2006 Dayton Air Show

Marlene and I went to Dayton for the annual visit to the Dayton Air Show yesterday. We didn’t spend much time looking at the static displays this year, but I did get some of the best photos I’ve ever of the airborne performances. (They’re not great photography, but the best I’ve done anyway.) We saw the F-16 Viper, F/A-18 Hornet, the Blue Angels, and a few others. One of the most interesting is the Tora Tora Tora reenactment of the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The pyrotechnics are pretty cool, but I can’t help feeling that it is a little perverse to reenact such an event. I suppose it’s right up there with Civil War battle reenactments, but I can’t say I really understand the point of that either. These air shows always remind me of another strange custom, one that I typically associate with the Soviet Union or China: the military parade. I imagine the organizers of these parades thinking, “Witness, people of the world, the mighty army, navy, and air forces that we will bring to bear if you mess with us!” I can remember growing up seeing these images on TV and somehow they became equated in my mind with the evil empires of the world. But not so! Because we have them here, too. They’re called air shows.

July 30th, 2006