Nathan Gingles attended the Spirit of St. Louis Airshow, where the weather was just humid enough for a splotchy cone around the EA-18 Growler during its performance. Other notable performers included the RAF Red Arrows, US Navy Blue Angels, the F-22 Raptor Demo Team, Aeroshell, Matt Younkin, Skip Stewart, the Black Daggers, and an assortment of WWII aircraft.
St. Louis air show
Prose & Photography: Nathan Gingles
My 2019 airshow season was supposed to start in early June with my hometown show at Offutt AFB in Omaha, NE. Early spring flooding had other plans however, and devastated much of eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa. Offutt AFB was inundated with flood water from the Missouri River causing an estimated $420 million in damages and any hope of an airshow was quickly washed away with the Missouri floodwaters. This created a void in my airshow schedule that of course needed to be filled, so the search began.
One of the bigger announcements of the year for the airshow circuit was of course the Royal Air Force Red Arrows North America tour and I knew this was a rare opportunity to witness one of the greatest formation teams in the world. As luck would have it, one of their planned stops would be St. Louis, a short 6 hour drive from Omaha and also happens to be where my father in-law lives.
St. Louis is a proud aviation town with a rich aviation heritage. Boeing’s defense operations are based here, and they employ around 14,500 people to build new F-15’s, F-18’s, EA-18G’s and the newly announced trainer for the Air Force, the T-7A Red Hawk, that would make its first airshow appearance.
The Red Arrows alone would have made the drive worth it, but the list didn’t stop there. The Blue Angels were to headline the show along with other big-name performers such as the Aeroshell Aerobatic Team, Skip Stewart, F-22 Raptor and Matt Younkin just to name a few. The decision was easy, waiting until September was going to be the hard part.
September finally came and I made the trek to my father in-laws home Thursday after work arriving late in the evening. A couple beers were had catching up and then off to bed, Friday would be a busy day.
Friday in the airshow world is usually a practice day for many of the performers and it also gives the opportunity for media to get in and do some interviews. We were escorted around for most of the day catching the arrival of the Red Arrows and some of the performers doing their practice runs for the show the next day. Fret not about the lack of Red Arrows photos, they get a whole piece dedicated to their North American tour; stay tuned to Full Disc for that.
Saturdays show was perfect and so was the weather. In addition to the highly anticipated performers I mentioned earlier, there were so many other great aircraft slated to fly including the beautiful, newly restored A-26 “Special K”. The day was filled with amazing flying by everyone, including the best passes I have ever seen flown by a B-17. The B-17 “Texas Raiders” know how to make a photo pass!!
Sunday was unfortunately a wet one. The show was delayed for a few hours and I eventually decided to head home a day early back to my family. I knew I would regret this decision and the skies started clearing as soon as I had left town. It wound up coming back to haunt me after I saw some of the images from Sunday’s show full of vape. You win some and you lose some.
Special thanks to the St. Louis airshow for their support.
