Gathering of Mustangs & Legends

Yesterday, I went to a really good airshow at Lockbourne AFB....er...I mean, Rickenbacker (KLCK) in Columbus, OH. It was the fabled Gathering of Mustangs and Legends, and it lived up to a good portion of the hype. There were about 80 or 90 P-51 Mustangs in attendance, and it was a really cool to have so many P-51s in the air, and on the ground in static display. There were a host of other top-notch airshow acts, Patty Wagstaff, Michael Goulian, John Mohr in his stearman, The Aeroshell team, and the Red Baron Squadron. It was a beautiful, clear, and nearly calm day on Saturday. We toured 1/4 mile of P-51's on static display. So many beautiful machines, polished to a spit-shine, obviously displayed with intense pride by their owners. I enjoyed the look into the ammo cans on Cripes A'mighty, just one of the gleaming P-51's.

50 cal Machine guns w/ Ammo, ready for the crew chief to re-load

The Canopy of Glacier Girl, packed underneath the Rickenbacker Tower.

Ina the Macon Belle, a Red-Tail P-51, flown by the Tuskeegee Airmen

Hmmm...was a Garmin 430/530 GPS Combo standard GI issue for a P-51?

Look at the lineup of Mustangs on static display!

The Horsemen....a precision P-51 Aerobatic team....not that anyone does snap rolls in a P-51,
but super-awesome to hear these babies screaming their way through some high-speed loops!

Beside the P-51's and assorted warbirds, there were a couple of good jet acts. There was a F-16 demo, an F-15 demo, and the F-22 full demonstration, all of which were followed by a P-51 accompanied Heritage flight. The Thunderbirds also showed up - really precision flying! I especially enjoyed seeing the full F-22 demonstration, complete with some flat spins, hairpin loops and sharp attitude changes, all courtesy of the thrust vectoring. I just kept thinking that it was a little too big and heavy to be really nimble. What would the F-22 be like if it was the size of an F-16, but had thrust vectoring? It was still cool to see.....and really cool that my budget telephoto lens (8x50 binoculars stuck to the lens of my digital point-n-shoot) worked well enough to get a nice photo of the action.

F-15 Strike Eagle Heritage Flight - Light 'em up!

Max Moga does a better job of staying in formation with 3 P-51's than he did at Oshkosh

A B-17 Flying Fortress catches the late afternoon sun.

An Avro Lancaster Bomber - 4 V-12's...this aircraft sounds SO COOL!

It wasn't 51 P-51's, but an overflight of 25 P-51's really was a sight to see.