The Great American Airshow

Back in the dark days of apartheid SA, a group with the above title toured the country. As an airshow starved youngster I had to go along to Ysterplaat airforce base near Cape Town.
By the time the show had reached this outpost, they were down to two aircraft, a Piper Cub and a Pitts Special.
A lady pilot flew the Cub extensively, I recall flour bags taped to the wingtips being burst by tapping the wingtips on the runway. At least she did not try to do both wingtips at the same time. 🙂

Finally the great moment arrived, and the dashing pilot leaped into his trusty Pitts Special, started it up, and taxied about 10yards straight into a corrugated iron portable loo. The loo won. Glad I wasn’t him! 😀

The SAAF shows however were excellent, my first Spit sighting, Evelyn.

A Cheetah (upgraded Mirage 3) snuck over the crowd from behind, and went into a full afterburner climb. Wow. Shock and paraffin smoke!

Whenever a new aircraft was shown, they would play Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t she lovely” of course!