Airshows- Who's the Funniest?

Airshows are awesome in so many ways. The jets. And the other jets. Oh, and those jets over there we forgot are here sometimes. Wow.

And if that's not enough, I like to spice them up with little contests. My favorite one? Who's got the coolest, or funniest story.

At this year's Oregon Air Show, we had 5 contenders: F-15 guy, AV-8B guy, A-10 guy, F-18F guys, and T-6 trainer dude

The F-15 guy, "Tupac", kinda acted like an active USAF guy. Tough getting him to... well, talk at all. Hey, I 'm just callin' it like I see it. But he signed my book so that was cool- he was really careful with it, too, when I handed it to him. And now that I have TWO signatures on that pic of F-15A 040 (I got "Pyro" to sign 2 years ago), the personal value of the book has quadrupled. And then he sounded out about how he had many hours in jet 040, but now it was sitting in the boneyards of Davis-Montahn AFB. OoooOOOooohhh... that was cool. But too short, not quite a story, but definitely our first contender.

A-10 guy... Was cool with the facts, and interacted with my 6 yr-old really well. You see, my son said in advance that he wanted to ask an A-10 pilot about the `ole Gator bombs that he saw in a Youtube video. So, he asked the Warthog driver, who leaned over all fatherly-like and answered him in kind. Made my boy's day, but did not count as a cool or funny story. I even pushed him, by asking about all the dents in the `Hog's nose, but he just explained it... a little too tactfully in my opinion.

AV-8B guy...Ok, I'm a closet Harrier fanboi, and I told him this. So we both got all "Cooooool jet, bro," but I got no stories. I even told him about some interview I read about Eagle drivers who got frustrated trying to AIM-9 a Harrier but the wings block the exhaust and all the wiggling and viffing those jets can do... he said he'd been there, but didn't seem to want to go there. Hmmm, felt a little let down, but, hey, bro- cool jet anyway. Dead solid hover to 500 knots- very cool trick. But no story.

The Superbug pilot wasn't even anywhere around. Ppt. No- it was a TWO-seater so Double Ppt.

OK, T-6 Trainer dude, what have you got for me?

So we walked up to T-6 Texan guy, who was doing a recruiting bit with some parents and their son. And their daughter who was in the High School pipeline, too, I think. My 6-year-old wanted to go elsewhere. The plane had no guns, bombs, missiles or anything. But I'm thinking, "Help me T-6 Texan Trainer guy, you're my only hope."

And well, well, well if he didn't come through.

He told me about a great little experience he'd had just a few minutes before I walked up. Evidently, a Mom walked up to him and asked him what base he trained at. He answered. She said, "Oh my son trained there, but he flunked out."

See where this is going?

Trainer dude inadvertently asked, "What's his name?" and suddenly realized that may not have been a smart thing to do, but it was done. The mother said her son's name. He recognized it right away. Because the prospective pilot had nearly gotten them both killed. Well, he didn't say that, but he said he remembered the whole flight, and stated that pilot had made a series of mistakes culminating in one big mistake, bigger than normal, and he took control of the plane and flew them back in a dead quiet cockpit.

But instead he simply replied that there were a lot of candidates and it was difficult to remember them all. Good save.

Not.

Minutes later, the father came up. Father was big and upset. He explained he had encouraged his son to aim high and that he could achieve anything he set his mind to, and he wanted a personal explanation about why his first born son had been flunked out of pilot training.

Now, T-6 trainer dude was not a short guy- some inches taller than me, but he was an older, leaner guy and he expressed some concern to me about this upset father's size and demeanor. But he's a professional United States Air Force Instructor Pilot (with 20+ years on the job experience/thousands of hours of stick time) and explained to Dad why his son didn't simply fail the flight, he was flunked out of the entire course.

Dad wasn't any happier when T-6 dude elaborated by saying that his son could not even re-apply again due to the gravity of his error. Father was upset, but moved on like a good citizen after some fuming. And trainer dude made it clear to me that at the moment it was tense, but half an hour later it was actually funny.

And that made him my winner of the Airshow Pilot Funniest Story Contest.

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