Trenton Air Show

Mike and I drove up to Trenton on Friday evening for the Air Show at the Trenton Air Force Base the next day.  The drive up was horrible – around four hours due to awful traffic.  We were both so relieved to arrive at our hotel, which had a rather nice display out front:

We were eating our dinner at the hotel restaurant when we heard “Hey Lizzy!”  It was a bunch of guys from Search and Rescue in Niagara and Southern Ontario who were also staying at our hotel.  They flew in to work at the static display.

We decided to head out the next morning before 10:30.  The air show started at 12:00, and we wanted to spend around an hour checking the static displays and booths in the hangar.  Wow, were we ever in for a shock.  We drove over to one of the parking lots near the base and hopped on the shuttle bus.  Everything was looking great until we arrived to see an enormous mass of people – I mean a sea as far as the eye could see.  We figured it wouldn’t be too bad since we already had our tickets (we spent a tad extra and got seats in the very limited photo pit – only 100 people).  No such luck as everyone was waiting to get through security.  Holy poop.  We were in the line for about an hour and a half!  One of our rare shade spots – this one lasted a couple minutes under a wing:

This major delay was very unfortunate as not only did it put us in a bit of an off mood, but we missed the start of the show.  Then, they directed us to the wrong area for our seats and we wasted over ten minutes more finding the photo pit.  There were no signs or anything and it was very frustrating.  The show opening planes were all from the Hamilton Heritage Warplane Museum, which included the Lancaster.  We made it over just in time to catch the last pass:

Caught a pic of the Lanc during landing:

Here are some of the other pics from the day:

One of my favourite pics was this of the F22:

C17 over the Snow Birds:

And a Heritage flight with the F22 and Mustang:

We decided after all the waiting we did that day at security, we would beat the rush back to the parking lot and leave before the end of the show.  We missed the Snow Birds performance.  On the way back to the bus, we stopped off at the parked Lancaster and met up with pilot Leon, who I’ve known for a few years.  After a little chat, we got in line for the bus.  We waited for about 20 minutes, which would have been at least five times that if we left at the end of the show.  We saw the Snow Birds in formation as the bus was almost at our parking lot.  Bummer we missed the full show but it would have been a major delay if we joined the mass exodus. We made it home in about two and a half hours.

After 17 layers of sun screen over the day, I was so looking forward to a shower.  Afterwards though, I walked out into my living room and almost had a heart attack.  I had let the kittahs out on the balcony, and looked over to the window to see this:

Geez, Boo!  At least the other weirdos were a bit more sane…..well, sorta:

I thought I was going to sleep pretty well, but I was fairly wound up from the day (and there were a few spots where I missed applying extra sun screen and are now quite burned and painful), so I didn’t sleep well.  I’m hoping tonight is much better as I have a longish week (meetings and two trips to Hamilton), so I need sleep!

Today’s symptoms: Felt fairly drained but kinda expected after a day in the sun and fairly long drive home.  Totally worth it though – it was a great experience!

Canadian Heritage Warplane Museum

Had a pretty good weekend.  Not sure what happened to the massive storms they predicted for yesterday, but what a let down!  Mike and I just walked downtown to check out the market, hit Timmies then a couple shops.  Today, we flew out to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum at the Hamilton Airport.  It’s always weird to land such a tiny plane on 10,000 foot runway!  We headed over to the museum and parked out front.  I put my nice new sun shield up:

While we were eating our yummy breakfast, we saw a bunch of kids point and smile, saying it’s Dusty!  Even some of the adults in the restaurant said the same thing.  I think that sun shield was the best purchase EVER!  Tee hee!

After brekkie, we toured around the museum.

Mike (after some persuasion) stuck his head through this air traffic controller stand….looking very perplexed and deep in thought:

Saw the awesome Lancaster, which I’m scheduled to fly in next month.  Looks like it’s getting some engine work done:

The Lanc is almost as awesome as this cool Dusty replica:

After touring the museum then hitting the gift shop, we headed back outside.  There was a really high end car show going on out on the apron, including Alfa Romeos and Lamborghini’s:

Back out to Vyctor to head home.

Farewell, Hamilton!

We had another decent flight earlier in the week too.  We flew all the way (nine minutes) to Welland Airport for our COPA and RAA meeting.  There was a great spread of food (BBQ and potluck):

Then we watched a great presentation by someone from NAV Canada on aviation weather.  He was excellent!  Totally worth the exhausting flight there and back, plus the heartbreak of having to leave Vyctor outside all night back in St. Catharines:

At least my charming new “accessory” kept him company:

That was the same look I had on my face this morning when I looked at our jigsaw puzzle (which is on a puzzle mat and covered with a blanket), which was destroyed by two dorks:

Pinky has never been up on the table before either.  Ugh.

Today’s symptoms:  Felt pretty darn good today!  My energy was better than normal, which was great for our adventure today.

 

 

Holy Flyovers!

Glad today was nice weather-wise as I had another charity fly-over to do.  This one was for Heartland Forest here in Niagara.  The shot-gun start at the golf course was to be at 1:00 so I arrive at the airport for just after noon.  I was surprised to see a big pile of youngsters there.  I guess they were there on a class trip.  I had a little time to kill so I asked them through the fence if they wanted to see some aerobatics.  Heck, the adults and the kids all screamed yes!  I got up to a little over 3000′ over the airport and started the show.  I could only do stuff for about 10 minutes as I had to get to my next event.  After my last maneuver, I did a low and over and rocked my wings – it was so awesome to see all the kids waving at me!  I then headed over to the charity event, about ten minutes south of the airport.  Did my aerobatics then took pics of everyone on the greens:

I’m just doing a quick blog before heading (via car) to the golf course for dinner tonight.

On my flight today, I seemed to have almost hit almost 6g’s!

Good times!

Speaking of good, that would not explain my kitty Mya.  She started destroying yet another puzzle yesterday:

I ask you, how is anything this cute so naughty?

Then we have this cuteness – little Pinky lightly tapping her bro Peanut:

Needless to say, today was awesome.  I’m so glad I could do those fly-overs for everyone.  Now I get to mingle with a bunch of neat folks, including Hockey Hall of Fame legend Marcel Dionne.  He has so graciously helped me with fundraisers for the MS Society in the past, and I’m very grateful.

Today’s symptoms: After a not-good-at-all day yesterday (really bad fatigue, MS aches and pains) I wasn’t sure if I was going to be up to doing today’s fly-over.  Fortunately, I slept quite well (first time in over a week!) and felt pretty good today.  I have a new symptom which started about a month ago (feels like my left foot is always in hot water) but it’s been stable.  So glad not worse!  I see my neurologist at the end of the month so I’ll see what he has to say about it.