By Ian Brown, EAA 657159, Editor, Bits and Pieces
My daughter, grandsons, and I were pleased to be able to enjoy a super display by the Canadian Snowbirds and several others June 10-11 at the Barrie Airshow. The day we attended looked iffy to begin with but wound up being ideal with a high overcast, and not too hot conditions.
Apart from the centrepiece air show, there were lots of other activities related to cadet organizations and Canadian Forces Base Borden. One of their most interesting activities was tearing down a jeep and rebuilding it in what seemed like five minutes. Not only did they lift the body off the structure but they removed the axles and took off the wheels!
The stars of the air show were the Canadian Forces Snowbirds. Since a picture says a thousand words I’m just going to include thousands of “words” here. If you look at the picture of all nine Snowbirds flying in a straight line, it has to be one of the most difficult formations. Anyone slightly out of place would be very visible but fortunately no aircraft was visibly out of place at all.
The four performance teams were the Snowbirds, a pair of CF-18s delivering a tactical demonstration, the Canadian Armed Forces parachute team, and the Northern Stars Aeroteam, all ex-RCAF pilots flying Pitts Specials.
We did have a few brief showers but not enough to even wear anything rainproof. The conditions didn’t seem to affect the performers or the crowds.
Incidentally the performers were based out of Lake Simcoe Regional Airport, which has a 6000-foot runway long enough to accommodate the CF-18s and Snowbirds.
We did manage to get out to the airport during some morning rain and got these shots of the Snowbirds’ service truck and some of the aircraft wrapped to stay dry. Needless to say, inside the airport terminal was quite busy.
