I'm Matthew Burchette.
I'm Matthew Burchette and this is Behind the Wings!!!!
Love that guy. So, oh wait I think... we are live.
Hey! I am Matthew Burchette and
this is a windy and noisy version of Behind the Wings and I'm here with John
Henry who's the Communications Director for the Pikes Peak Regional Air Show
which is a big mouth to say. That it is.
Can you tell us a little bit about what's going this weekend?
Absolutely we've got more than 30 warbirds, rare collectible aircraft
that are going to be some exhibited and displayed, many of them flying.
and the USAF Thunderbirds that's our headliners.
Alright so everybody loves an airshow,
but what does an airshow do for aviation in general?
You know it's about peoples' knowledge of aerospace and
its place in our society, its importance in our society.
If we can get people to understand how critical aerospace
development and projects are to all of us consumers,
we think we've won a big battle then.
I agree. You know what, thank you so much, let's go see some planes
Let's do it!
So I'm in the cockpit of a C-130H Hercules cargo aircraft,
sometimes called the Herky Bird. Do you know that the Hercules has
actually been around since 1957 and this is the front office.
BAM!
How cool is this?!?
Look at how many gauges and bells and whistles there are.
This is why I am not a pilot trust me on this.
Alright so let's go talk to a pilot,
we're at an air show, I'm sure there's some around here somewhere.
Where's Bennington?
So I'm here with Major Joe Bennington, world's best C-130 pilot.
He told me to say that. And we're actually standing in a C-130 cargo plane
Joe, can you tell me a little bit about this aircraft?
Sure, this C-130 was made to be an intra-theater airlift
which means we forward deploy somewhere - we'll deploy to
like Kuwait or Qatar or Afghanistan and then we'll be there for 3-4 months at a
time flying people, equipment, vehicles all over the country all over the area
of responsibility. That's very cool.
Now obviously right now you guys are set up as kind of a medevac type situation.
How many troops or casualties can you fly out at a time?
So we're kind of set up in an aeromedical evacuation type scenario here
just so our airmeds can kind of participate in the air show
and talk to people about some of the missions. This is one of our very
important missions. We have layers stacked and configured all the way down
both sides. We can get 72 people evacuated under medical care of our flight nurses.
Now one of the things that this aircraft does which is kind of near and dear to
Coloradan's hearts, is that you can load a system in here called MAFFS
and that's modular aerial fire fighting system
and it's basically just a 2700 gallon tank
of slurry or water and then you guys shoot a giant nozzle probably what this
big around outside. That's nuts!
Yes so this airplane, this actual airplane, was deployed to Northern
California fighting fires in the northwest. So yeah doing 7-10 drops a day
like you said 2700 pounds of slurry in about eight seconds, taking off at about a
hundred fifty-five thousand pounds. Wow that's some cool stuff.
Well Joe thank you for your time,
I know you're a busy awesome C-130 pilot and we're gonna
go hang out and see some more stuff Thank you.
I am here with Bill Klaers, the man, the myth, the living legend
of the Pikes Peak Regional Air Show.
Bill, thank you so much for taking time out of your extremely busy day.
Now this plane behind us, this is a B-25 Mitchell and it's painted up like the
345th Air Apaches that flew in the Pacific in WWII.
Tell us a little bit about this plane.
People ask me all the time, what do you know about the airplane?
and I say I could tell you what I know about it from the time I've been flying it.
This airplane has had more aircraft carrier takeoffs than any other B-25 in the world.
We did the end of WWII commemorations where we took actually twelve
planes over to Hawaii and we flew them off
so we got to fly the B-25 off for that.
We went to the movie Pearl Harbor, the Ben Affleck love story.
Horrible movie, my opinion. Well, the flying was okay.
And then we flew the last flight was off the Constellation for the same movie.
That is very cool. Well she's a gorgeous aircraft and again I know
you're very busy so we're not gonna take a lot of your time. No problem.
Thank you so much. Well thank you for coming out, I appreciate it.
I am here with Major Whit Collins
who's the number six Thunderbird with the super awesome USAF Thunderbirds.
I'm sure you guys have heard of him once or twice.
Whit, thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having me, it's a pleasure.
So how did you get involved with the Thunderbirds?
So I come from an Air Force family.
My dad was a maintenance officer in the Air Force.
I kinda grew up around the Air Force and I grew up
going to air shows and just something that I always wanted to do
watching these planes in the way they inspire people.
All right so who did you fly with before the Thunderbirds?
So before I came to the team I was with the
85th test and evaluation squadron at Eglin Air Force Base.
When I was actually hired I was down range flying with the reserve
unit the 457th Spads and the 93rd Makos down at Homestead
they kinda share the deployment.
So I was actually in Afghanistan when I got the phone call to
say I was gonna be a Thunderbird.
Alright so if it's family friendly, what's your nickname and how did you get it?
So my call sign is SKATE and I got that as a brand new wingman in Korea, South Korea
and I won't go into too much detail but I basically did some minor
damage to the airplane upon landing and SKATE is actually an acronym to remind
me that I'm not as cool as I think I am. To keep me grounded and humble.
That's awesome! Well Major, thank you so much.
We're gonna look for you out there later today.
Awesome, thank you very much. Thank you for your time. We appreciate it.
This has been our episode of Behind the Wings at the Pikes Peak Regional Air Show!!!