Sunday, October 14, 2012

A Day at the Airport....

Saturday we launched at 5:15 from Stafford, VA and cruised 48 miles to Brandy Station, VA and Culpeper Regional Airport to be part of their 13th Annual AirFest.  Our group, Cruisin For Heroes, has provided a vehicle display for the event since 2008.  Each year is a little more special than the previous so we were all excited for the day to unfold.

Dan, Dom, the Princes and I arrived before sunup and began to organize the lot.  Something was in the middle of the lot but we couldn’t be sure of exactly what it was.  It turned out to be a very large Military tent that was erected in the center of where we were going to be maneuvering trucks pulling long race car trailers.  We didn’t know if it was inhabited or not so we quietly walked around the big olive drab canvas tent looking for some kind of opening and when Dom found one and shined his flashlight inside he said it was empty!  Hmmmmm We would wait and see who claimed it since we were supposed to have the complete lot for vehicle display.  Always something to challenge us, grin.  So Dan and I decided how to bring the trailered vehicles in and park them so they would have reasonably easy egress after the event.  Ya have to be flexible. 
After last year’s event the airport manager, Tanya W., had asked us to have more vehicles….so….we invited about 40 people for this year.  A couple had cancelled two weeks ago and last week another 3 had either cancelled or said to count them as iffy.  On Friday another two cancelled so on the day of the event we really didn’t know how many people would show up!  This year Tanya had set a porta potty close to us for our use but most of the spectators coming in would use it before entering the air show!  Something to think about next year! 
Ron was leading the second group from Stafford that left at 6:30 so they started arriving around 7:30 and the lot began filling up….whew!  At the end of setting the vehicles out in their parking spots we had 29 vehicles to share with the expected 7 thousand people that would attend AirFest 2012.  This is the first year we invited a lot of vehicles that required trailers as we wanted to continue to vary our display.  All the vehicles were well received but I think Bob’s blue race car and Glenn’s group with the three pulling tractors generated the most interest. 
The reason we put this event on is to raise awareness and money for our charity, Fisher House; http://www.fisherhouse.org/ and this year we raised $276 from individual donations on site.  We are working to make this much better next year.
The air show was as usual superb….Tanya and her group assembles a great flying program and the vendors make the day go quickly too.  Art Nalls and his Harrier is a crowd stopper….and he did two programs this year!  You have to put this event on your calendar next year….you won’t be disappointed.  Please take some time to check out the YouTube clip and the still pictures….it was an amazing day. 
 

 

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