Thunder Over Louisville, a large airshow during the day, and biggest national firework event at night, is happening this saturday. The airshow is always pretty spectacular, including F-15, F-16, F-18, and A-10 demos. However this year the F-22 is also supposed to make an appearance. I'm hoping that it will be able to do a little bit more than just a fly-by. I've seen videos of F-22s doing pseudo-demos at airshows out West. Since the main airshow here is located over the Ohio River, perhaps I will get to see some action.
Heres some neat stuff I've seen at Thunder over Louisville in years past:
-F-14 and F-4s
-A flight of F-16s (4 of them) with wing tanks in full after-burner flying tight circles over the river at about 1500 feet. I remember looking straight up, and the F-16s were right above me in almost a 90 degree bank, huge flames shooting out of the engines. They must have made five or six circles over the river (and over the crowd..weeee) in full after-burner before they returned to base.
-An F-16 demo pilot (Viper East) flying parallel to the river at nearly the speed of sound, rolling his F-16 at its maximum roll rate until it was out of sight. Wonder what kind of g-forces that dude was feeling?
-A B1b doing rolls, and zoom climbing from 1500 or so feet until it was out of sight.
-An amphibious plane flying underneath one of the bridges, landing on the river, the pilot popping out of this strange bubble canopy and waving, then taking back off (flying underneath the bridge once again!).
-Watching Stearman biplanes perform aerobatics, along with the wing walking act.
