This past Saturday was the annual "Good neighbor day" airshow at my home airport of DeKalb Peachtree (PDK/KPDK). As usual, I was pumped. The night before, I made all the plans, made sure my camera was charged, and other prep stuff, which I often do when I am excited. The morning of, I donned my show attire, which included of my new CZL airport shirt, and headed to the airport. As the rest of my family grows bored with such occasions, I was dropped off early, which provided some great opportunities to talk to some pretty incredible people. (more to come about them later). I got there, and headed out onto the ramp, which I always jump at the chance to do since, unless you own an aircraft there, you don't get access to it. As I was walking out, a Piper J-3 Cub was out doing pattern work, which was really cool to watch, as you don't see many cubs flying around anymore. After I wandered around the main ramp, looking at the smaller warbirds, I headed over to the back ramp, to see all that was there. This side was full of what I call "General Aviation Heavies". This includes the likes of the DC-6, C-46, DC-3, etc. I call them this because the 747s and the like have them beat, but compared to a cessna, they are BEHEMOTHS of aircraft. To my utter disappointment, the thing that I was truly looking forward to the most, the DC-3, was not there, for the second year... In. A. Row. Come on DC-3! Anyway, I did get to go inside its big brother, the DC-6, which had been turned into a Berlin Airlift museum from the inside. It was quite cool, and I also got to talk to the pilots, a couple of old vets, that had been friends since the war. It was cool to see their view of aviation as a whole, as it differs so much from the modern, jet-setting world we live in today. Let me just say, I wanna go back to that time! After I was done there, I took a lap through the hanger, where there were two shiny, brand new cirrus SR-20s, which I navigated to through the sea of vendors selling their hamburgers, and cheap toys that parents buy to get their screaming child to shut up. After that, I met up with a new friend of mine, who you can find as @aviator248 on instagram. The show started soon after that, with the kickoff being a rather touching moment this year. They called all the veterans to gather in one place, but everyone was to busy watching the stunt pilots take off. Little did we know, all of the vets had gotten lined up out on the taxiway, and the stunt planes formed the "Missing Man Formation", and flew right over the vets, some of witch shed a few tears over their fallen friends. After this sentimental moment had passed, the show kicked off. The show was pretty much endless variations of the same stunts, which get boring after about the eighth time... but, I still can't wait for next year!
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AuthorThis website is run and maintained by @aviation_atlanta from instagram Archives
April 2016
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