Cleveland National Air Show

Always Always Always love the Airshow!!! However it seems there were less planes to explore than previous years?! And the parking on the grass was a total mess with people looking for cash to pay. They really should make it part of the ticket price. Besides that awesome show and time!

Fried food, funnel cakes, grilled bratwurst, grilled everything, lawn chairs, large crowds and lastly, hundreds of port-​a-​potties! Sounds like a typical festival with the addition of aerobatics. I loved the energy and the atmosphere. There were activities for kids — bounce houses, rock climbing, mini golf and toy souvenirs.
I’d think that the best way to do this would be to bring your own lawn chairs and sit in that grassy area right behind the more expensive box and VIP sections for the best views. The box sections themselves are on top of the baking hot pavement and the seats there consist of folding chairs that will not be as comfortable as your own lawn chair. This is indeed a case where the cheaper ticket is the better ticket and that extra $ 10 for the box section might be better kept in your wallet. There’s really no need to be in front, because the air show is, well, up in the air.
I had a nightmare involving portable toilets that night. I won’t elaborate. Overall, it was great for kids and a fun family weekend activity that trumped my mortal hatred of, um, portable toilets.

There are two things that I absolutely love about Ohio: Cedar Point and the Cleveland Air Show.
I love the air show because I love fighter jets. They get my adrenaline pumping just by watching them. I used to want to be a fighter pilot when I was a teen, so I do everything I can to watch the air show at least once per year, usually twice.
I used to work downtown so I would hear the Navy’s Blue Angels or the Air Force’s Thunderbirds practicing. I couldn’t concentrate on writing computer programs, so I would immediately walk outside to watch the practice run. Why? Because the practice runs are the exact same thing as the demonstration during the air show. The timing and precision of the pilots harnessing the power of the awesome jets is truly amazing. I can’t wait to see an F-​22 demo.
Seeing fighter jets using after burners and cruising between sky scrapers is one of the coolest things imaginable to me.
I rarely pay to enter the air show grounds simply because all I care about are the fighter jets. Maybe I should move closer to an Air Force base.

roar boom fireballs
wow wow — this is how we kill
recruiters wet dream.
Sorry, but all of these multimillion dollar death machines creep me out.
Carry on.

thought I’d put this out there to give a pilot’s perspective on the air show… absolutely awesome.
If you don’t like the «war machine» there are plenty of other planes to look at and acts to watch, like the DC-​3 (still used as a workhorse in the Canadian north), all the Cessna’s and Diamond aircrafts, the stuff that was brought over from the Glenn program, etc, etc… there are even aerobatic acts with biplanes; a two-​ship crew as well as a solo act whose pilot is probably one of the best aerobatic pilots in the whole country and also a wingwalker who does some pretty bad-​a** tricks up in the air. As a pilot, I can tell you that it takes a lot of talent and training to pull off what these guys do…
And even though it’s part of the old war machine, there are P-​51s to check out, the B-​17 «Yankee Lady» and a booth honoring the Tuskegee airmen and all of the displays have great interpreters to talk to who will regale you with amazing stories about how the safest place to be on the B-​17 was in the horridly cramped «bubble» on the belly of the plane… these treasures should be revered and remembered for what they did to preserve the current freedoms that your country has today.
And for those of us who do appreciate the mad flying skills that these pilot’s do have, there are the Blue Angels, F-​15 and F/​A 18 Super Hornet demos as well as (my fav) the A-​10 warthogs. Even my country decided to send a couple of F-​18s down to the airshow, go by and say hi to the Canucks from the Bagotville and Cold Lake Wings!
What a great way to get a new generation of kids interested in the air again, every day I drive by the High School on the airport that is shut down and think to myself «how cool would it have been to have gone to high school there». I’m just considering myself lucky that I live in the building directly under the flight path for the airshow, I get the whole show every single day without having to pay for multiple entries ;o)
Even stopped by every one of the recruiting booths, never once felt harassed to join up or sign anything, they were all very pleasant to me!