VNA Air Show 2009

Guest blog written by Daddy Lovejoy.

Today was a daddy & daughter day as Dee Dee was busy with a cropping party and the annual Stuart airshow was in town. Well, I wasn't going to miss that opportunity to have some fun for a day acting like a big kid so I thought I would take Emma along to see if she would share her daddy's interest in all things flying. As it turned out she had a real blast and had some real tomboy fun on these big boy toys.
As always, the weather for the airshow was just perfect and I thought it was quite cute how her sunglasses resembled a pair of old fashioned flying goggles. Emma was right at home with all these large planes gathered at the Stuart airfield and was not bothered by all the sights and sounds throughout the day. Here she is next to the engine of the dc-2 and I could tell she was just ready to jump out of that seat and start running around the inside of these static display aircraft.
This was one of the hurricane hunters that was open to walk around the inside of it. Emma was just having a great time running up and down the loading ramp under the tail section. Being so small she was weaving in and out of all the other adults and crew members without getting knocked over. These planes are built tough and were still in one piece after hurricane Emma had finished playing with it.
Along with all the planes they had a large number of helicopters to check out and this is where she really showed her wings. Once Emma climbed into the pilot seat she looked like she was ready to take off as she instinctively held onto the controls like a pro. I was very impressed how comfortable she was playing in these big toys.

Here she is at the controls of a BlackHawk. Put some wooden blocks on her feet to reach the rudder pedals and this little flygirl is ready for some action.
Not just content with learning how to fly the heli she then moved on to checking out all the switches and buttons. She just loves to play with all our remote controls when we let her and she was just so happy to be let loose on the hundreds of buttons here.
This is the Aeroshell display team flying their T6 planes. This was my favourite part of the show, as I have been seeing them perform at every show I have seen over the years (only missed one year since I moved to Florida) and I never grow tired of them. They really know how to fill the sky with smoke and tight precision formation flying.

After the Aeroshell team had parked up they walked over to us and we got one of their signed team photos.

Here is my little aircraft grease monkey girl taking a rest in the shade where I realized just how dirty she was from playing on all the helicopters. It goes without saying that it was in my best interest to get Emma cleaned up from all this grease before taking her back to see the mama.
She just kept on playing all day on these display models and didn't need to stop for her usual afternoon nap. Why sleep when you play with missile launch buttons and ejector seats?
When Emma finally grew tired of the aircraft and helicopters she took some r&r driving a riot control tank around. This girl knows how to play hard.

After a fun filled day at the airshow without any break I knew she would not last long before crashing and this happened as soon as we started walking back to the car. Once there were no more big toys to play with she was asleep in her seat immediately before I was even at the car. After a quick cat nap she was recharged enough to tell mommy all about her wonderful tomboy adventure when we picked up Dee Dee from her crop.

It looks like I will have to show Emma some of my flight simulation programs for the computer now that she has shown a flair for wanting to get in the air.