The 2009 Air Show General Atmosphere -- Blue Smoke
I have seen many legendary performances and performers in the past: Sean D. Tucker, Patty Wagstaff, the acrobatic glider, the fire bomber demonstration, the dogfight recreation, the Thunderbirds and of course our own Snowbirds. But I have yet to see the Britney Spears of air show spectacles, the Blue Angels.
I arrive, just before the show starts, at a rocky beach at Ontario Place. This spot is flooded with sling chairs, telephoto zoom lenses and even a few people crazy enough to look directly at the sun with binoculars.
When the show starts, all eyes are on the skies. But as time goes by, the children start to play with stones, becoming less and less reactive each time a jet roars through the sky. Kerplunk! Yet another stone plops into Lake Ontario. Do the children believe that the jets are close enough to be hit within stone-throw range?
About an hour later, I look over at ground control and see three officers, in blue uniforms and pointed military hats, standing on a platform. I wonder if they are blue angels commentators. The P.A. system isn’t working properly, so only when “Fat Albert” (their Hercules transport plane) appears to break though the trees behind me, I know for sure. Isn’t it ironic that what I’m looking forward to the most, on a day that celebrates Canada’s contribution to aviation, is an American military demonstration team.
They are as spectacular as their reputation. They fly so close that at times they appear to be one plane. They fly so low that at times the smoke drifts towards us at ground level, blanketing us and trees with a blue haze that tastes like chalk.
If you were to try to compare Blue Angels to Snowbirds, however, it would be impossible. They are very different in their performing style. For example, the Blue Angels fly in patterns, but their passes overhead are more quick and linear compared to the roll-as-a-team-and-keep-it-slow formations that made the Snowbirds famous. The Blue Angels maneuvers may be artistic, but all have their role in military engagement, while the Snowbirds take their time to make artistic designs in the sky, with their smoke.
Yes, the Angels are the most precise aerobatic team in the world, as I’ve now seen, but no one can draw a heart in the sky, like our own Snowbirds.