Rain can't ground AirFest

A little rain and wind did not ground Saturday’s Air Fest at Culpeper Regional Airport though it did make for a more modest affair than last year when more than 5,000 people showed up and organizers had to turn folks away.

By midday this year, hundreds milled about the airport, checking out model airplane displays, taking cover from intermittent showers in the hangars or talking with the many pilots on hand for the show along with dozens of tricked out planes.

There were no air demonstrations with real planes before 1 p.m., but a hip display of model planes had all eyes in the sky by late morning.

“We fly them as far as you can see them,” said Gene Albrycht with Spotsylvania’s Wing Walkers model airplane club. “You’ll lose sight of it before you lose range.”

Model planes flying above the runway Saturday, however, were kept well in sight of anxious operators as the wind tried to toss and twist the replicas. October gusts were not enough to topple a 35-pound Halifax model from the Fauquier club though.

Snoopy on his doghouse stayed upright as well, flying around like something out of Oz before landing roof down to the gasps of onlookers.

“I crashed more of these things then, well — I haven’t crashed any real planes,” said master of ceremonies Frank Bossio, county administrator and a pilot in his own right.

“But I flew my first model into a tree and we had to get it down with a shotgun.”

Albrycht said his model jet, “a rookie,” goes up to 200 miles per hour on a good day, which he said is the legal limit in the U.S. for model planes. He grew up around model planes and said it’s a hobby that “kind of just gets in your blood.”

“It’s almost like magic to see something fly,” he said.

Regardless of size.

On the other end of the airport, the day’s biggest flying machine filled an entire hangar. That would be the Sea Harrier, a rare British fighter plane designed for the Royal Navy. They call it the “SHAR.”

Owner Art Nalls of Lusby, Md., a retired lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Marines, has brought his impressive fighter to the Culpeper Air Fest the past five years and it’s always a real crowd-pleaser. He said he didn’t know if this year, his sixth, would be his last — it depends on if he can get a sponsor next year.

That’s because it costs big bucks to operate, transport and maintain a plane with an engine as large as the SHAR; it uses a gallon every second and a half in a hover, Nalls said.

Cruising down the runway eats up 1.8 gallons.

And yet he keeps coming back to Culpeper because, “They treat us so nice,” he said, including limo service and dinner Friday night at the Inn at Kelly’s Ford in Remington. Plus, “they give us as much fuel as we want.”

Nalls, a Marine pilot who did two tours in Beirut in the early ’80s, hoped to hit 600 knots (nearly 700 miles per hour) on a high-speed pass at the Air Fest, but he too was keeping a close watch on the wind.

His SHAR is only one of 76 Sea Harriers ever built and was the second one to roll off the assembly line in 1979.

“It’s the only one in the entire world that’s able to fly,” Nalls said — the rest are in museums.

“The audience loves this airplane,” he said, adding, “I know the Marine Corps gets more requests for the Harrier than the (Air Force) Thunderbird and (Navy) Blue Angels combined.”

When hovering, it’s like the Harrier is “suspended on a cloud of noise,” Nalls went on, obviously passionate about aviation.

In his 22 years with the Marines, he made more than 600 landings on aircraft carriers in the Harrier. Nalls also flew the A-4 Skyhawk — the same model Sen. John McCain flew in Vietnam, he said.

Even grounded, the SHAR was certainly a wicked sight to see at Saturday’s show, like a big gray beast with a pointy noise.

Around the corner, a more demure Felix the Cat decorated a Navy plane while an Air Force plane bore the name “Pamela Marie.”

Jumpsuits in green, brown, tan, blue and otherwise were the preferred attire at the Air Fest, and the event was definitely a family affair.

Cloudy skies did not dampen the enthusiasm of scores of wide-eyed boys and girls, including the 2-year-old daughter of commercial pilot Mike Hogan with the Commemorative Air Force. She sat beside daddy, helping, as he checked the air in the tire of a World War II-era plane.

“I do it for fun,” Hogan said of flying with CAF.

Paul Miller, a founding member of the National Capital Squadron division, said the organization acquires World War II aircraft to restore them and educate the general public about the spirit in which the planes were flown in defense of America.

“I’m just a nut about airplanes,” said Miller, who grew up in Brighton, England.

The National Capital Squadron leases a hangar at the Culpeper Airport where it holds an open house every second Sunday of the month.

An interesting display nearby showed the uniforms of the World War II Army Air Corps, including electrically heated trousers and Artic gloves. One might wonder what the Japanese gun camera was used for.

Everything slowed and quieted down just before noon at the Air Fest as the high school’s JROTC presented the colors to the National Anthem.

“This is a patriotic day of patriotic days,” said Bossio. “So we’re going to honor our flag.”

By 12:15 p.m., two biplanes from the Bealeton Flying Circus had landed and the skies began to clear just in time for an afternoon of high-flying stunts.