Saturday, February 28, 2015 (Pilot Knob LTVA, CA/Yuma, AZ)

We left Pilot Knob shortly after 8:00 this morning for the 40 minute drive to the Fortuna Hills area east of Yuma where Red and Pam are staying. They have a nice spot off Foothills Blvd on property owned by friends in Texas...they aren't there so offered the spot to Pam and Red...sweet!

We left our truck at their place and drove with them to the Marine Corp Air Station Yuma to attend the Yuma Airshow. After parking, we took the shuttle to the show area...it was all very organized! After having our bags searched and bodies scanned, we found a spot and set up our chairs.

Pam and I sat down and relaxed in the sunshine while Red and Steve headed off to take a look around. Warning! Lots of pictures taken! Steve managed to get them down from 320 to these 86! (Click to enlarge photos)

$10.00 for a seat in the Flight Simulator...

 RQ-7B Shadow Drone...

AV-8B Harrier...

Lockheed Martin F35B Lightening II all weather multirole fighter. This has the vertical takeoff capabilities like the Harrier in the above photo. It was at this spot Steve and Red lost one another.

F-5 Tiger II & B-52 Bomber...

FMX Demonstration (Freestyle Motorcross)...

AH-1C Super Cobra/Viper...

Front view...

UH-1Y Huey/Venom...

KC-130J Super Hercules...

Very cool!

MV-22B Osprey...

Rear of the Osprey...

Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateer Long Range Reconnaissance Aircraft (WWII &Korea)...

Hot Air Balloon Baskets. We would like to try Hot Air Ballooning one day...

CH-46E Sea Knight...

Silver Fox Drone...

They also had quite a display of old classic cars...

Once Steve and Red were back, Pam and I decided to take a walk around. We didn't quite spend as much time looking (see all the static displayed aircraft we missed, Pam? :-))

Shortly after 11:00 the show started. Misty Blues Skydiving...

Shockwave Jet Truck holds the world record for jet powered full sized trucks at 376 mph or 605km/h. It has three jet engines and has done the 1/4 mile in 6.63 seconds! If we tried doing this with our truck there wouldn't be anything left of our trailer... LOL!

The Shockwave Jet Truck gave the Showcat Biplane a head start in this race...

...and easily pulled ahead...

De Havilland Chipmunk...

SARS Demonstration...

F-5 Tiger II...

F-5 Tiger II landing while MV-22B Osprey waits to make his vertical takeoff...

F-5 Tiger II's taxiing in...

 Rotating his engines forward...

Red Bull Helicopter...

The Showcat Biplane...with a female wing-walker. She is not strapped in!

 She is standing on her head kicking her legs back and forth!

Here's the close up Steve promised you Red...LOL!

AV-8B Harrier...

Misty Blues Skydiving again...

F-35B Lightening II...

The airshow was over at about 2:30, a little earlier than expected...likely due to the wind that had really started to whip up. This was one of the smaller air shows we've been to. The spectator layout was L shaped so only the optional grandstand paid seats were at show centre. We were about as far away as you could get down the side fence so Steve had to really use his telephoto lens, so some photos are not as sharp as he would like. All in all it was a good show and admittance and parking was free!

We made it back to Red and Pam's place where we sat and enjoyed a late afternoon cocktail before heading back out to Pilot Knob. We'd had a great day...thanks, Red and Pam! It was great seeing you one last time...looking forward to connecting again next winter!