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Davis Monthan AFB 2010 Airshow After Action Report
Vector Warbird Aircraft Attending:
Nanchang Haiyan: ‘Bunndini' & Marine ‘Silence, I kill you!' Karyan
Nanchang CJ-6: Currie ‘Inspector Clouseau' Lee
Aero L-39: ‘The General' and ‘Mr. Magoo'
RV-8A: ‘Polish Bob' and ‘Kitty'
NA T-28: ‘Bomber' Bauer
T-34: ‘Twitch'
Depart PRC 1030hrs in three ship flight. After several sight seeing circuits over the boneyard waiting for the bingo fuel MiG 17 to land we arrived to find a black stretch limo to transport the gang to base ops where ‘Teflon' greased the skids all the way to our hotel.The party began immediately upon the arrival of the German Luftwaffe Tornado and pilots ‘Justin Case' and ‘Beaker' who just happened to be transporting ‘Bunndinis' two cases of Kleiner Fligling and Heydt Green Power Vodka in the ‘Pod'. The OClub party was a hoot as usual with the entire flight gang and their escorts joining in the fun. All too soon an entire case of Fligling shooters disappeared under a brown haze of McChrystals and laughter. Thank you ‘JC' for the introductions!
But soon it was time to roll off base and find more interesting game, which took our caravan downtown to 4th Street and endless parties and bars. We finally landed at the Sky Club where dancing and drinking have become a fine art. Soon it was well past the witching hour and the gang headed for some well deserved sack time. After a quick breakfast at the DM golf course it was on to the flight line for a beautiful day of airshowing. The weather was perfect and the flying excellent with the Patriots opening the show and the Thunderbirds closing it. Many new and unusual aircraft were in attendance including a performance by the Black Ops U-2 spy plane.
The evening once again found the VW crew prowling downtown Tucson, with a fabulous dinner of Japanese sushi and Champagne at the best place in town. From there it was over to the Level Club for a night of supporting the local businesses as best we could. Well you know the boring drill by now, endless parties, new friends, aircraft, jokes and invites to more airshows. Well somebody has to do it!
After another day of airshowing and a quick oil change on the ramp by TGB and it was off to the 358th Fighter Squadron or ‘Lobos' for a private party and a hell of a good time. After a few JWeeds and beers many incredible stories of A-10 ‘Warthogs' merging with German Luftwaffe F-4 ‘Phantoms' over Germany had hands shooting down hands. And it sounds like the flying in Germany might just be a tad more exciting than over here. I guess that's what less PC will get you.
Well I will say without reservation that this DM show was the best, we had a great time and enlisted a few more Warbirds into our flock, including the MiG 17 and T-34.
1100hrs Monday found us packed up and climbing into another beautiful sky and looking forward to our motley crew meeting up once again in three days for the MCAS Yuma Airshow, which is also one of the best. Don't forget it's the German Oktoberfest at Holloman AFB this September and Carnival in February 2011 in GERMANY! Yep that's right, the old country! See you there and remember you only have one life to live so live it to the fullest!
Ding Hao!
TGB
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HILL AIR FORCE BASE AIRSHOW WEEK, JUNE 1-7, 2009
AFTER ACTION REPORT
Vector Warbirds Display Aircraft on the Line:
Aero L-39 – Ken ‘The General’ Roth & Dave ‘The Polisher Guy’ Rieder
Beech C-45 Expediter/COD - ‘Capeetan Ostrich’, ‘Dad’ Ostrich and my God a crew of 5!
NA T-28 Trojan - Mark ‘Been There-Done That’ Bauer & another ‘Polisher Guy’ ah I forget.
