Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Read in the clouds
Thousands swell beach for aerobatic event
The Geico Skytypers, who perform precision maneuvers and do skywriting, soar amid the clouds at Saturday’s Fort Lauderdale Air Show. Friday night’s rain might have made for a smaller crowd.
The 2018 Fort Lauderdale Air Show was a hive of activity with buzzing to match as pilots got up close and personal with a crowd that slowly swelled along the beach as Saturday afternoon flew by.
This was a first for Ed Cook, who came down from Pompano Beach.
“This is incredible,” he said. “Stunning, absolutely magnificent.”
Billy DiPetrillo’s father was a naval aviator, so the Coral Springs resident is a regular at air shows.
“Not our first rodeo, been to almost every one of these,” he said. “This show’s a little smaller than most.”
So was the crowd, compared to the heyday of the old Air and Sea Shows. Perhaps apprehension set in after a Friday night of rain and forecasts of a tropical disturbance threatening to form near the Bahamas.
But, the skies were clear and blue over Fort Lauderdale beach with a stiff breeze and a line of clouds on the distant horizon. Texas-native Stuart Bell said that’s a huge attraction in itself.
“I’ve done air shows in Texas and elsewhere but you don’t get the extra benefit of beautiful blue water and the breeze off the ocean,” he said.
Jason White traveled all the way from his home across the street to see his third air show.
“It looked just as busy as it was
last year,” he said. “I was entertained.”
Pilot Jordan Smith was a perched on the 11th floor observation deck of the Pelican Grand Beach Resort with radio in hand to listen to the air traffic controller who directed the Air Show from the beach viewing area.
“I’ve done this before,” he said. “It’s nice to know what’s going to happen before it happens.”
Among the happenings along State Road A1A between Sunrise Boulevard and Northeast 14th Court: ■ An F-18 Super Hornet. ■ The U.S. Special Operations Command Para-Commandos. ■ A C-17 GlobeMaster III Demo by the New York Air National Guard’s 105th Airlift Wing ■ The GEICO Skytypers, ■ A search and rescue demonstration by the U.S. Coast Guard,
■ A P-51 Quicksilver Mustang demonstration with pilot Scott “Scooter” Yoak,
■ Aerobatic pilots Mike Wiskus and Matt Chapman.
The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds canceled their appearance because of a fatal crash during a recent training exercise in Nevada.
“Of course, it’s disappointing,” said Cook. “You always want to see them because they are so famous, but the show must go on, as they say, and everything is fantastic.”
There were no arrests, but Fort Lauderdale Police Detective Tracy Figone said there were some unscheduled flights.
“The only incidents were four separate drones which improperly entered the restricted air space,” she said. “[The] FAA is investigating.”
Police were reminding people that, “there are regulations regarding drone use and it is never acceptable to use drones in restricted air space without proper authority, especially in this case, to include an active air show area. Such reckless deployment of drones places the pilots’ and the public’s safety at risk.”
Organizers estimated tens-of-thousands attended the first day of the event. The Air Show repeats Sunday from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. with the same eye-popping, ear-splitting program.