100 Years of Women in Aviation

Pictures at the CNE on our way to the Air Show

The Air Show

Amazing? Not anymore! Even the Commander of the 431 Squadron of the Snowbirds is a woman, LCol. Marysee Carmichael. She was born the same year that the Snowbirds did their first air show with the Canadair CT-114 Tudor – an aircraft that was mainly used to train Air Force Pilots – it develops 2,700 pounds of thrust with the GE J 85 engine.

For those interested, the aircraft has a top speed of 412 knots (470 mph/750 km/h).

But I am getting ahead of myself; I really wanted to write about the air show itself.

We had some trouble with slow traffic, getting to the parking area, finally made it and found a clear spot at the waters edge – just a little east of the VIP area but almost at centre stage. The first thing we heard was the unmistakable sound of the Harvard Mk IV. I noticed it right away because I had a few hours in the cockpit of this ‘relic’ myself in the past. The pilots performed some intricate formation aerobatics that reminded me of the old days.

The Harvard Mk IV

The Mitchel twin-engine bomber from the Warplane Heritage Museum in Brampton was next. This about 60-year-old lady was lovingly restored and acted brand new.

Aerobatics by a Pitts Special Biplane – also an ancient type - performed some great loops, Immelmann turns and the scary “Lumchevak” – Checkoslovakian for “Headache” – where you hang the aircraft on the prop until it stops and slides backward before the pilots gains control again.

The Pitts Special

Another star was the F-16 Viper with high- and low-level performances. Some more single engine aircraft performed aerobatics that looked quite scary to the uninitiated and drew some ahhs and ohhs from the crowd. But obviously everyone waited for our own stars, the Snowbirds.

F-16 Viper

I have seen the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds perform and I was even in Germany when Major Smolen started the Skyblazers – with T-33 training aircraft - about 1955 at the Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, near Munich. However not with 9 aircraft!

But we were still waiting for the main attraction and were hoping that Mother Nature was an air show fan as well. The alternating gray and white clouds in the sky provided some great backdrop for photos of the dark smoke trails some of the planes provided. She complied with bearable weather. Thanks, Mom!

The Snowbirds

And here they come with the initial 9-plane formation, in one of their almost fifty performances, during a year. The various formations have names – from ‘Arrowhead’ to ‘Wineglass’ for the 9 plane formations. I did not know this! (I sneaked it out of their website.) The performance was exciting and flawless – exactly what everyone had hoped for.

The Competition

On Labor Day I only listened to the air show with the window open. For an old pilot like me it’s almost like being there again.

But it was not the same!    rka