[MilCom] The Great Georgia Airshow report

[Mike Riffle]

this bounced the first time, trying again...

Location: Peachtree City - Falcon Field Airport (KFFC)
Date: 8-9 October 2005

[FREQUENCIES]

119.800  Atlanta app/dep
121.700  ground control
123.150  A-10/P-51 Heritage Flight
123.425  Red Eagles discrete
125.650  show boss
136.575  23FG air-air (Saturday morning arrival)
148.775  ?Georgia National Guard?
259.900  101FS air-air
276.800  160FS air-air
343.600  Atlanta app/dep
451.100  ground
451.525  ground
451.975  ground
451.9875 ground
452.025  ground
462.700  ground

I never got a close enough look at the military security detail to see who
they were. I'm guessing it was a National Guard detail. The 400MHz ground
freqs were being used by various civilian support units (ramp control,
fuel trucks, vendor support, etc.)

[AIRCRAFT]
* denotes static only

A-10A         (#79-0223 23FG) East Coast Demo Team backup aircraft
                               callsign HAWG 02
               (#80-0208 23FG) East Coast Demo / Heritage Flight
                               callsign HAWG 01
*Alpha-Jet    (N14XA) the right wing pylon had 40+72
               (N141XA)
AT-6G         (#49-3449 N29931) "Popeye"
               (#88-17109 N3771M)
B-1B x2       (7BW) Saturday only, one orbited overhead while the second
                     performed a single flyby - missed callsign
B-17G         (#44-85734 N390TH) painted as #42-97849 "Liberty Bell"
C-45          (N70GA) painted as RAF KJ508 "Bucket of Bolts"
C-54E         (#27370 N500EJ) "Spirit of Freedom"
CRJ-700       (N761ND Delta/ASA)
F-15A         (#77-0100 102FW/101FS) callsign CAPE 01
               (#77-0106 102FW/101FS) callsign CAPE 02
*F-16A        (#79-0345) airframe only
F-16C         (#87-0366 187FW/160FS) "City of Enterprise" w/snake tail
                                      callsign BAMA 15
               (#88-0399 187FW/160FS) "City of Montgomery"
                                      callsign BAMA 16
F/A-18C       (#163446 VFA-106) East Coast Demo Team
                                 callsign ROMAN 11
               (#163487 VFA-106) Sat morning familiarization flight
F-86          (N86FS) painted as #52-5222 "Desert Rats"
G-164 Ag-Cat  (NX7699) Gene Soucy w/Teresa Stokes wing walking
Harvard Mk IV (N99CV) painted as RAF AJ958 "J's Bird"
               (N1046Y)
               (N7757) modified to Japanese Zero replica
*L39C         (N8124N)
*OV-1         (#68-15958 N10VD)
P-51D         (#44-73843 NL10601) "Red Nose"
               (#NL51DL) painted as #44-14812 "Slender, Tender & Tall"
                         flew the Heritage Flight
PBY-5A        (#48287 N287) "Black Cat"
Piper J3C Cub (N70593) flown by Charlie Kulp aka The Flying Farmer
Red Eagle     (N106BD) flown by Buck Roetman
Talon Eagle   (N181DM) flown by Dan McClung
T-28C         (#138187 N187GH)
*T-45C        (#165457 TW1/VT7) arrived Saturday morning for static display
                                 callsign BOBCAT 61
SBD-5         (#54532 NL82GA)
SNJ-4         (#88-12533 N299FM) picked up pax on Saturday and departed
               (#88-13171 N7062C) modified to Nakajima Kate replica
Sukhoi SU-26M (N26SU)
Techno SP-91  (N96LP) flown by Larry King
TH-55         (#67-15442 N74914) giving rides

[NOTES]

Once again the weather impacted this year's show. The remnants of TS Tammy
passed thru on Thursday and Friday. This meant a large number of the
aircraft were not there to open the Saturday show. Throughout the day
aircraft kept arriving and by the end of the day most everyone was there.

The clouds on Saturday eventually gave way to clear skies but there was
still plenty of moisture in the air. This meant some major vapor by the
military demos! The F/A-18 had a well pronounced shock cone during his
passes (first time I have seen that at an inland show). Even the A-10 was
producing some impressive vapor clouds during his high g maneuvers. The 
weather on Sunday was lousy with an 1800' overcast all day.

The F-15 and F/A-18 demos staged from Dobbins ARB. One interesting note on
the Hornet - he actually performed 2 demos on Saturday. There was an
abbreviated morning demo which was described as "an FAA required
familiarization flight".

Nice to see the Cape Cod boys make it down for the show. Note they were
talking to show boss on VHF. Their simulated T&G followed by a transition to
low level was one of the lowest non-takeoff passes I've seen by an Eagle.

Not to be outdone, the F/A-18 performed a real T&G. According to airshow
announcer Scott Slade this was the first one ever at KFFC, which leads to
this question - what are the military requirements for a T&G? KFFC only has
a 5,220' runway with no barriers.

The A-10 demo did not fly on Sunday due to a mechanical problem. I heard the
APU spooling up then the next thing I heard on the scanner was "hot start"
and "request FD". Peachtree City FD responded with Rescue 801 and Engine 81.
They tried again later in the day but as soon as the APU started the pilot
reported a no-show.

Paul "Hot Rod" Stender was there and drove his Kamikaze Jet ATV and the new
Jet Beer truck. Scott Slade mention the beer truck would be featured on a
Monster Garage show in early November.

Last year the Delta/ASA CRJ-700 performed an extremely low pass accompanied
by the song "Low Rider".  Talking with one of the CRJ pilots on Saturday he
mentioned that pass was not well received by the management folks. This year
all the passes were "by the book" missed approaches.

This was my first show with the BCD-396T and I am very pleased with its
performance. The 259.900 air/air freq was caught using the close call
feature as were all the 400MHz ground freqs.

Finally, photos are available at http://www.pbase.com/mriffle/2005_kffc


Mike Riffle
Cataula, GA