Tulsa Air and Rocket Racing Show, April 24th

[Townsend]

http://www.tulsaairshow.com/index.html


Saturday, April 24, 2010


Hosted by
Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium


3624 North 74th East Avenue
Tulsa, Oklahoma





All earnings will benefit the museum's educational
and inspirational initiatives throughout the year.

[OSU]

Excuse me while I squeal like a little girl and wet myself with excitement.

[sgrizzle]

I wasn't aware this was a sport until this morning and now think every other form of racing is minor leagues.

[Hoss]

I wasn't aware this was a sport until this morning and now think every other form of racing is minor leagues.

It's about time Tulsa got an annual Air Show.  Off to purchase tickets right away!

[Gaspar]

I'm there!

[DolfanBob]

Ok I know im going to get slammed on this but here goes.
Aside from paying for the event to be here. What benefit is it to by a ticket to a air show ?
I have never been to a air show so someone please tell me what extra things go on inside at the tarmac ? I mean wouldnt you see the same things parked in your car on North Sheridan. Anyone living on East Virgin St should have a nice lawn chair experience at no cost.
It seems about the same as parking near the Admiral Twin and tuning your FM radio and watching the movie. Not that I have done this but just asking.
Who knows what people will do in this economy.

[sgrizzle]

Ok I know im going to get slammed on this but here goes.
Aside from paying for the event to be here. What benefit is it to by a ticket to a air show ?
I have never been to a air show so someone please tell me what extra things go on inside at the tarmac ? I mean wouldnt you see the same things parked in your car on North Sheridan. Anyone living on East Virgin St should have a nice lawn chair experience at no cost.
It seems about the same as parking near the Admiral Twin and tuning your FM radio and watching the movie. Not that I have done this but just asking.
Who knows what people will do in this economy.

Better viewing, meet the pilots, view the aircraft on the ground, hear the announcers, shopping, etc.

Many of the performances, particularly aerobatics, are done close to the ground and hard to see away from the airshow.

I've been to many airshows, including driving to Wisconsin for the big grandaddy of them all (about 15,000 aircraft) and have also tried watching from outside (granparents lived next to Will Rogers airport when OKC had a show) and can say being in the show is far better. Hard to compar watching from a distance and having a F-15 going vertical and hitting the afterburners directly over your head. Eyebrows grow back.

[sgrizzle]

Some examples (check the pilot's name on the first one)

[Conan71]

Osh Kosh, B'gosh?

[sgrizzle]

Osh Kosh, B'gosh?

Yup

[Conan71]

Just FYI, there is a very good airplane collection housed at the Liberal, Ks. Airport in buildings which once housed a Beechcraft production facility. 

http://www.kansastravel.org/airmuseum.htm

[Red Arrow]

If you've never seen a big round (radial) engine start, you gotta be there.  After all the plugs are cleared, they sound so wonderful.

[Hoss]

Osh Kosh, B'gosh?

That fly-in is awesome.  You'll never see anything like it.  The tower controllers are wore out by the end of their first shift.  They land on taxiways and color code everything.  They issue special auxiliary charts for the event only. 

[Hoss]

Just FYI, there is a very good airplane collection housed at the Liberal, Ks. Airport in buildings which once housed a Beechcraft production facility. 

http://www.kansastravel.org/airmuseum.htm

A friend and I drove up to Independence Airport some years back to visit the Cessna Plant.  Got to see them making all sorts of aircraft.  Quite a spectacle.  If I had been the photographer then I am now, I would have taken a camera.

[Conan71]

A friend and I drove up to Independence Airport some years back to visit the Cessna Plant.  Got to see them making all sorts of aircraft.  Quite a spectacle.  If I had been the photographer then I am now, I would have taken a camera.

A friend of mine and I flew out to Liberal in his Cherokee 180 so we could get a couple of hours of hood time in for our IFR tickets.  The collection was donated to the City of Liberal by Colonel Tom Thomas.  It's a shame space could not be found to house the collection somewhere permanently in Oklahoma.

Here's some brief info I found on it:

"Countless hours of volunteer labor went into making the museum a reality. One of the driving forces behind the Mid-America Air Museum was Colonel Tom Thomas of Ada, Oklahoma. As a P-40 pilot during World War II, Colonel Thomas flew 86 combat missions and shot down six enemy aircraft, before he himself was shot down and captured in Sicily. During his military career, Colonel Thomas was awarded the Air Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Silver Star for gallantry in action. Following the war, Colonel Thomas went into private enterprise and became the CEO of Thomas Concrete Products in Oklahoma City. Colonel Thomas loaned nearly seventy classic airplanes from his private collection to the Mid-America Air Museum, and willed them to the City of Liberal upon his death. Today the museum is the fifth-largest airplane museum in the country."

I hope by now they have improved the museum in Wichita.  They started an air museum up there in the late '90's in the old airport terminal which was next to McConnell AFB and it was really pathetic considering what a hub Wichita has been to the aerospace industry.  About the coolest thing in their collection was a Beech Bonanza cut-away plane.

The Cosmosphere in Hutchinson is also worth a look.

I've not flown in at least 10 years now.  I'd like to get current and more importantly proficient again after I get my daughters out of college.  Are you still flying any?  Who else here is a pilot?  Red Arrow, you are, aren't you (I've guessed for awhile you own a red Piper Arrow or fly one).