The Greatest Show on Turf, 2011 - Warbirds

On July 9, 2011 I went to the always enjoyable airshow in Geneseo, NY, "The Greatest Show on Turf". I was accompanied by friends Jim and Jason, who flew out from Kalamazoo the night before.

Kevin Russo was flying his beautiful T6 Texan, advanced World War II era trainer, when we arrived.

 As always, there were a plethora of T6 in Geneseo for the show.

This included the Canadian Harvard Aerobatic Team, a mainstay at Geneseo.  I love the sight of those yellow birds against a crisp blue sky.

"The Movie" Memphis Belle, the hometown favorite, flew.

As well as the 1941 Historical Aircraft Group's own C-47, "Whiskey Seven".

Whiskey Seven took to the skies to drop some meat missiles in authentic WWII military garb onto the field.

Other visiting warbirds included the Commemorative Air Force's Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber,

P-40 "Jacky C" from the American Air Power Museum,

P-51 Mustang "Never Miss", who made her first appearance at Geneseo in 2010,

a rare P-51C razorbacked Mustang, "Tuskegee Airmen" - a flying tribute to the African American pilots of World War II,

this Corsair, "Sky Boss", from the American Air Power Museum,

the world's only flying Curtiss Helldiver,

(which did some formation work with "Sky Boss")

a Vultee Valiant with an eye-catching paint job, and many, many more.

One disappointment of the day was that the grass runway was deemed too soft for the C-130 Hercules to land.  Instead, the Hercules did an aerial drop demonstration that did not go quite as planned.  The payload wound up in the adjacent cornfield.

There was also a contingent of World War I replica aircraft flying.

The Red Baron entertained himself chasing aircraft around the sky.  This was tremendous fun until another Fokker triplane lost its engine and clipped the corn on his way back to the runway.  The aircraft made a partial cartwheel, then came to a stop in a cloud of dust.  Happily, the pilot seemed to be ok.  The triplane, not so much.

Finally, though not in a warbird, Rob Holland did a magnificent solo aerobatic routine in his MX2.  I never tire of watching this guy fly.  The problem here is that I can hardly ever get a decent shot of Rob because he's always moving too fast and my camera is SLOW.

Regardless, it was one heck of a great day in Geneseo!