Jeanie and I had a nice aviation themed weekend...
On Saturday, we headed up to Saint Mary's to visit the airport there. On the way, we stopped off at Rich's Real Pit Bar-B-Q in Yulee which had a surprisingly good sliced pork BBQ. The meat was tender, moist, and smokey. Three sauces were provided on the table - a mustard based sauce, a tangy sauce, and a sweet barbeque sauce. I ended up mixing the tangy and sweet which made for a nice compliment to the meat. Jeanie ordered the BBQ baked beans as one of her sides and found that she really liked chopping up the meat and mixing it into her beans.
The airport at Saint Mary's was much smaller than I had expected. There were just a handful of planes tied down on the ramp and one large maintenance hanger. We didn't see any T hangers near the FBO building. My guess is that the standing TFR for the submarine base which starts about a mile off runway 4 has scared off a lot of traffic. I figure I'll still end up flying there at some point as Jeff Stanford provides tailwheel instruction there and that's an endorsement I'd like to pick up at some point.
After walking around the airport for a bit, we took a driving tour of downtown Saint Mary's (such as it is), stopped at the Murphy USA for some cheap (relative to Florida) gas, and then headed home. On the way, we stopped off at BlockBuster and picked up Bewitched which was better than sitting around bored.
On Sunday, we headed in to Jacksonville for the 2005 Jacksonville Sea & Sky Spectacular.
Talk about an air show on steroids! The action was non-stop from 11:00 AM until 4:00 PM.
Jeanie and I headed off to Jacksonville around 9:30 AM. Mapquest had informed us that the drive would take about an hour and I knew that we would have to wait a little for the shuttle from the off-site parking, so I figured the timing would be just about right. I ended up figuring wrong, so we didn't arrive until around 11:30, but the only act that we missed that we had really wanted to see were the Misty Blues All Women Skydiving Team. We ended up finding a spot on the beach at 1st Avenue South, which was about four blocks from showline center. Being on the beach, we had a great view of the performances. Fortunately, we were well prepared, having brought binoculars (one pair for each of us), ear plugs (one pair for each of us), a nifty beach blanket that is fleecy on one side and nylon on the other and rolls up like a sleeping bag, complete with handle and carrying strap, and a cool little beach chair that has straps like a backpack. The seating devices and binoculars were "nice to haves;" the ear plugs were mandatory. The piston airplanes were loud, but the jets were (or at least would have been) deafening.
About 1/2 way through the show, we decided to wander to the Street Festival area to get something to eat and drink.
Afterward, we walked up to 4th Avenue North, which was closer to show center, and within earshot of the public address system. It was a little more crowded, and the view to the west was partially obscured by some buildings, but the show line was still fully visible, and being able to hear the announcer was a plus.
We were amazed at how low some of the performers flew. Some seemed to be only feet above the waves.
My favorite performers included Michael Goulian in his Castrol CAP 232, and Michael Mancuso flying his in the Klein Tools Extra 300L and Matt Chapman flying his CAP 231EX, performing their Formation Aerobatic Show.
Some of their maneuvers left bruises on my chest where my jaw hit it. I especially liked the tricks where the plane seemed to hang vertically and slowly pirouette.
Jeanie got a real kick out of the three ACU-4 LCAC hovercraft and three SH-60B helicopters which staged an simulated assault on the beach. Jeanie took a tour of the ACU-4 and said it was absolutely amazing.
One of the reasons we chose to go on Sunday rather than Saturday was because there were some aircraft that only participated on Sunday, including the A-10 Thunderbolt (Warthog), F-15 Strike Eagle, and B-2 Bomber (Spirit). The B2 was especially impressive. I was amazed at how quiet it is and even though I saw it with my own eyes - twice - it is hard to believe that it actually flies!
The show ended with a performance by the Blue Angels which was absolutely amazing. Jeanie had seen the Blue Angels perform in San Francisco each year for the last two years, but I had never seen them. Seeing them in person is an awe inspiring experience. I really can't imagine flying with the precision that these amazing aviators display.
After the show we had hoped to visit some of the exhibits in the street festival area, but we were disappointed to find that everyone starting breaking down their displays as soon as the Blue Angels finished their performance. We decided to stay on the beach and watch the hovercraft depart - which was really cool - and to avoid the initial surge of the masses toward the exits. By the time we got to the festival area, the majority of the exhibitors were driving away. I guess next year we will have to plan on arriving around 9:30 so we have time to visit the exhibits prior to the show.
We were pleasantly surprised that the line for the shuttle buses back to the parking area, although over three blocks long, moved fairly quickly. Within thirty minutes, we were back on an air-conditioned school bus, and within fifteen minutes after that, we were back at the car. The organizers really thought through the parking/shuttle process - many of the streets around the beach were blocked off to general traffic and only open to the shuttle buses. This made it smooth sailing out of the staging area and onto A1A. We thought we were going to end up getting stuck for hours trying to get out of the TPC parking area, but we got lucky and about ten minutes after we got in the car, they opened an alternate exit out of the parking area which was fortunately very close to where were were in the back of the lot.
The traffic was light heading home which made for a really nice end to a really nice day.
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Posted by David at November 07, 2005 07:19 PM