

This weekend is the annual air show at Greater Rochester International Airport.
No doubt if I had grandchildren I’d be taking them to it, much as my grandfather did with me.
But instead I have this dog, who is much more into going to the park than any air show.
The greatest air show I ever attended is that in 1956 at the Philadelphia Airport.
It was fabulous — it had everything.
I still can picture the flyovers of our house of -1) an F102 Delta Dagger; -2) a Chance-Vought Navy Cutlass flying-wing fighter; and -3) a chevron of eight humming B36s.
We were still in Erlton at that time, and I remember riding my bicycle in Camden County Park along Cooper Crick (and the kerreck south Jersey pronunciation is “crick,” not “creek”), and I was on aeronautical overload. B25s and B29s were flying over, as well as a B47, and even a B52.
Once an F100 Super Sabre shrieked over.
My greatest memories of that air show are:
—A) Walking out on the apron, and coming upon a displayed B47. I grabbed the wingtip, and started waving it up-and-down.
“Bobby, stop that!” my father yelled. “You’ll break the plane!”
“Don’t worry sir,” the sentry said. “He obviously knows how flexible that wing is. He’s probably seen it done.”
—B) Checking out the HUGE C99 transport. The C99 was a transport version of the B36. It had the B36 wing, with its six pusher motors, but no jet engines.
Only one was built.
—C) Checking out the USS Ticonderoga, a naval aircraft-carrier that had docked next to the airport in the Delaware River.
A crewman told us about lassoing a ‘49 Plymouth convertible to the steam-catapult, and lobbing it a quarter-mile into the ocean.
It woulda whomped Big Daddy Don Garlitz.
The Rochester Air Show will have the Thunderbirds, and I think I heard them blasting in.
An F16 fighter-plane sounds much different than the ordinary jet airliner.
Much crisper and more powerful.
A few years ago I was patronizing the Funky Food Market, which is near the airport, and the Blue Angels were practicing for the air show.
It was extraordinary.
A Blue Angel would fly over and rip the surroundings.
People were standing on car-bumpers to watch.
The Blue Angels fly the F/A-18 Hornet, another extraordinarily powerful fighter-plane.
And blindingly fast.
I also remember hitting the strawberry-patch once, which is south of the airport, and the Thunderbirds were practicing.
They were ripping the sky overhead.
But I checked the flyer.
No Lockheed Constellation.
I’ve always said “The next airshow I attend” (and I’ve attended many) “will have a Connie in it.”
No Connie, no grandkids; no go.

My computer scanner is an “Epson 10000XL.”

“Erlton” is the suburb in south Jersey we lived in before northern Delaware. Erlton is north of Haddonfield. Our family moved in 1957.

Aircraft-carriers use steam-powered catapults to launch airplanes off the flight-deck.

“Big Daddy Don Garlitz” is a famous drag-racer. He raced fuel dragsters, the fastest drag-racers. (Drag-racing is start-to-finish over a quarter-mile. “Fuel” is nitro-methane instead of gasoline; the stuff model-airplanes use.)

“The funky food-market” is Lori’s Natural Foods, south of Rochester in Henrietta — a source for salt-free cereal, sauce, etc.

“The strawberry-patch” is Gro-Moore Farms in nearby Rush, where I hand-pick strawberries, which are only in season in late June.

The “Connie” is the Lockheed Constellation, a four-engine propeller airliner used in the late ‘40s and ‘50s. Prettiest airplane ever!