Went today. My first airshow in the US, saw some crazy watermelon too.
The guy that landed his plane on a rolling RV!
The guy that jumped from a bi-plane at 200ft agl onto a helicopters skid above him!
The A-10 P51 formation flyby was awesome and I got some great film of the Pony.
Unfortunatly the event ended in tragedy when a Hawker Hunter seemed to flame out after it's first circuit and crashed into a house half a mile from the runway.
I grew up on a Fleet Air Arm airbase and the Hunter was an aircraft I was used to seeing and one I have missed since it went out of service so I was looking forward to seeing it in action again. The sound of it's engine powering up sent a shiver down my back and I followed it's take-off closely with my handycam. As the plane went out of audio range I continued to follow its path with the camera, through it's first turn it looked kinda shaky and as it re-approached the airfield it seemed a lot quieter than I remembered. As I zoomed in, I saw the gear down and the flaps on their way down, the quiet engine was now silent, the pilot struggling for control from the low, slow and dead stick aircraft. The wings inverted and she fell like a brick out of the sky behind a grove of trees and into a housing estate where it flattened a house and set to more on fire.
The pilot of the Hunter died on impact, not a single person on the ground was injured.
My video footage is now in the hands of the FAA and FBI and I was interviewed by both at great length.
My thoughts and prayers are with the family of the pilot who died to entertain us.
