Thursday, September 15, 2011

Wings over Pittsburgh



Since I am writing an article about the Wings over Pittsburgh air show, we headed to the show on Sunday. It was, of course, the 10th anniversary of the terror attacks of 9/11. When we arrived at the base, we were surprised to see Air Force One fly by us.
The demo flights were pretty impressive - especially the only civilian owned AV-8 Sea Harrier in the world, which can hover and even fly backward. The photo above shows the North East Raiders, five of which flew a missing man formation. Among the static displays was an original C-54E plane from the Berlin Airlift, which was especially interesting for me. Inside, the plane is a museum with photographs and information of the airlift. No one knew it then, but it was the beginning of the Cold War.
The nose art is another art work by Donna Pitaro, a Moon artist who I featured in the January/February 2008 issue of Pennsylvania Magazine.
Finally, our knees could not carry us any longer. While we waited for our shuttle bus, two helicopters flew by us. An airman said to us, "You know who that was? That was the President returning from Shanksville."
Of all the flyovers we saw, those two were the most amazing.

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