A friend here let me tag along when he took his family out to the airshow. We walked down to the harbor, and watched planes of all vintages and models tear up the sky for 3 hours. There were tens of thousands of people there, and it was awesome.
There was a lot of amazing planes to see – but for my money the biggest showoff of the night was the pilot of the Airbus A350. He came in so slow and low his entire instrument panel must have been lit up red and screaming at him. Then after taking what could only be called leisurely laps, he slowly wiggled his wings and flew off. It was like watching a bear doing ballet, but good ballet. Your brain just didn’t know what to make of it.
My mouth was hanging open during his lower fly-bys but here is the airbuss. The seagulls were thoroughly unimpressed by all the planes.
Later when the Euro-fighter or the Saab 35 Draken were flying they were definitely faster, more agile, and in every way the owners of the sky still – hard to forget someone flying an airbus in a way I want to describe as languid. The Draken did make good use of that afterburner though, that sucker was loud!
The red arrows came screaming in with 9 planes and spent like 20 minutes making alternating between making you think they were going to crash into each other, or literally telling stories in the sky with smoke trails. At one point – two of them drew a giant heart, while a third turned his smoke trail on and off to put an arrow through it. Totally bad ass flying.
All in all this was a lovely Friday night. Unfortunately the drugs I was taking for my jet lag and for my cold both wore off on the way back from the show. My friends wife is a delightful woman, and I recall having an interesting conversation with her, but the last 10 minutes of it are a total blank. I was just shot. I needed to run some tests while I had the office to myself though – so I went out for Rammen before hitting work again. Thats when I discovered another Gin and tonic mystery garnish – basil leaf served mulled like in a Mohito. Have people been drinking their Gin and tonics like this all along? Maybe it is just living in Australia for so long – but I have always been a lime wedge and good jin and quality tonic or nothing guy. Finland’s doing its best to convert me though.
