[MilCom] The Great Georgia Airshow review

Sun Oct 10 18:25:32 EDT 2004

The Great Georgia airshow was held this past weekend at the Peachtree
City/Falcon Field airport (KFFC). Below is my review from the Saturday,
9 October show, with comments at the end.

[FREQUENCIES]
121.800 Ground Control
123.050 Unicom
123.150 Jim LeRoy Bulldog Airshow discrete
125.650 Show boss
148.800 Civil Air Patrol? (callsign Blackfoot)
283.700 T-6A Texan II East Coast Demo discrete
462.625 Fuel truck
462.700 Unknown ground units

[MILITARY AIRCRAFT]
*A-10A #80-0223 (23FG Pope AFB) East Coast Demo aircraft
   photo of the chrome gun: http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/A10.jpg
  A-10A #80-0194 (23FG Pope AFB) East Coast Demo standby aircraft
  C-21A #84-0098 (54AS WPAFB)
   cockpit photo: http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/C21cockpit.jpg
   cabin photo: http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/C21cabin.jpg
  C-130H #81-0630 (94AW/700AS Dobbins JARB) callsign COBB 30
   cockpit photo: http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/C-130.jpg
  T-2C #159159 (CTW6 NAS Pensacola) callsign ROKT 210
   student pilot from Italy was on hand to answer questions, the most
   common one I heard as I was taking photos was "What kind of plane is
   this?"
  T-44A #160845 (TW4 NAS Corpus Christi)
*T-6A Texan II #01-3628 (479FTG Moody AFB) East Coast Demo aircraft
  T-6A Texan II #01-3629 (479FTG Moody AFB) East Coast Demo standby aircraft

[WARBIRDS]
*Beech C-45 (N70GA) "Bucket of Bolts"
*Beech F33C (N8176R) Pat Epps aerobatics
*Consolidated PBY-5A #48278 (N287) "Black Cat"
*Douglas A-26C #44-35911 (N6840D) "Spirit of North Carolina"
  Douglas C-54E #27370 (N500EJ) "Spirit of Freedom"
*Douglas SBD-5 #54532
*Fairchild PT-26 #43-4433 (N26GA)
*Focke-Wulf FW-149P
  Harvard Mk IV (N99CV)
*Harvard Mk IV (N636CB)
  Harvard Mk IV (N1046Y)
  Grumman OV-1 #68-15958 (N10VD)
*North American AT-6C #88-13072 (N22KD) "Catch 22"
*North American AT-6G #49-3449 (N29931)
  North American L-17A #NAV4415 (N91666)
*North American P-51D #44-73843 (N10601) "Red Nose"
*North American SNJ-5 #85028 (N3771M)
  North American SNJ-6 #112348 (N3238G)
*North American SNJ-4 #88-12533 (N299FM)
*North American SNJ-4 #88-12858 (N934JT)
*North American SNJ-4 #88-13317 (N7062C) aka B5N "Kate" Torpedo Bomber
*North American TB-25N #44-30734 (N9079Z) "Panchito"

[CIVILIAN]
*Boeing 767 (N102DA) "Spirit of Delta" - flyby using callsign Delta 9995
   exchange with ATC during his rtb to Hartsfield:
   http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/767.mp3
*Boeing MD-11 - flyby using callsign World 950 Heavy
*Boeing PT-17 #75-553 (N212PC) Gary Rower aerobatics
*Bombardier CRJ700 (N740EV) Delta Connection/Atlantic Southeast Airlines
   aircraft was less than 3 months old
   cockpit photo: http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/CRJ700cockpit.jpg
   photo of his low altitude pass (they played the song "Lowrider" during the
   pass, I almost didn't get the photo because I was laughing so hard):
   http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/CRJ700lowrider.jpg
  Cirrus SR22 #0970 (N555JP)
  Douglas DC-3 (N28341) Delta Airlines
  General Dynamics F-16A #79-0345 - aircraft frame home based at Peachtree
  Hughes TH-55 #67-15442 (N74194)
*Piper J3C #17604 (N70593) Charlie Kulp/The Flying Farmer aerobatics
  Piper PA-28 (N8117)
*Pitts S2S (N80003)
*Pitts S2S (N99MF) Jim LeRoy "Bulldog" aerobatics
   audio from his performance:
   http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/Bulldog.mp3
  Sukhoi SU-26M (N26SU)
  Technoavia SP-91 (N96LP)
  Temco D-16A (N108N)
  Van RV-8 (N655CL)
*Waco UPF-7 - Jimmy Franklin aerobatics

[MISC]
  Les Shockley Super Shockwave Truck
  82nd Airborne Green Beret parachute demo team

* denotes flying aircraft

[COMMENTS]
The weather was not the greatest. Low ceilings of ~1500' were at the bare
minimums for an airshow. This was no problem for the civilian performers but
the military demos did suffer. The F/A-18E Super Hornet was a no show along
with F-16 demo team. The A-10 did perform a limited routine thanks to its
low and slow role (could not find his discrete freq). The T-6A canceled his
demo and only performed a Texan Heritage Flight (audio of the no show call
due to 1400' ceiling: http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/Texan.mp3)

Scott Slade, Atlanta's WSB radio morning host, was the announcer and did an
outstanding job as always.

This was my first show using the Icom R20, all recordings were made using
the built-in recorder on the radio. The dualwatch feature is outstanding,
I'm looking forward to using this at T'Birds and Blues airshows where I'll
be able to monitor the solos and 4-ship at the same time with one radio!

I was watching the PBY-5 thru the binoculars and noticed his front nose gear
had a very noticeable shimmy upon landing. The PBY did bounce the front gear
a couple of times (he obviously felt it) but the shimmy continued throughout
the roll out.

The Peachtree City NWS office is located at Falcon Field and they held an
open house on Saturday. Here's a photo of the amateur radio station (WX4PTC)
located in the severe weather section of the office:
http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm/FFC/NWS.jpg

Mike Riffle
Cataula, GA
http://www.geocities.com/kc8mzm