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2002 Wings Over Wine Country Airshow
August 24 & 25, 2002
Santa Rosa, CA
by
Bernardo
Malfitano
Static
Displays (Cont'd)
Yaks, yaks and more yaks!
| With the Yak 11 plus these four (you can't really see the one in the back), that's a lot of Yaks for one
Airshow. (When the Yaks outnumber the T-6s, what has the world come to? Count'em: 5 Yakolevs vs 4 Texans). The green guy facing us is actually a Chinese-built Nanchang 18A-CJ6, the other guys are Yakolev-52 trainers. The one on the right has one nice paint scheme. |
(One interesting thing about these Yakolevs is that their radial engines have these plates, that for safe ground operations are closed (lying on the plane of the cowling opening), but then they all rotate ninety degrees to be parallel to the airflow so the engine can run and the plane can fly. Quite ingenious, as are many other Russian things of this kind)
And while we're at it, here's another picture of that hot-looking Yak-11: |
| Now here's a
Lanceair 320 and a Coot kit-seaplane, with the museum's jet fighters in the background: |
And here's me by a GORGEOUS Sea Fury. Can you guess its nationality by the roundels?
| At a time when most of the world's navies and air forces were getting jet fighters for the first time, the Sea Fury was designed and built for the Royal Navy and then for Canada and Australia. Its wings have a low-ish aspect ratio, and its weapons, performance and cockpit all show its more modern, post-WW2 birth. All that's missing for it to be truly modern is a jet engine. But because of the lack of a jet engine, this guy often gets lumped in with the older, inferior (and, often, not as good looking) warbirds. It is arguably the last great propeller fighter (that's another "er" joke waiting to happen), and is used today as an air racer, giving those P-51s and Grumman 'cats a run for their money. Sea Furies are to me some of the best-looking planes around. Big, intimidating, roaring with power, but also graceful and fast, with simple, strong lines. (And five-blade props are just cool).
One of my favorite planes, the North American T-6 Texan (well, technically it's a Canadian Car and Foundry-built Mk IV Harvard) . This is a particularly nice-looking one, the silver finish is incredible. |
| And the rugged, unique A-10, which unfortunately did not perform in the air. A tank-killer built for
survivability above all else, it is armored, has redundant systems, and all kinds of precautions to ensure it can be badly beat up but not shot down.
Its high-aspect-ratio wings and fat high-bypass-ratio turbofans make it slow, quiet, and not a fast climber, but it can stay in the air over the combat zone for a long, long time, and it has a very long
un-refueled range.
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| Here's a PT-26, a VERY old military trainer (I didn't know there were any left outside museums) with the announcer's red Stinson Voyager in the background. And now, we have a Strikemaster, and a Cessna O-2A (a military observation plane based on the Cessna 337): |
| Not part of the ground display - just an aircraft sitting by a hangar as I walked by - this Augusta 109 deserved to have a picture on this website. The smoothly tapered, simple, streamlined design of this Italian chopper is quite unique for its class (it's smaller than it may look). As you may be able to tell, the landing gear retracts in flight, leaving a smoothly contoured fuselage to match the blended tail and pointy, blended nose. |
| And here are a Navy UC-12B and a Marines T-44A. I must admit I know nothing about these planes other than what one could deduce by looking at their markings. So, um, there you go. |
Now go on and read about the best part, the air displays!!!
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