Temple Air Show

The CAF and the town of Temple, Texas do an airshow every May. I have never had a chance to attend this particular show, but I always figured once you see the CAF do their "TORA, TORA, TORA" show, you have seen it all. I have seen it at other shows.

Then Sarge here on SS convinced me I needed to join the Lone Star MVPA out of Austin. I did that back in December. From what I understand, they have always taken vehicles to the Temple air show as static displays. This year the CAF figured out a way to work our old vehicles into the show with a Vietnam reinactment. Once my 9 year old son Colton found out about it, there was no way I could stay away.

I convinced Sermis that he needed to be involved as well, so Friday afternoon Colton and I set out for the air show. A short stop to visit with Sermis and we followed his M725 over to the airport. Below is a picture of another members M38, the M725 of Sermis, my M715, Sarges amazing M820 expandable 5-ton van (He had a queen sized bed and a Lazy boy inside that thing.) and Rory's (I can never remember his SS name) M813 5-ton Friday night.

We were camped about 100 yards from a taxi way. 100 yards in the other direction was an Aaron Tippon concert going on from early evening until full dark. It is kind of nice to set up camp and cook to live music. Then a guy in a twin jet powered glider took off and did a night time aerobatic routine. He had sparklers on his wingtips and used what seemed like a chaf ejector to punch out fireworks at different intervals. Pretty neat show. Once that was done, a regular ground based mortar tube fireworks show took place. Then Sermis, Sarge, Rory and myself tried to talk the night away while our kids all played together in the dark.

The airshow went just like about any other I have ever been to until we were up about 1500 in the afternoon Saturday. An Austin based re-inactment group of about 20 people were split between riding in an APC or getting air lifted by a UH-1 into "help" us after our "convoy' got ambushed while crossing the airport. An A-26, OV-10, A-1 and the UH-1 were our air support. With the usual CAF explosions and smoke show going off everytime something flew over.

I didn't really get any good pictures that day since I had all the "small soldiers" riding in my truck and I wanted them to stay in the truck to prevent accidents or injury. If they were in the truck, I had to be too. Sarge rode in my passenger seat and probaby got some better shots.

Sunday was supposed to be about the same, except Sermis swapped out his M725 for his M35A2. Below is a picture of our vehicles in camp.

Since all my "small soldiers' followed directions the first time through and I saw how things worked, we decided to let them jump out and take part in the action. Below is a picture of Rory's son Patrick taking a bead on the OPFOR with an A-26 pulling up from a run and the UH-1 bringing in more of the reinactors.

I have a bunch more of either airplane specific or MV specific pictures at home that I still haven't gone through yet. I took 147 pictures for the weekend and just haven't had time yet to look at them all. So, more will follow.

Pretty much, a great weekend to play with trucks, guns, planes and visit with people who think the same way. Can't wait for the next one.

Sounds like a good time was had by all. Looking forward to more pictures. Thanks for taking the time.

Here are some more pictures.

A good time was indeed had by all.

Barrman, thank you very much for being the keeper of the "mini-troops". And for making room for Patrick and his cot in your tent. (Note to self- when picking a Mobiflex to take to a show, check first that it isn't the only broken one. Doh!).
It was good to finally get to meet Sermis, and I really enjoyed chatting with y'all, even if we stayed up later than common sense dictates.

On Sunday I had the honour of driving Sherb, a Pearl Harbour survivor, around the aircraft display in that M38 (at 92, he is sharp as a tack, but not as fleet of foot as he once was). In all his years, he had never attended an airshow or seen the Tora Tora Tora re-enactment, so he was very interested in all the planes, particularly the replica Japanese ones. Sherb, a native of Hawaii, was a civilian island-hopper pilot before WW2 and flew into Pearl about 30 minutes before the attack (bad timing, as he says). As he talked of the events, the bombing, the turmoil, the rescues all over, he paused for a moment then said "Yep, that was a busy day". I propose that as the understatement of the year!

I have more photos and we will post them on the club website as soon as I get a chance to write the after-action-
http://www.lonestar-mvpa.org/events/2008/2008_Events.htm

Cheers

Here are a few shots taken from the Huey at the show, courtesy of Chris H of G-Co (the re-enactors).

In shot two you can see Barrman's M715, the M813 and Sermis' deuce. Off in the background Sarge coordinates air-support in his M820/M832

Cheers

Very Cool God bless TEXAS