Great Warbird Photos

A reader sent me a link to a collection of great WWII warbird photos taken at the Planes of Fame show at Chino (CA) Airport. Check it out here.

Many different types of fighters and bombers were flying for the show including: P-51s, P-40s, P-38s, F4Us, Zeros, Val, Spitfire, Hellcat, Wildcat, Firefly, Bearcat, Fury, B-25s, and a B-17. As a bonus, there was a WWII ground reenactment (complete with tanks and halftracks) which provided the icing on the cake!

Here's my own story of flying into and out of an air show at the Chino Airport (which was posted previously):

I think the wildest flight I ever had was a weekend when I decided to fly myself and some friends to a "Fly In" at the Chino Airport, just a short hop from my home field at John Wayne Airport. Private pilots were flying in from all over the area for a day of swapping stories and looking at other aircraft both on the ground and in the air show.

I made the usual radio call to the Chino tower when we were about 5 miles out and the response I got was more than a little unusual. The controller told me to "pick a plane and follow him". All around us were private aircraft all heading the same direction.

I did as he told me and followed another Cessna into the pattern. I reported my position and airplane color of the plane in front of me (there were lots of similar looking aircraft in the pattern) and followed the guy in front of me around the pattern, made a hasty landing, skidded on the exit taxiway as I left the runway a little too fast while trying to stay out of everybody's way. No harm, no foul.

When it was time to depart, I got in line behind a bunch of other airplanes and waited my turn to get to the runway. Instead of getting a radio clearance they had a flagman standing by the runway waving the flag when it was time to go. He watched the departing plane climbing from the other end of the runway, and once that plane reached a certain height he waved the flag and off we went.

Even though there had been dozens of planes in the air near that airport, everybody was paying attention and there were no problems. A little fear tends to focus the mind. It's when you don't expect to encounter another plane that the problems usually occur.