July 31, 2004 - AirVenture 2004 Day Two continued

 

A nice looking Yak. A lot of plane for the money. Still way out of my price range though.

Yes, you see it right. That's a Harley Davidson engine on that airplane.
Bruce Bohannon's high-altitude record-setting modifed RV-3. And one of the my favorite paint jobs.
The pointy end of an FA-18 Hornet. Great plane for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. It is so good that they "supersized" it and called it the SuperHornet.
The opening of the Saturday airshow. You couldn't ask for better weather. The smoke circle is being made by the four AeroShell T-6s while jumpers are in the middle. I took this picture laying flat on my back on the grass.

Last year's AirVenture airshow was, frankly, a little boring. EAA must have got the word because this year they had an act called
X-Men: Masters of Disaster that was unbelievable. The X-Men consisted of two Pitts and the jet-powered Waco. All three flew ... aggressively. I'll summarize their routine as dogfighting at less than 1,000 feet. The soundtrack was an unusual combination of dog barking and rap. Then there were the two jet-powered semi's. You can see in this picture all three biplanes, all at or below the top of the flames. The two planes on the left are over one of the semis, which is traveling at over 300 mph at this point! You read that right: 300 mph. The semi actually overtook the jet-powered Waco. Like I said, unbelievable.
The three X-Men.
 
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