{"id":1664,"date":"2012-07-09T09:35:37","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T15:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?p=1664"},"modified":"2012-07-09T09:35:37","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T15:35:37","slug":"american-queen-air-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?p=1664","title":{"rendered":"American Queen – Air Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

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One great part of the July 4th celebrations in St. Louis was, not one but two<\/strong>, airshows over the Mississippi River – right where the American Queen was docked.\u00a0 I took nearly 1000 photos, mainly in ‘burst mode’, as it was difficult to track some of the planes in the air and get a decent shot.<\/p>\n

I (sort of) recognized a number of these aircraft but I’m no expert so anyone who can give more definite identification, please add a comment and I’ll\u00a0 update the ID’s in the post. (As usual, clicking on a thumbnail will take you to a larger version of the picture in another window or tab.)<\/p>\n

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Here a group of sky divers have jumped from above the Arch and are trying to pass through it before landing.\u00a0 Most of them made it.<\/p>\n

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This is (I believe) a B-17 with its fighter escort.\u00a0 I don’t recognize the fighters for sure.\u00a0 This was really quite a sight and got a lot of attention from the viewers.<\/p>\n

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Another airplane I couldn’t identify.\u00a0 It was a graceful and zippy little jet that appeared like a glider with a jet engine attached.\u00a0 He\/she did some incredible maneuvers quite close to the water.<\/p>\n

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Another shot of the same jet showing it was no slouch when it came to the speed department.\u00a0 You could tell the pilot was having a lot of fun showing off.<\/p>\n

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There were a number of biplanes in this show.\u00a0 Again my identification skills are lacking.\u00a0 The only ones I know of (by name only) are the Setabria and the Stearman.\u00a0 Anyway, this one sure was peppy and maneuverable.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>For the size of this twin engine plane it certainly did some spectacular flying.\u00a0 I would not have wanted to be a passenger on this flight!<\/p>\n

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A biplane in an inverted loop.\u00a0 Made me queasy just to watch!<\/p>\n

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Because of length I’ll split this post here:<\/p>\n

A Vietnam era A-10 “Warthog” which was very hard to catch \"\"<\/a>in a photo.\u00a0 It was also the strangest sounding plane in the airshow.\u00a0 Hard to describe, but you sure knew when it was approaching.<\/p>\n

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A pair of biplanes flying in close formation.\u00a0 These pilots really had the right stuff.\u00a0 It was somewhat frightening how they did such maneuvers in tight formation.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>These are the fighters which accompanied the B-17\/B-24 shown earlier.\u00a0 Really nice looking airplanes.<\/p>\n

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This is another shot of the B-17 showing more of the structure underneath with the gun turrets in the front, belly and tail.<\/p>\n

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A B-52 (Not sure which model) which is still in active service after first flying in 1952!\u00a0 Originally built to carry nuclear weapons, they have only carried conventional munitions in combat.<\/p>\n

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Another shot of the B-17 fighter escort.<\/p>\n

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A Harrier “Jump Jet”.\u00a0 Probably the AV-8B but there are many variants.\u00a0 This plane is capable of Vertical\/Short Takeoff and Landing\u00a0 (V\/STOL) operation.\u00a0 Here it is in hover mode – note the downward exhaust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  One great part of the July 4th celebrations in St. Louis was, not one but two, airshows over the Mississippi River – right where the American Queen was docked.\u00a0 I took nearly 1000 photos, mainly in ‘burst mode’, as it was difficult to track some of the planes in the air and get a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}