Tico Warbird Air Show
Space Coast Regional Airport Titusville, Fl
Well, our 2008 air show season has arrived. And like most of us here in Florida, mine starts with the annual Tico Warbird show in Titusville. On the way to the Saturday show, the weatherman bragged of temperatures that would easily hit the high eighties with plenty of sunshine and some pretty gusty winds all day. He was right on all three.
The old Warbirds never looked better in the sunshine. And lots of them filled the sky. For the first time I was privileged to see perform an absolutely stunning-looking P-51 named ‘Quick Silver’ flown by twenty-three-year-old Scott Yoak. Quick Silver looks like a museum showpiece and looks great flying. Lots of great performers this year, too. Doug Matthews flew a beautiful F4U Corsair. Gene McNeely in the Aeroshell AT-6 gave us some brilliant photo passes. John Black in his Super Decathlon , Don Baile in his L29 and Pete Jacobs in his L39 also gave us demos. And Paul Lopez in his lime green MX2 showed us how it’s done.
At one point in the show, the air boss had just about everything with wings taxi to the ramps and take off. I lost count at thirty on the number that were flying at the same moment. An awesome sight that Tico does the best. The sky was filled with numerous T-6s, T-28s,T-34s, OS-2s and others that showed us why we’re spectators and they’re performers. With the high winds all day, they pulled all of their flying tricks out of the bag with some great and safe flying-and landings, too. Very impressive.
Tico had some heavy duty planes take to sky also. Tom Reilly in the Killer ‘B’ B-25, and the bright black Spirit of North Carolina B-26 performed. The Starfighters from Clearwater brought one of their F-104s over and wowed everyone as always. The F-16 Viper East Team performed well as did the F-15 Strike Eagle Team. No one could ever tire of seeing those two perform a demo. Dale Snodgrass in his P-51 joined the Viper and Eagle for the Heritage Flight. And Dale would not let us leave without him doing his always lowest to the ground photo passes.
Thanks to all for a great day of safe flying at Tico.
By Brian Walker