Airshow Favorites at AirVenture 2018

Like a whale feeding on plankton, the giant Lockheed C-5 Galaxy sucks the crowds through its cavernous interior and expels them onto Boeing Plaza, the show’s main display area.

Veteran display pilot Gene Soucy takes off with wingwalker Teresa Stokes standing on the Showcat’s lower wing. The couple share many things in life together, even a kidney that she donated for transplant when his were failing.

At least it is for Teresa Stokes, who is standing on her head on the upper wing. Stokes is an internationally acclaimed aviation and space artist as well as the top stuntwoman-wingwalker in the world. She lives at her houseboat-studio near the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Teresa has been wingwalking on Gene Soucy’s Showcat for 30 years.

Three-time U.S. National Aerobatic Champion Patty Wagstaff cuts a ribbon while flying inverted during EAA AirVenture. Wagstaff was the first woman to clinch the U.S. title. She performs today in an Extra 300S.

Claimed to be a world-first, an aerobatic airplane cuts a ribbon joining two members of the Patriot Parachute Team, a professional skydive demonstration team owned and operated by former Navy SEALs. Flying the Edge 540 is aerobatic performer Bill Stein. 

A Yak-52 dances out of the way of a formation fly-by of T-34 trainers.

This year’s gathering of North American T-6 advanced trainers at AirVenture had a special theme: the celebration of the marque’s 80^th anniversary. A total of 15,495 were produced and were used by many air forces around the world, especially during and after World War II; many were not replaced until the 1970s, and some soldiered on into the ‘90s. Among the aircraft’s many names were Texan, Harvard, SNJ and just plain old T-6. Massed formations flew at AirVenture; pictured is a fly-by of 17 aircraft.

It’ll be Normandy all over again when a group of at least 19 C-47s visit the beaches in France next year to celebrate the 75^th anniversary of D-Day. Miraculously, the C-47 that led the invasion was discovered in a scrapyard in Oshkosh and has been restored to flying condition. Named “That’s All, Brother” as a message to Hitler, it led 800 C-47s that day. Here it is pictured with two other C-47s—it is the one on the right.

Matt Younkin leads a merry dance with his Beech 18 in the Oshkosh sky. He is rolling from side to side at slow speed at high power to overcome the drag from the extended landing gear.

A KC-135 of the 434th Air Refueling Wing, Grissom Air Reserve Base, Indiana, catches the light as it makes a pass at AirVenture.