Rhode Island National Guard Air Show 2014

The Blue Angels brought the only air show to the New England region after a year hiatus thanks to the Government. Rhode Island’s Quonset State Airport grabbed the Blue Angels when May 17-18th opened up after Cherry Point initially canceled their air show. With Quonset being a former Navy air base the US Navy’s Blue Angels is a crowd favorite and was sure to attract thousands. Mother Nature tried to throw a wet damper on this show where all week long it was calling for showers all weekend. Thankfully the showers ended by 7:15am and the clouds were pulling away by 11am.

This year’s show not only brought in the Blue Angels, but the USAF was represented by the F-22 Raptor Demo and the US Marines were sure to please the crowd with the MV-22 Osprey Demo. The other military single ship demo’s haven’t stepped up yet, hopefully next year we’ll see the F-16 and F/A-18 solo demonstration teams up and running again.

For civilian acts we had Sean D. Tucker in his Oracle Challenger III bi-plane and John Klatt not only in his Air National Guard aerobatic plane, but also debuting his “Screamin’ Sasquatch”. His Jack Link’s jet-powered Waco aircraft was awesome. An act you really have to hear just as much as see. To hear a jet engine come off a bi-plane just didn’t sound right. Local Rob Holland stunned the crowd in his Cox MX-S stunt plane.

The Collins Foundation brought their A-1E Skyraider to open the show, and the P-51D Mustang, the Geico Skytypers along with the T-34 “Free Spirit” flown by Julie Clark took their performances to the skies. A new act for me was seeing The Horsemen’s formation of two F8F Bearcats and the F7F Tigercat, two vintage navy fighter types. Due to the storm that came up Friday, the Horsemen didn’t arrive till late morning on Saturday but took to the air in the afternoon.

The Blue Angels as always were the closing act, Fat Albert starting their show and then the Blues taking to the blue skies. There was no Combined Arms, C-130J Hercules, UH-60 Black Hawk demo from the home RI National Guard units this year which was a disappointment. Still, I’d like to thank the RI Air National Guard for organizing their 23^rd annual air show and I’m looking forward to next year’s on Memorial Day.