Parrothead Jeff

OK, so I’ve finally gotten around to writing up my piece on Aviation Nation 2007 To sum up the entire airshow is very difficult, but I think it’s best said that it was one of the best airshows if not THE BEST I’ve been to in many years, possibly the best ever

One of the big reasons I go to an airshow is to see airplanes (preferably in the air) that I normally wouldn’t. Miramar seemed to have gotten somewhat stale the last few years I was there. With Miramar you could just about bet that the same static display aircraft and the same flying aircraft will be there from one year to the next.

Not so with Aviation Nation at Nellis AFB ! You really never know what will show up at Nellis from one year to the next, but you know it will be good.

Hover your mouse cursor over the pictures to read the captions and click on them for the full size image in a new window . I hope you enjoy the pics !

Above you see a very rare sight indeed - the Predator UAV in flight ! You see, Predator pilots can’t “see and avoid” other aircraft like manned aircraft can, so they can’t share the airspace with the manned aircraft. Out here in Nevada, the airspace around Nellis is already closed, so no concerns there and the only base for the UAVs in CONUS is Creech (formerly Indian Springs) AFB, just a few miles away . SO we got treated to a flyby from the Predator and…

… the MQ-9 Reaper ! Yep, the Predator might carry two Hellfire missiles, but the Reaper carries over 3,000 pounds of precision ordinance!

Going back in time a bit, the civilian warbirds were out in force at Aviation Nation . From WWI through Korea and Vietnam, aircraft were on hand to memorialize those campaigns.

After the WWI flight came the WWII demo flight with some really rare birds along with some old favorites .

After WWII, the Korean era aircraft came out to play

Following the Korean War era was the Vietnam demo!

This post is getting to be just too long, so I’m cutting it off here and will continue in a second post in the near future .