And it had been quite a while since I had been to one in person, so it was pretty exciting. (I think my last air show was when I was still in the Air Force . . . it was probably the Aerospace and Arizona Days Air Show in Tucson, back in 2002).
The Quad Cities are about an hour and a half away, by car, the air show taking place at the Davenport Municipal Airport. After packing overnight bags for ourselves and a cooler with lunch, we grabbed the portable DVD player and some movies for Livie, and then headed out.
Since this was a last minute trip, we weren't able to get a hotel in the immediate vicinity, so we'd booked a room in Muscatine, IA, about 25 miles away from the air show. Because we couldn't check in until around 3 PM, we headed straight for the air show.
It had been overcast all morning, turning to constant rain as we'd gotten closer to Davenport. Apparently it was due to remnants of Isaac, just lingering (seemingly endlessly) over the Quad Cities area.
So our first day at the air show was wet, wet, wet. It hadn't stopped raining ALL DAY in Davenport! But Livie had her rain gear, so she had no complaints. (Andrew and I got rather wet, even with an umbrella, simply because it was pretty windy, too.)
But regardless of the weather on that first day, we'd had fun. And Livie was impressed!
*However, there was a tragic event during the day. At some point, while Livie, Andrew, and I were distracted by the static aircraft displays, there was an accident. One of the aircraft (an L-39) crashed, killing the pilot on impact. (Click here for a news story.) Fortunately, Livie didn't actually see the accident. (And Andrew and I didn't know the tragic fate of the pilot until after we'd left for the day.)*
Anyway, after having that horrible gut feeling after seeing that (and again, not yet knowing the fate, but knowing search and rescue teams were doing their thing), we went on with the afternoon, since the FAA had cleared the rest of the day's performers for flight.
Here are a few photos of the first day.
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| Liv and the Air Force banner |
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| An A-10 and Star Spangled Banner |
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| Liv loves "Spooky"! |
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| "Is that a Native American?" |
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| Corn at the Davenport Municipal Airport |
(Somewhere in between taking these two photos was when the accident had happened. As you can see, Livie was sufficiently distracted by a churro and a static display. By the way, we hadn't heard a thing. )
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| Checking out the bomb drop |
Since it had been raining a lot, and the ceiling (where the cloud cover was located height-wise in the sky) was low, the Air Force's Thunderbirds had to cancel their performance for this first day. So we headed to our hotel, about a 30 minute drive away.
Once we checked in, got dried off, and relaxed a bit, we headed out to dinner and then went sight seeing at the Mississippi River.
More photos (from our evening at the Mississippi River, and from Day 2 of the Air Show) coming soon . . .
(Part 2 is here; and Part 3 is here)
5 comments:
Neat pictures. How sad about the crash. Glad you still got to enjoy it though.
Thank goodness you were all distracted when the accident happened! How very tragic. Glad you were able to continue on to have a nice time.
I went to the show last year (did a three part blog on it in June 2011.) The mid-air transfer of a guy from a biplane to a helicopter was a success. But a few weeks later he died doing that same stunt. I heard about the crash too and am sad about the situation. In Muscatine did you go to the Button Factory Restaurant? Its a great place. So is the button museum downtown. Livie would like it - it is open year round.
I am so sorry about the crash.
You did get some nice pictures.
I haven't been to an air show in years. Looks like it was a fun day.
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