Thunder Over Michigan - The Growler And The Corsair

The Navy's EA-18G Growler Demonstration team participated at the airshow.

The  EA-18G Growler is the electronic warfare version of the Super Hornet.

The crowd got to watch a Super Hornet go through its paces, and demonstrate its high Alpha and maneuverability.

The air was all sorts of humid, so the Growler had no problem creating vapor trails.

 

The Super Hornet also created some shock diamonds from its twin engines.

 

 

After the initial demo, a Corsair joined up for some historic Navy fly-bys:

Note the nose angle of the Growler in this pic as it stays on the Corsair's wing.

After flying together they the broke off and and Hornet gave a nice parting shot of its roaring engines to end the demonstration.

The EA-18G Growler is a large, loud, and very maneuverable aircraft and put on an impressive display.

TOM2018: Warbird Flight

After the Kalitta Jet did its flyby, three warbirds went up for some formation flying.

An F4U Corsair

An SB2C Helldiver:

A Grumman TBM Avenger Model E:

They did some formation flying, but the TBM tended to not be tight with the other two aircraft, making capturing all three in a shot tricky.

The F4U and Helldiver tended to stay closer together:

Then the Helldiver and TBM landed.

The F4U remained aloft and did further aerial demonstrations on its own.

This included loops and rolls.

It was an excellent formation and aerobatic demonstration of some very historic warbirds.

Whistling Death - The F4U Corsair

N179PT is a 1948 manufacture Chance Vought F4U-5 that was one of the featured draws to the OCIA Airshow.

With an 11:1 kill ratio, she whistled death onto the Japanese in the Pacific, and unto the North Koreans and Chinese in the Korean War.

With power to spare it took off with plenty of runway remaining.

The he took the pane through its paces.

The frontal view is very distinctive,

The Corsair is both highly maneuverable and fast.

A Corsair coming around to your six was the last thing many an opponent ever saw.

After quite a number of low passes, he landed smoothly.

The folded up the wings and taxi'd off the runway.

The Swashbuckling Corsair At OCIA

The OCIA Airshow had a special guest fly in at the start of the show:

With it's distinctive gull wing, it's the Chance Vought F4U Corsair.

The Corsair served as both a fighter and fighter-bomber, mainly with the Marines, but also in British, New Zealand, and French service.

With an 11-1 kill ratio against the Japanese, the Corsair helped rule the skies in the Pacific.

Parking was at a premium at OCIA, and space was tight, but no problem F4U, the pilot just folded the wings, taxied into position and then unfolded them.

A great plane to make an appearance at the OCIA Airshow.