MCAS Miramar Airshow 2006

This was the first time we visited an airshow in US. The airshow was taken place at Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar San Diego. I had a skeptical mind when they told me that it was the world's largest military air show, yet now I believe that they might be true. The participants for this airshow were US Coast-Guard, Air-Police SD, US Army, US Air Force, and US Navy. We could walk around the air-base field to observe closely land-combat vehicles, such as dessert ATF, Tanks, mobile howitzer, and (light) sea-combat vehicle like patrol boat. No doubt, that majority of displays spanned all over the base were choppers and airplanes including fighters, transport, tanker, bomber and stealth types. If you were lucky, you could see into the cockpit but the queue was so long for airplanes which offered this opportunity. In additional, you were also encouraged to interact with marines who stand-by beside their vehicle, either just took picture with them or asked them many aspects of their vehicle and experience. As you see from the photos beside, you could also borrow their unloaded guns for a moments and got a feel how to hold this weapon. Were they all the primary attraction for the airshow? the answer was not. From the stages, we could see many spectacular land and air attractions. The biggest land attraction was when they showed the MAGTF, stand for Marine Air Ground Task Force, which is a coordinated offensive tactics to enemy base using ground troops, tanks and coverage of air support from combat-coppers and F-18. The show seemed fabulous since they also blew-up some low-explosives to make the situation looked real. What about the biggest air attraction? The star of this air attraction was definitely the Blue Angel team, which was a team consists of six F-18 jet fighters, piloted by the best pilots picked-up from US Navy talents. They made a lot of maneuvers with very high consistency in their formation, indicated a highly trained and skillful pilots behind the drive stick. However, there were also acrobatic team from civilian team; the patriot team and the challenger. They were also competed with the military personnels by performing thumb-up attractions in the air. The patriot team consisted of four pilot using jet-trainer from Yugo, and they were also have experienced from one airshow to another in the world. They consistency in formation were slightly under the Blue Angel, though. The challenger was a single pilot performance, using old double-wing airplane from WWI era. The pilot show many spiral maneuvres and loops in the sky, even it was combined with shut the machine down for few seconds. Obviously that was a breathtaking show he performed. For individual air attractions, we could enjoy how F-18 Super Hornet, AV-8B Harrier, F-22 Raptor and F117 Nighthawk maneuvre or just fly-over the stages. The F-18 Super Hornet attraction was awsome. The pilot demonstrated how to took advantage of powerful after-burner to fly-high from zero altitude to the sky. He also demonstrated how F-18 could fly really slow with its nose up, unlike a jet-fighter we known before. On the other occasion, the hornet also fly over the stages with a supersonic speed, left the roaring sound 5 seconds lag from the movement of the F-18. It was totally cool. Could you imagine a jet can fly backward? then you should see how AV-8B Harrier flies. Starting from how it took-off vertically, fly still in the sky like a helicopter and finally changed the jet thrust direction so that it could fly backward. Have you ever heard how noisy F-18 when performing vertical flight with after-burner assistance from low altitude? It is very loud right? But, I tell you that AV-8B Harrier was even produced more louder noise than that. I couldn't imagine how many gallons of fuel consumed by the plane during fly still since the engine sound like in stall condition. Anyway, there were also some single air performances using propeller plane from WWII such as P51 Mustang and AT-6 Texan. The interesting thing was during the AT-6 Texan fly demonstration, the show announcer was playing a soundtrack song from the pearl harbor movie, tried to appeal all spectators emotion. Well, the bottom line was the 2006 MCAS Miramar Airshow was the greatest airshow we have ever seen.