Nanchang Haiyan C - ‘The Great Bunndini,’ AC & ‘Digger,’ OGC (Overall Guy in Charge)
Nanchang CJ-6A - ‘Spooky,’ AC & ‘Darlin,’ BIB
Nanchang CJ-6A - Currie Lee and his ‘Nurse’ Suzie
Nanchang CJ-6A - ‘Big Red’ Elliott and Nora ‘The Comedian’
Thursday June 4th
0800 found the Mighty Chang wheels up out of KPRC with two wingmen in tow and a package of Hostess Powdered donuts and crappy coffee under my ever expanding flight suit. Weather CAVU, we climb to 11,500 for transition through the Dragon Corridor over the Big Ditch. Our flight touches down at Richfield, UT (KRIF) to warm our rear ends and wait for ‘Tale’ End Charlie and always last in, ‘Big Red’. 45 mins later they show up and we head into town to refuel the ‘ladies’ and ourselves.
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PAYSON, ARIZONA AERO FAIR 2009
MAY 15 - 16, 2009
Off to the airport to give the Mighty Chang a wash down and then wheels up at 1500 heading due east. Were met at Payson by the official greeting committee and quickly got situated with parking, Hi-Po courtesy car and directions to our ‘dorms’ for the coming night. Located a great steak restaurant called Fargo’s with friendly girls. The Captain was in residence as well.
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Luke Air Force Base Thunder in the Desert Airshow 2009
Aircrew:
Nanchang Haiyan C, Dragon Lead
‘The Great Bunndini’ AC
‘Digger’ MC
Friday March 20, 2009
With wheels up at 0830 and a downhill run the Mighty Chang touched down a mere 48 minutes later on the 10,000 foot long Luke AFB (KLUF) runway 21L with, well, plenty of room to spare. We were met at our aircraft by our POC ‘Toro’ and minutes later were fully fueled, oiled and bedded down. Five minutes later with beer in hand we were escorted to our new Impala rental car and headed out for our luxury room at the Hilton hotel. After a brief respite we freshened up and headed back to base for the fabulous Luke Days hangar party. Hundreds of aviators, participants, and guests made for interesting conversation and aviator lies.
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MARINE CORPS AIR STATION YUMA 50TH ANNIVERSAY AIRSHOW 2009
Aircrew:
Nanchang Haiyan C, Dragon Lead
‘The Great Bunndini’ AC
‘Digger’ MC
Nanchang CJ-6 Dragon Two
Larry ‘Spooky’ Pine, AC
Lacy ‘Darlin’ Pine, WSO
Nanchang CJ-6 Dragon Three
‘General Lee’ AC
Sue ‘Oui’ Lee WSO
Yakovlev 18T Dragon Four
Bruce ‘Krazy Ivan’ Merrifield
‘Fraulein Carmen’ WSO
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Nellis Air Force Base Aviation Nation Airshow 2008
Crew in Attendance:
Gary ‘Bunndini’ Bunn - Command Pilot
Ben ‘Digger’ Kiteley - WiSO, Nav, Radio Ops, Gunner
Sian ‘IvanHo’ Proctor - Well…you know
Quick and easy flight direct to Nellis, weather CAVU, right downwind for 3 R with multiple aircraft in the pattern and on the runway. Just ahead of us the Red Bull HU-16 Albatross, just behind the Red Bull P-38 Lighting. By the time we taxi to parking its Oh dark thirty. This year we are happily again parked next to Dennis and Tami Buehn’s dark blue Midnight Express AT-6 Texan. Across from us sits the Australian CA-22 Winjeel (whatever the fk that is!) out of Corona, CA and the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter out of Williams Airport in Phoenix, AZ.
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MARINE CORPS AIR STATION MIRAMAR AIRSHOW 2008
San Diego, CA
Well folks another fabulous Marine Corps airshow; here’s how it stacked up.
Thursday Oct. 2, 0930 hrs local time:
Perfect flight over as usual, 10,500’ and CAVU with slight tail wind. Arrived area about 30 minutes early so decided to go over to French Valley and beat up their airport with some low strafing runs before heading south. (I think we made some spam can driver shit his pants.)
