NASA's Super Guppy at the airshow at Andrews. @wtop pic.twitter.com/JExksNjR1R
— Kathy Stewart (@KStewartWTOP) September 19, 2015
Thunderbird F16s sitting on the tarmac for the Joint Base Andrews Air Show which hasn't been held since 2012. @wtop pic.twitter.com/eVYHPUBlJl
— Kathy Stewart (@KStewartWTOP) September 19, 2015
Thunderbirds, you can hear them coming for sure but hard to capture. @wtop pic.twitter.com/yXtvbFOsCL
— Kathy Stewart (@KStewartWTOP) September 19, 2015
WASHINGTON — For the first time since 2012, the airshow returned to the skies over Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Saturday as an elated crowd of about 80,000 stood watch.
The live airshow was more scaled back than it had been in the past. This year’s show was only one day, having been a two-day event in prior years. Also, the air show will be held every two years instead of every year.
“We originally scheduled to have one in 2014 it got cancelled due to sequestration,” says airshow spokeswoman Laura McAndrews. She says organizers hope to bring back the show in 2017, which would mark the 70th anniversary of the Air Force and it would be a two-day event.
On Saturday, the D.C. Air National Guard did a flyover in in a missing man formation. The headliner was the Air Force’s Thunderbirds in their F-16s. But also very popular was the special operations Para Commandos jump team, which brought in the American flag while the national anthem played.
There was also plenty to see on the ground. More than 30 aircraft displays were on display at the show, including NASA’s “Supper Guppy.”
“It looks like a giant whale with propellers,” McAndrews says. “But it’s a NASA transport aircraft used to carry around rockets.”
The aircraft has hauled everything from Saturn rockets to modules for the International Space Station.
Attendees also got a chance to check out the Air Force’s newest fighter jet, the F-35A. The aircraft is also known as the Joint Strike Fighter or Lightning 2.
“The Joint Strike Fighter was originally designed to replace the F-16,”says Lt. Col Christine Mau, the first female pilot to fly this fighter jet. Mau is from Eglin Air force Base in Florida.
“It looks kind of funny because it’s stealthy,” she says. “That is really the biggest difference that this airplane brings to the fight and that is stealth. What you don’t see are our weapons bays, and we carry our weapons inside. Part of the stealth design is keeping all your weapons internally so you don’t have large radar reflectors out there.”
