Photo Showcase: 2011 Offutt Air ShowMany tons of military might roared overhead and sat silently on the ground for public inspection Saturday at Offutt Air Force Base.
People could walk onto a ramp and through a gigantic cargo-carrying plane, up stairs and into the guts of a refueling craft and gaze beyond a fence at the batlike B-2 bomber.
About 30 aircraft sat on the vast Offutt tarmac and about 20 aerial performances and military flyovers took place. A similar show is scheduled today at the annual Defenders of Freedom air show and open house. The event will conclude at 5 p.m. Offutt representatives hoped more than 60,000 people a day would attend.
The show is a strong public relations tool. Standing beneath massive aircraft and beside aerodynamic jet fighters generates awe within those who like technology, airplanes or American military power.
As a jet roared down the runway, Wade Eichhorn said with excitement to his 6-year-old son, Asher: “There he goes!”
“Where?” the little boy said. Then the plane emerged from behind a building in the distance and lifted into the air. “Oh,” Asher said.
The Eichhorns, of Glenwood, Iowa, continued walking among the planes on the ground. “You want to be a pilot, Ash?” the dad asked his son.
“Yeah!” Asher said.
Carrie McKenzie clicked off a photo of her son, 5-year-old Gannon, holding his toy A-10 Warthog in front of the real thing.
Asked why he likes A-10 Warthogs, Gannon gave a long response, the upshot of which was this: Sharp teeth are painted on the front of his toy A-10 (and on the real A-10), and that’s neat since another of his passions is the T-rex dinosaur.
Hundreds of people sat in folding chairs in the shade created by the huge wings of aircraft. Those who walked about saw helicopters and fighter jets, bombers and cargo craft. They could learn a bit about midair fueling and powerful radar systems.
Or they could just sit and watch the aerial show. The Golden Knights, the Army’s competitive parachute team, gave two performances Saturday and is expected to do the same today.
One member of the Golden Knights started the show Saturday morning by descending thousands of feet in a free fall, opening his parachute and displaying the American flag as a woman on the ground sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“They’re the best,” Larry Carnicle of Murdock, Neb., said after that performance.
Sgt. 1st Class Brian Sealing, a member of the Golden Knights, agreed with Carnicle’s assessment.
The parachute team, which sent eight jumpers, two pilots and a crew chief to the air show, fine-tunes its maneuvers in Florida during the winter.
Sealing said one stunt requires parachutists to free fall at 180 mph past each other.
A typical jump calls for them to free fall about 10,500 feet, then open their chutes about 2,000 feet from the ground.
“We’re hands down the best parachute team on the planet,” Sealing said.
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