Airshow Photos
Yesterday was the QuickTrip Air and Rocket Race Show, the first airshow Tulsa has had in quite some time. The event was put together by QuickTrip (obviously) and the Tulsa Air and Space Museum (& Planetarium).
Traffic was terrible, backed up onto Highway 169 miles away from the entrance. I gave up after waiting for a bit and just went to a grass lot to the west of the Tulsa International Airport. I was willing to pay to attend, but I would rather enjoy the show. I heard a lot of people were upset about the lines and lack of food, but it was fun to just sit out with a camera and watch pilots come and go.
One of the main attractions that was advertised was the Rocket Racing League. Although it wasn’t really a “race” it was still pretty fun to watch and listen to the planes. They were basically gliders that had rockets shoved in them.
They had problems though. Lots of engine burnouts, long refueling times, and on the 2nd run one of the pilots landed a bit hard. As he was taxiing down the runway his right wheel was bouncing all over the runway, it looked like it was barely attached. They ended up calling out the airport fire department and had to tow the racer back off the airport.
The grand finales were a B-52 Stratofortress bomber and a B-2 Stealth Bomber. The Stratofortress did s flyby and opened up it’s bomb bay doors for everyone to look at. It’s engines made the typical cool smoke trails behind it.
This was the first airshow I was ever able to see a stealth bomber at. It flew differently than I expected. Not silent, but still very quiet. I’ve heard descriptions that say it doesn’t really fly, but instead the Earth moves below it. That seems very close with how it just seems to slice through the air without moving any exterior parts. The B-2 was the “Spirit of Georgia”, flown out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. I only learned it was the Georgia bomber because I was able to zoom in to the belly of the plane from my photo and see the designator. Click photo below to see what I mean.
