Daddy takes Nigel Jr. to an air show
This Sunday, I'll be bundling up Nigel Jr. and heading south in the AMC Pacer. Destination? An air show.
We'll be accompanied by my new
step-father war hero/ex-fighter/bomber pilot who will be providing Nigel Jr. personalized commentary regarding all the planes we see. He's flown them all, including the P-51 Mustang WW 2 fighter (photo, left), the B-29 Superfortress (WW 2, Korea), and the Republic F-105 Thunderchief and F4 Phantom II (Vietnam--photo, right).At the show, they'll climb in and out of the various cockpits while "Colonel Mac" regales Nigel Jr. with stories of death and destruction he personally caused in three wars. He's not in any way ashamed of that, by the way, and quite happily recounts the results of his various aerial combat dogfights and gigantic blow-em-all-to-hell bombing missions. He was shot down twice and survived four separate plane crashes, so he has a rather whimsical view of the whole process. Refreshing.
This should be interesting, though. The last air show Nigel Jr. attended wasn't a show, per se--
instead, it was a practice session for the Navy's Blue Angel precision flying team. This was maybe six years ago, while vacationing near Pensacola, Florida. Practice sessions are free and open to the public at the Naval Air Station, so off we went. I was excited because the Blue Angels are baddasses; the testosterone was flowing, lemme tell ya.
We lasted all of maybe 5 minutes. The public viewing bleachers are amazingly close to the runway used by the jets, and the noise is beyond belief. The take-offs and touch and go landings were one thing--but what had us leave in a hurry was a precision move performed maybe 500 yards in front of us. Three of the planes, in formation, turned sideways about 200 feet off the ground and roared right in front of us--they came out of nowhere--you could literally see the air rippling around the jets as they swooped by at about 400 miles an hour.Poor little Nigel Jr., who was 5 at the time, freaked out. He lost it--screaming, crying, shaking. The combination of the noise and the scary closeness of these jets did the kid in. I mean, I myself was scared--so imagine what it was like for him! So: we left, despite me stomping my feet and whining like the child I can be when I don't get my way. Dammit! Disappointing, to say the least, at least for me.
We'll see how he handles things this Sunday...
posted by Nigel St.John Regina Smegmatica Howle-Raines @ 11:02 AM
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