Flames & planes
Record-breaking Wall of Fire attempt highlights Yuma Air Show
If all goes as planned, flames will leap high in the sky, over a 100 feet into the air. They’ll race uninterrupted along the ground in a straight line — not for a distance of mere feet or yards, but of miles. Three miles, to be exact. As you watch fire sweep across your field of vision, you’ll see jets approaching in tight formation from the other side. Passing over the flames, they’ll turn upward, peeling off in separate directions.
You may want to have a still or video camera as this scene unfolds Saturday afternoon, during the Yuma Air Show at the Marine Corps Air Station.
“It’s going to make for a really cool photo opportunity,” said Greg McShane, the air show coordinator.
And if all goes planned, Yuma will have broken the world record previously set here in 2009 for creating the longest wall of flames.
The record-setting attempt, dubbed the Longest Wall of Fire, will be the finale of a marathon aerial exhibition spread over two days. The show begins with a twilight performance today that kicks off with a jump onto MCAS by the Misty Blues All Women Skydiving Team, whose members will unfurl a large American flag as their descent is punctuated by the playing of the National Anthem.
Following that will be demonstrations and displays of every aircraft in the Marines’ arsenal — if they’re not up in the air flying, said McShane, they’ll be parked on the ground where people can see them up close.
Those who catch tonight’s twilight show will be treated to the color of the rocket-like thrust of a F-35B Lightning II fighter making an afterburner pass after dark.
The headlining act will be the Patriot Jet Team, composed of former members of the Navy Blue Angels, the Air Force Thunderbirds and Canadian Air Force Snowbirds who will be flying L-39s high-performance jet trainer. Trailing streams for red, white and blue smoke behind them, the Patriots will fly maneuvers both days of the show.
A restored World War II-era P-51C Mustang will also fly Saturday in a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation’s first African-American military pilots, who battled Nazi Ger-
many at a time when their own armed forces kept them segregated from their comrades in arms.
Daredevil Greg Shelton will balance himself in a wing-walking act on the top wing of a 450 Super Stearman biplane. Freestyle motocross rider Jimmy Fitzpatrick will perform his own stunts from the seat of a motorcycle. And spectators will see not only jets but a jet-powered truck as veteran driver Chris Darnell steers a Shockwave Jet Truck at speeds rivaling those of an aircraft.
Admission to the air show is free both days, although people will need to download free parking passes at www.yumaairshow.com to get on base for today’s twilight performance.
“I can’t imagine a better family event than the Friday twilight or Saturday performances,” McShane said. “We will literally have something for everyone.”
One act everyone seems to want to see is a repeat of the Wall of Fire exhibition in the 2009 air show, when the Tora Bomb Squad, the pyrotechnics branch of Tora Tora Tora Airshows, ignited a fire that swept in a line for 10,178 feet, establishing a Guinness World Record.
“Every year we do an air show, people ask, ‘When are you going to do it again’?” McShane said.
They’re going to do it again on Saturday, but they plan to outdo themselves by about 5,000 feet. Tora Bomb Squad contracted with air show organizers to create a fiery wall of 15,000 feet, but Gordon Webb, Tora’s pyro lead, says it’s ongoing to try to push it out to 15,840, an even 3 miles.
Bags of gasoline will be place at intervals along the longest runway at MCAS and then linked with a detonation cord to create what Webb called “a pretty impressive wall of fire,” one that will reach about 150 feet into the sky.
“MCAS is fortunate to have an extremely long runway, 13,300 feet long,” said McShane. “We’re obviously going to add 1,000 plus feet on either end.”
Core Engineering Group of Yuma did the surveying work in 2009 to document that wall of flame set a record, and it will again serve as surveyor for the new record-breaking attempt.
Doug Nicholls, the company’s owner, said Core has presurveyed the topography and has set its equipment to the minimum height and length requirments to record whether the wall reaches those dimensions. Apart from outdistancing the 2009 wall, Saturday’s wall can have no gaps as it sweeps over the course of that length, and it must attain a minimum height of 40 meters — 131 feet.
“I’d like (spectators) to understand that this something they’ve never seen before and may never see again,” said Webb.
If the wall does end up reaching three miles, it’s likely to stay in the record books for the foreseeable future, said McShane. “There are very few air fields that have that much real estate to facilitate a Wall of Fire that long.”
It will be the Patriots who will be flying the jets that vault the flames on Saturday. Prior to the fiery finale, the all-volunteer jet team will perform a 26-minute demonstration in the L-39, a subsonic straight-wing jet that allows the aviators to fly in what is described as a tight “aerobatic box” by Michael “Smurf” Temby, narrator for Patriots shows.
“We keep the jets closer to the audience,” he said. “We’re there in front of the crowd at all times. It’s a very busy show. It’s an interactive show — I like the crowd involved and on their toes.”
One of the Patriots, said Temby, can turn the L-39 on its tail and fly straight up until the aircraft slows to a halt and then begins to fall to the earth. “He does three of those in the 26 minutes, which is incredible.”
The Tora Bomb Squad will also provide the pyrotechnic effects for the Yuma-based Marine squadron VMA 214, whose Harrier jets will perform simulated bombing and strafing runs in a close air support demonstration, McShane said.
The air show offers “action-packed, back-toback flying,” he said. “You won’t be able to take it all in, there’s going to be so much going on.”
McShane said the air show wouldn’t have happened without the financial sponsorships of area businesses, organizations and individuals. And given that support, he added, show organizers wanted to give spectators some added thrills by staging the Wall of Fire record-setting attempt.
“I just think it’s neat that Yuma gets to go down in the books as a record holder,” McShane said. “I don’t see this as something the Marine Corps Air Station is doing; I see it as something Yuma is doing.”
“We keep the jets closer to the audience. We’re there in front of the crowd at all times. It’s a very busy show. It’s an interactive show – I like the crowd involved and on their toes.”