Why do people in the states and england complain about what isn't at airshows???
Here in Ireland there are no airshows at all!
Unless you count the ocasional helicopter taken out for a short flight.
The closest I had seen to an airshow here was a 3 helicopter line flight over the harbour today!
True, we should feel fortunate, but I tend to feel all aircraft deserve to fly and deserve a chance to be revered by the general public. As I stated in a different topic, the P-51 has absorbed the warbird scene here in the states at airshows. Many times that is the only warbird. Yes there is a wide variety of warbirds flying in the states, but too many seem to come out only for certain special shows like those put on by air museums (Chino and Thunder Over Michigan come to mind). The vast majority of students in my aeronautical engineering course have no idea what a Spitfire is, a Hurricane, Lancaster, F4F, F6F, F8F, F7F, P-38, P-47 (yes the Jug), B-25, B-24, and on and on...keep in mind these are AERONAUTICAL ENGINEER STUDENTS, they (we) are in college to learn how to design aircraft and the vast majority do not know what some of the most influential and important aircraft are!! You ask them what a P-51 is they know (they are common at airshows) and most know what a B-17 is (thank you hollywood)...but the P-51 is not the fighter that everyone makes it out to be. There are many other piston pounders in WW2 that could out-fly a Mustang (Spits being one)...so my beef has more to do with frustration with the INCREASING lack of enthusiasm for historical aircraft. Every time I over hear a lay-person at an air museum or airshow talk about the warbird in front of them it is usually something along the lines of "oh, so this plane did this....whatever"
. This is very very frustrating for me!!
People Eating Tasty Animals.
