History, Politics And Current Affairs

...IIRC statistically, air shows have been pretty safe since the end of WWII, but when they happen they're doozies. Cleveland's National Air Show has had only two since '45, but they had repercussions afterwards - the loss of Bill Odom's P-51B Beguine in 1949 (my dad was in the stands when that happened). He went into a house in the nearby suburb of Berea and killed a mother and her small child and that ended the air races there forever. Then in '81, Thunderbird Lead was taking off after the show's conclusion when his T-38 ate a seagull, one of thousands attracted by the massive amounts of trash - he and his CC punched out, but the kicker cart in Lead's seat failed, and he rode the seat back down. USAF spent weeks checking out every cart in just about every seat after that.

Mike

Dad flew in airshows for a couple years. No low altitude aerobatics, but close formation stuff. Between his stories, seeing airplanes do things that just aren't natural, and just too many accidents, I can't watch airshows any more. I just feel like I'm watching dead men walking.

Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

Any landing where you can use the airplane again without sending it to Earl Scheib is a GREAT landing.