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2019 Airshows

Space Coast Warbird Airshow Warbird Photo Review
 Warbirds at Space Coast Regional Airport, Titusville, FL - March 15-17, 2019 (Photos taken all three days.)

This was my first visit to the Space Coast Warbird Airshow, formerly the Tico Warbird Airshow, since 2015.  To me it will always be Tico, and I will refer to it as such below. 

The neat thing about this show is that it is still actually winter when it occurs.  This, allows me to do airshows in all four seasons of the year.  I started thinking about doing the show this year in late January, when I started to get really tired of shoveling snow each week, while yet another new storm was coming in.  Even as I headed down to the show, there were winter storms raging in the Midwest.  It snowed at home on the Sunday of the show.  While others may go to the beach for spring break, I spend my spring break at the airport and the airshow.

The show is somewhat predictable.  In looking back at my visit in 2015, I noticed that several of the acts were the same.  It doesn't really matter, as it is an airshow, and it wasn't snowing.  The Space Coast Warbird Airshow is always a good escape from the winter weather at home!

Below are a few photos to give a flavor of the event, and to show which warbirds were in attendance.

Friday afternoon:  The Friday afternoon show was the best for photos, with lots of sunshine.  By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, it was rather dark.  In most cases, I will only show a warbird or event once, even though many of them flew all three days.  No aerobatic acts are included.

The first flag jump of the 2019 airshow season.

The Valiant Air Command's C-47 "Tico Belle" lands after the flag jump.  This C-47 is one of several heading to Normandy this year for the 75th Anniversary of D-Day.

Doug Matthews is a regular performer at Tico with his T-33.

B-25 "Panchito" is another warbird that performs frequently at the show.

Tom Reilly's B-25 Killer B is always at the show.  When I attended the show in 2015, the top turret was on the B-25.  Both B-25s flew all three days at the event.

TP-40N "American Dream" did an aerobatic demonstration on both Friday and Saturday. 

The P-51 and F4U each did their individual acts, and then formed up for the "Class of 45" demonstration. 

Gene McNeely performed all three days in his T-6 Texan.

Saturday:  I am doing a repeat of the flag jump because there were six different American flags that came down during the flag jump on Saturday. 

American Flag Number One.  Note that the jumper has no helmet.  This is the first time I had seen a jumper without some sort of head protection.

American Flags Number Two and Three.

American Flag Number Four.

American Flag Number Five with Number Six in the parachute.

This is the first time I have seen a T-45 do fly-bys at an airshow.  It was to be part of a Legacy Flight with the F4U Corsair.  However, that never happened on Saturday.  On Sunday, the T-45 did not even fly.

On Saturday there was only one pass of the Cavanaugh AD-6 Skyraider during the Skysoldier attack scenario.  It seems a shame to bring the AD-6 all the way from Dallas for it to only do one pass.

 
Matt Younkin did his normal super performance in the Twin Beech.

Jerry McCart coming down the taxiway on his way to race the P-40 in his jet truck "Homewrecker."

This is a first for me, as I have never seen a P-40 race a jet truck.  Also, for some reason, the gear was down, and the pilot is just starting to retract it.  The jet truck won.

Sunday:

On Sunday the P-40 won the race.  "Homewrecker" is burning at the starting line!  This time the P-40 had its gear retracted for the race.

This is few seconds before the P-40 overflew the truck.  I had looked at the truck, which wasn't burning, and looked out to the east to find the P-40.  When I looked back at the truck, this is what I saw.  I don't think that some of the crowd at first comprehended that this was not part of the act, but what is known in the airshow business as an "unplanned event."  There are no accidents at airshows, only "unplanned events."

Jerry McCart is just getting out of the truck.

All he can do is watch it burn.

The Space Coast Regional Airport fire truck was quickly on the scene, and put out the fire.  While there is no good place to have a fire on an airport, the truck burned up the runway underneath it at the intersection of runways 9-27 and 18-36.  Both runways lost the use of some of their length due to the fire.  Information supplied to me since the airshow indicates that this same truck caught on fire during its run here in 2016.  Then, the flames burned up the drag chute, the truck went off the end of the runway, and caused a grass fire.

Hopefully, the Space Coast Regional Airport will let the Valiant Air Command do more airshows at the airport.  One has to assume that if it does, it will write into the contract that jet trucks are not allowed to perform at the event.  No doubt the airport is not happy about having its runways burned, and the temporary loss of some the length of each runway.

Here are some hard-core spectators to the east of my position, who waited for an hour for the show to start again.  There was never any guarantee that it would, with the damaged runway, and both runways not having all of their length available.  This is about half the number of spectators when the jet truck caught on fire.

For those who stayed, they were able to see the "Class of 45" do its show, and watch as the P-51 and F4U did their opposing flight pass.

They were also treated on Sunday to three passes by the Skyraider.

Then,  Skysoldier helicopters came in came in and did a troop insertion.  The Cobra is on a strafing run in support of the Hueys.   

For the true airshow enthusiasts who waited the hour for the show to start back up, they were treated to a great pyro display during the act.

Last up for the day, and for the show for 2019, was the Aeroshell Team.  Due to the low ceiling, they did four flat passes, and at 3:40 PM the show was over.