Wings Over Houston

Every year in October, Houston has an Air Show called ‘Wings Over Houston’.

It’s held at Ellington Airport, which is about 20 minutes South of Houston in the Clear Lake area.

I enjoyed taking these photos to show you some of the aircraft that is on display at the air show.

One of the first things that I saw that I thought was cool was this Coast Guard boat.

You might think it out of place at an air show, but they had lots of neat things to see and experience.

I’ve said in other articles for my Blog that I love helicopters.

Here’s one I think is extremely awesome.

It’s the Coast Guard helicopter.

I would rather be able to fly a helicopter than a plane any day.

You can hover, go up or down and even side to side in a helicopter. In a plane, you just go forward.

This is one of my favorite photos from the air show.

There were some really huge planes on display.

This one was probably used for vehicles and lots of freight.

Walking on the inside, you wonder how something so big could even get off of the ground.

If I were a pilot in the military, I would NOT want to fly this thing. I’d be so scared on every flight, thinking “How in the hell is this thing staying in the air.”

I saw several helicopters and I took photos to show you all of them.

There were a lot of older airplanes and jets at the show.

Below is one of the military helicopters that carries a lot of firepower.

I think this is the one that has a gun that moves in sync with the pilots helmet. Wherever he looks, the gun aims in that direction.

It also carries some type of missiles on each side.

I’m entertained when I see the planes that have special paint jobs on them, like this one with the teeth.

I like looking at these older planes. The owners have kept them up well.

Here’s another very large plane.

There were some jets there also.

I know a guy I used to work with that is now a jet pilot in the military.

I’m amazed that he made it considering how hard that is to do.

On 9/11, after both of the twin towers were hit, some jet fighters took to the air without any live ammunition, knowing that to prevent the hijackers from striking their intended targets, the pilots might have to intercept and crash their fighters into the hijacked planes, ejecting at the last moment.

I thought this plane was pretty ugly and not very streamline looking.

Some planes had long lines to get inside and take a look around.

Here’s one of the older model jets that was there.

This is another military helicopter on display.

You could go inside of this one but there was a long line. I’m not much for lines.

This one is a little different than the one in the above picture.

During WWII, while parachuting from a damaged bomber, an American aviator downed a Japanese fighter plane by shooting the pilot in the head with his sidearm.

You can’t see the writing because of the sunlight, but this jet has “United States of America” on the side of it. It’s an old Air Force One jet.

The tails of the planes were cool to look at also.

In 1989, a Soviet pilot ejected a perfectly working MIG 23 thinking the plane’s engine had failed. It flew over 560 miles, crossing Germany before running out of fuel and crashing into a house in Belgium killing one teenager.

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird strategic reconnaissance aircraft was so fast, the designers did not even consider evasive maneuvers; the pilot was simply instructed to accelerate and out-fly any threat, including missiles.

The Lockheed U-2 is so hard to land that on every landing, the plane is paced by a chase car such as the Camaro SS with an assistant “talking” the pilot down and since 2001, more than a dozen pilots have suffered the effects of decompression sickness and nine were reported to have suffered permanent brain damage.

Every last F14 Tomcat America has in flyable storage is being shredded to prevent spares reaching Iran, who are still flying the ones sold to them by the US in the 70’s.

This planes’ wings fold up so it is easier to store.

Here’s a plane with a girl on the side. There’s a lot of planes in the U.S. with sexy women painted on them.

In 1983, an Israeli pilot successfully landed an F-15 with only one wing. In fact, he didn’t realize the extent of the damage until after landing, and stated he would have ejected had he known.

Chuck Yeager, the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound, revived his feat on October 14 2012 in an F-15 Eagle, to celebrate the 65th anniversary of breaking the sound barrier. He was 89 years old.

I liked this paint job of the ‘Devil Dog’.

The only plane allowed to fly on 9/11 after the attacks was a plane from San Diego to Miami delivering anti-venom to a man bitten by a highly poisonous snake; it was accompanied by two jet fighters.

In June 1974, while President Nixon was on his way to a scheduled stop in Syria, Syrian fighter jets intercepted Air Force One to act as escorts. However, the Air Force One crew was not informed in advance and, as a result, took evasive action including a dive.

A woman riding an alligator, painted on an airplane has to be a ‘first’, lol.

Here’s the Life Flight helicopter. This program has saved many lives since it began.

The test pilot for America’s first jet fighter dressed in a disguise, so that if trainees at a nearby base saw this new “propeller-less” plane, they’d be more likely to think they were hallucinating if it was being flown by a gorilla wearing a derby and smoking a cigar.

In the older planes, you can see that there is not as many gauges and instrument information.

Camouflage with what looks like a shark paint job was very cool looking.

This plane had ‘Wile E. Coyote’ painted on it. I watched this cartoon a lot as a child. Every Saturday morning I was in front of the TV with my bowl of Captain Crunch cereal.

This plane has more dials and gauges than the last one I showed you.

In 1956 due to high speed an F11 fighter shot itself because it was faster than its’ own bullet.

During WWII, Royal Air Force fighter pilots started a rumor that excessive carrot consumption gave gunners night vision.

They did this so as not to alert Germans of RAF’s new radar technology after they shot down German aircraft on night raids and the Germans believed it. Germans fighters then started eating large quantities of carrots