2002 Wings Over Wine Country Airshow
August 24 & 25, 2002
Santa Rosa, CA

by Bernardo Malfitano

Air Performances

A pair of T-38 Talons then did a fly-by. They came all the way from New Mexico and flew over ONCE. Grrr. Well, it was worth every second, I really do like T-38s, and hadn't seen one fly since Oshkosh 2000.

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Then it was time for Steve Stavrikakis in his czech Zlin 50, "Wild Thing". 
He was as sharp as he had been in Moffett.

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There's that impeccable hammerhead again.

Now THIS, I did not expect. As I was taking pictures of the museum's Il-14, this beautiful, futuristic, weird, and unique jet fighter-bomber blessed us with a pass. I had never seen an F-117 in the air before. It is even cooler than in the books. The Lockheed Nighthawk was the first operational stealth plane, with an unusual configuration (swept wings and a V-tail), unique shapes (faceted flat surfaces and sharp edges cover the airplane), strange engine inlet and nozzle (flat, grilled and parallelogram-shaped), and funky saw-toothed bay doors. This plane is unique and unusual from angled nose to V-tail. It screams high-technology, aerodynamic counter-intuitiveness, and radar-invisibility. Definitely THE cool plane of the show (despite heavy competition from the other F's that performed soon after). Seeing it fly is an aesthetic experience.

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Then, no fewer than SIX P-51s took off in quick succession (You'd think you were at Oshkosh! Oh, no, wait, that would be twenty P-51s…). Beautiful, graceful, powerful warbirds, with unparalleled performance in their time, a great simplicity of design… Worthy of the obsession that American aviation fans have with them.

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