MCAS Miramar 1000 hrs:
‘Digger’ got us cleared for the standard I-15/ Black Mountain arrival at 1500’ for base leg runway 24R with numerous aircraft landing. Standard excellent VAL handling of getting us parked and secured. VIP van to pick us up with our gear and take us to aircrew check in then on to pick up our Hertz rental car. All the wheels were well greased by our POC ‘Snapper’ Dobeck, a newly minted Lt. Col. Congrats ‘Snapper’. In other words folks there were no SNAFU’s.
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FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE AIR SHOW 2008
Well folks, your United States Air Force and the 92nd Air Refueling Wing put on another great airshow this year, bringing in the US Navy Blue Angels for, we are told, the first time since 1972. The Mighty Chang made the entire flight up non-stop; a total of 870 sm in just over 6.5 hrs of sitting on the chutes. No problems coming or going except for light turbulence coming home near Wendover Airfield. We tried to get clearance through the range from Clover Control, but no joy, as the fast movers were enjoying putting ordinance on some poor jackrabbits and we didn’t want any part of that. We have been jumped several times by fast movers wanting to see what we were but they didn’t engage, little did they know we did! Scratch one F-15!
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MARINE CORPS AIR STATION YUMA 2008
Flight Crew:
‘Bunndini’, ‘Ivan-Ho’, ‘Digger’, ‘Caesar’, ‘Krazy Ivan’, ‘Carmen Miranda’
Our flight of three arrived on Thursday this year and was greeted by the typically outstanding Yuma ground crew, as always. Aircraft were quickly and efficiently marshaled into position and secured. It was a new program this year at Yuma, as they have a new air show boss and we were parked just outside the HQ building, which we liked. Next year the show date will be moving to May 5th as the Blue Angels will be performing. This was done to accommodate their busy schedule.
We quickly settled into the BOQ for refreshments and to debrief. Our arrival in 06 was quite FUBAR, at least for some, and we had to put the Sukhoi 31 down at the deserted Rolle airport for bingo fuel. For some reason there was an F-16 practicing when we arrived in our slot time, but the Mighty Chang was not worried; they don’t call her the ‘Tanker’ for nothing. We just orbited and looked down on the poor Sukhoi Driver baking in the sun!
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HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE AIR AND SPACE EXPO 2007
Well my friends, I hardly know where to start, as this show was one of the best, but ain’t all US Military Shows?
The flight from Prescott (PRC) was just perfect; we were cleared through the 5107C Restricted Area and headed down in perfectly clear smooth skies. Holloman (KHMN) cleared us straight in for runway 25 and we landed just ahead of a gaggle of F-16 Fighting Falcons.
We were quickly marshaled in and parked, and low and behold our German Air Force friends ‘Angel’ and ‘Fishmac’ stood waiting with an ice chest full of beer, and it was only 0900 hours! We had met and partied with these two Luftwaffe Tornado pilots at the Hill AFB show the year before. Happily they had not forgotten their lowly, propeller driven comrades. I know I will never forget them at Hill because that is where I learned a valuable lesson in life: never try to drink beer with the German Air Force!
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NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, AVIATION NATION AIRSHOW 2007
This was our first invite to the Nellis AFB (KLSV) show and brother are we glad we got it! Arrival was easy and I think we just got lucky; made all the right radio calls and while they held up the MiGs and other jets they gave us a left base entry and cleared us to land, so the Mighty Chang beats them all again! They must be hopping mad by now!
Speaking of MiGs (MiG 17’s at least), we left Prescott early and landed at Kingman (KIGM), AZ for breakfast. While there we noticed the red MiG 17 from Coolidge (P08), AZ and after a little chat learned that the Mig had to refuel there in Kingman to be able to make it to Las Vegas (Nellis). Now Nellis is only 266nm from Coolidge people, but I hear the MiG burns 300 gph. So now you know why we don’t have a MiG.
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