Edwards Air Force Base Open House

Saturday I drove to Edwards Air Force Base for their Open House and Airshow. It was awesome!!! I have never been so excited about an airshow. To get to the base you have to exit the freeway and drive for about 12 miles with nothing but dry lakebed on either side of you. The Edwards website says that the lakebeds surrounding the base have been declared national historic sites because of all the planes that have made emergency landings there. The longest lakebed "runway" is 7.5 miles long!!! Anyway, the first thing I saw when I got there was Chuck Yeager flying a P-51. This would have been enough to satisfy me for the day. However, at 9:59:50 AM right when he was at show center on the flightline, an F-16 broke the sound barrier at 30,000 Ft!!!! Yes!!! THEN, the p-51 formed up with an F/A-22 Raptor for a heritage flight!!! Woohoooo! I still can't believe it. That was my first time seeing the F/A-22 and also my first time seeing the B-2 Spirit (stealth bomber) fly later in the day. I also saw Tora, Tora Tora, which is a reinactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor. There were 9 planes in the reinactment but they choreographed it in a way that there was always at least one plane making a pass followed by one or two explosions. It was really emotional to watch a reinactment of something so terrible. Closing the day was a flight review of the jets that flew during the day. They were all in formation and from what I can recall the order was F/A-22, (2) F-16s, F-117, B-2, B-1, B-52, C-17, C-130. There were a couple other planes but I can't remember what they were. I'll have to watch the video, again...