The performers in this year’s Chicago Air and Water Show have been doing practice runs ahead of the main event this weekend.
We got a close look and the planes and talked with some of the pilots at the Gary Airport, staging area for the show, for both the military and civilian planes.
The headliners this year are the US Air Force Thunderbirds.
They took to the skies with thundering sound late in the morning, returning to the airport and still performing for those who gather there each year.
Bill Stein, one of the civilian performers, stood by his color-changing high-performance plane, explaining how he approaches the performance.
“What you want to do if you fly an airplane like mine is show every little kid that’s out there on the beach just exactly how much time the airplane can clearly not be flying,” he said. “End-over-end, backwards, stuff like that, so if its clear the airplane is not flying like an airplane should then I’m doing my job and you try and maximize that.”
There are some new performers this year, including Tom Larkin in his Mini Jet that goes 300 miles-per-hour.
“it started off life as a SubSonex JSX-2,” he said. “I affectionately call it the Mini Jet because I’ve tweaked it and changed it a little bit over the years. It’s a 500-pound jet, the engine weighs only 43-pounds and develops 258-pounds of thrust. You literally strap this plane on, you wear it.”
Susan Dacy is back this year, flying her 1942 Stearman biplane that she calls Big Red.
“I try to take people back to, gee, what was aviation like about a hundred-years ago and kind of like do old fashioned loops and rolls and, if you will, the romance of aviation back then.”
All of the pilots enjoy the venue, performing over a massive crowd of people with the skyline in the background.
We will have wall-to-wall coverage of the show on 780 am on Saturday and Sunday.