Date: May 19-20, 2007
Story by: Brian Emch
Photography by: Brian Emch

Poor air quality wasn’t going to deter a huge crowd from attending the Planes of Fame Airshow in Chino, California on May 19th and 20th. Nearly fifty war birds flew, and the primary highlight was the formation of not one, not two, but three Lockheed P-38 Lightnings - F, J, and L models - quite possibly the only three in the world that fly on a regular basis today. Kevin Eldridge flew the Air Museum’s P-38J “23 Skidoo”, Steve Hinton flew the famous P-38F, “Glacier Girl”, and Jeff Harris flew the silver P-38L model. The Lightning formation was countered earlier in each day’s events with the formation of two Japanese Zeroes.

An OV-1 Mohawk was set to fly with an A-26, but due to ongoing maintenance issues, it was not able to fly. There were several rough spots at the show this year, including a bird strike on the B-17 “Fuddy Duddy”, an aborted takeoff by Mike Brown’s F7F Tigercat, and the Chino F-86 lost a drop tank during the Korean War segment. It was reportedly found uncomfortably close to where the two F/A-18Cs and F-15Es were parked. Following a Hornet demo, the Legacy flight featured one of the F/A-18s with Ray Dieckman in his F8F Bearcat. After an awesome Strike Eagle demo (which saw lots of condensation on the wings), the Heritage Flight featured the F-15E, Chuck Hall in the P-51 “Six Shooter”, and the P-38 “Glacier Girl”.

A rarely seen razorback P-51 was on display - “Princess Elizabeth”. Another unusual sight was a Stearman seaplane! Aerobatics were provided by Rob Harrison and wing walker Margie Stivers, who told me her knee is doing “much better” now. Towards the end of the day, nearly thirty war birds flew as part of the big “Gaggle” flight. The show wrapped up with a Vietnam war era segment, with “Skyraider Bob” flying his AD-4N alongside a T-28 in foreign markings, and a Huey helicopter.

Photo captions left to right: (1) B-17 wing damage from a bird strike. (2) F-15E Dedication Pass. (3) Two Japanese Zero fighters. (4) Glacier Girl. (5) Three P-38s, a rare sight. (6) Glacier Girl and 23 Skidoo. (7) Pair of Zeroes. (8) P-63. (9) Corsair.