Grand Junction Airshow 2008 by Paul Filmer

Grand Junction, Colorado’s biennial airshow should have taken place in 2007 but was postponed a year due to road construction and layout changes within the airport. The extra year’s wait caused the 2.5 day show, held from September 26th to 28th, to be extremely well attended by the local population.

The half-day, if you’re wondering, comes about because Grand Junction holds a Friday evening show, as many US Navy open houses do. “But Grand Junction isn’t a Navy base,” I hear you say – correct, but the airport has strong Navy connections due to its military FBO. Navy aircraft on cross-country flights make “gas-and-goes” at GJT on a regular basis. Appropriately, Navy aircraft outnumbered their Air Force counterparts at the show, and the Blue Angels were the headline act.

I’ve read with mild amusement posts where people declare they won’t be attending a nearby airshow because a certain military jet team is not there or a major demonstration team has pulled out. Grand Junction was a four-hour drive over the mountains for me, and I decided to go without knowing who was participating. There were jet teams present, but I would have gone anyways.

As my reward, I got to see many performers that I hadn’t seen before, who tend to appear only at smaller venues. The biggest of these acts was Bill Reesman in his Red Bull MiG-17, who many of us have watched before, but who at Grand Junction could be enjoyed for his flying rather than viewed as a filler between modern jet displays. Together with performers like Steve Oliver in his Super Chipmunk and Gene Soucy with the big Ag Cat, he helped make Grand Junction a pleasant, homely show. These pilots were backed up by another tier of unsung heroes, Colorado-based owners with aircraft like a T-33 and another MiG-17.

Les Shockley as ever made ALL the kids, including many over age 21, run to the fenceline, and he raced both Gene and Bill.

My main reason for going to this show, of course, was the superb photographic conditions that Grand Junction affords. The sun is on your back all day, and the massive Book Cliffs to the north form an impressive backdrop, as does Mount Garfield to the east.

The Book Cliffs actually stretch for 200 miles into Utah, and are between 5000 and 8000 feet high. The cliffs are around four miles from the airfield, but their sheer size makes them look much closer in photographs. Even when viewed in person, their scale is hard to judge. It wasn’t until Fat Albert flew out to position for its head-on pass, and descended below the edge of the cliffs, that their immensity suddenly became apparent. Wow!

Oh, did I say Fat Albert? The Blues were obviously the main draw for most visitors to the show, with the “only” jet teams being Viper West and F-15 West. I knew that there was some big iron there somewhere!

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