Air show

 Jane and I went to the Fort Wayne air show at the Fort Wayne Air National Guard Base yesterday. It was pretty awesome. It was our first time - though we have seen them fly quite often since we only live a few miles from the base (and the airport). I had been watching them practice all week from my office at the church, but it was nothing like being there. They had a bunch of airplanes on display, as well as a bunch of food vendors and other stuff. They say there were supposed to be upwards of 50,000 people there. I'd say there were at least that many.

After church we went out for lunch, then kind of decided on a spur of the moment to go. We saw so many cars parked along the road everywhere, and police were all over the place to stop traffic for the transport buses. So about 1:45 pm we decided to go. We drove over to Wayne High School and caught a school bus from there. The parking lot was almost entirely full (and was only one of several shuttle locations). We got searched by the air guard personnel and caught a bus fairly quickly. It only took about 5 minutes to get there, and they dropped us off right near the gate (unlike if we had parked somewhere and walked - it would have taken forever). So we walked in, and I was immediately surprised at how many people were there. Plus they had these two just HUGE airplanes in the middle. We walked through this one in the picture above (with Jane in the foreground). It's one of those transport planes (apparently the Lockheed Galaxy C5), and you could have put our entire house in there - several times over. I saw it fly in on Friday (over our house) and it was pretty awesome seeing it in the sky. Biggest plane I've ever seen. There were also lots of small fighter planes and fighter jets and whatnot. We saw several of them fly, and a helicopter, and a bus that had a jet engine in it. That's what the below pic is of. When that bus took off it shot out a flame and lit up the runway, and you could not only feel the heat, but you could feel the pressure from it too. It was pretty wild.

It did sprinkle a couple times, but we had umbrella's, and only needed them for a few minutes. We were there for about 2 hours and then headed back to our bus. We got right on, and were back at the parking lot in no time.

One other item of note: at one point I heard them playing my friend Jason Ringenberg's song "Tuskegee Pride" over the loudspeakers. That was pretty cool. They had some Tuskegee fighters there.

I'm not a real big plane nut, but it was interesting nonetheless. I'm glad we went. Plus it was free.

ADDED LATER: Here is a pic from the airport of the same plane Jane is standing in front of above. Their pic is a little clearer of the size of that thing. I think it's neat how that is actually the nose of the plane which lifts up to. Just under the raised part you can barely see the windows where the pilots sit. Very cool.