Dayton Air Show

The talk today by Mr. Gaffney make me think about my own experiences with the Dayton Air Show. I live in Vandalia so the summer was always as exciting time as a kid. Hearing and seeing all the planes fly into the airport for the Air Show was fun. I don't know how the tradition started for me, but my brother and I would go up to the airport on the Friday before the Air Show and sit at the end of one of the runways and watch the planes come in to land. All of the acts would practice on Friday so you would also get to see the whole show for free the day before. We would always sit under these trees by the end of 24L with a couple of other guys. These guys were great. They were Vietnam veterans and would tell stories about the planes as they came in about seeing them in war. They weren't pilots but they got a kick out of watching them fly. They would have their radios out listening to the pilots and the control tower so they knew when planes were coming in. They also knew all of the radio callsigns that the particular planes used so they could figure out what kind of plane was out there. When whatever plane would finally be close we would run over to the end of the runway and stand under the plane as it flew just 50 feet above. It was fantastic. You could get some great pictures of them too. I remember one time we were sitting there waiting for something to come in when all of the sudden there was an F-4 flying at what felt like 20 feet over us going very fast and LOUD! It wasn't landing and I guess we missed the radio calls for it. Needless to say, it was one of the best fly-overs ever. Anyway, just wanted to share a little bit of my experiences with the Dayton Air Show.