The Thunderbirds have touched down at the Columbus Air Force Base, arriving Thursday afternoon before headlining this weekend’s Thunder Over Columbus air show.
Columbus Air Force Base will be opening its gates to the public Saturday and Sunday, allowing the community to see the highly specialized demonstration squadron, along with other air acts.
Maj. Tyler “Slasher” Clark, right wing pilot for the United States Air Force Thunderbirds, said the squadron will be putting on “quite the spectacle,” displaying the overwhelming power of military aircraft with precise air maneuvers.
“The (crowd is) going to witness the raw power and precision of military fighter aircraft, specifically the F-16, which we call the Viper,” Clark said. “For some of these maneuvers, the formations you’ll see will be closer than 18 inches apart. And the solos will fly maneuvers at just under the speed of sound and upwards of nine Gs.”
The Thunderbirds team is based out of Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, Nevada. There is a 135 person team that supports the pilots, which includes 12 officers, Clark said, but only six pilots are trained to fly in the show every year.
The average experience of any member of the Thunderbirds team includes 10 years of fighter service, Clark said, which equates to about 1,000 to 1,500 hours in the air. All the members are also former instructors or evaluator pilots.
Once a pilot is selected to join the team, they go through about four months of winter training, Clark said, where the team starts out flying in formations farther apart from each other, and then incrementally gets tighter together. Clark said this weekend’s performances will be even closer together than their first ones of the season in March.
“We’re at the point now where we have complete faith in each other. Our motto on the team is blind trust,” Clark said. “And we’ve only built that through our extensive training program and throughout the actual show season.”
Clark said he is happy to come back to Columbus as a Thunderbird, since he taught as an instructor in the 49th Fighter Training Squadron at CAFB for four years. He is also excited to use the show as a chance to inspire the next generation of pilots.
“It’s great to really come back home for me,” Clark said. “And when I (was an instructor at CAFB), one of the things I loved most was interacting with the students and trying to motivate them for what was next in the fighter world. So it’s really great to come back in a different capacity with this team and to showcase that to everyone else here in Columbus.”
Clark said the team has plenty of “secrets and tricks” up its sleeve, and encouraged visitors to come to the show on both days to see it “again and again.”
Lt. Col. Rowdy Little, air show director, said the rest of the weekend will include an F-35 demonstration, a C-17 demonstration, and civilian acts like Tora Tora Tora — which recreates the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor through simulated dogfights.
There will also be static airplane displays, a car show, a kids zone and concessions.
“It allows us to show the community what we do, and really show you what the Air Force does with military flight in general,” Little said.
Little said gates open at 9 a.m., flight acts start at noon, and the Thunderbirds should be flying to wrap up the show by 3 p.m. Little said attendees should enter through the North and South Gates. For more information, go to thunderovercolumbus.com/.
STEM Expo
Along with the air show on Saturday and Sunday, CAFB also held a STEM Expo on Wednesday and Thursday as another way to inspire the next generation.
The expo brought roughly 2,100 students from area middle and high schools to the base to see exhibitors display everything from robotics to virtual reality simulators to drones to static display airplanes.
Amber Meiborg, school liaison program manager, said the expo gave students the chance to talk one on one with pilots, get up close and personal with planes and learn about subjects that may help them in the future.
Meiborg said the expo is intended to inspire a love of learning those subjects, no matter the future career path of those students. But for students who want to go into the Air Force or other flight-related fields, it could also help them to be inspired.
“It shows how there are other jobs than flying planes, but also, you need math to fly a plane,” Meiborg said. “You need engineers… you need all kinds of careers to even build the plane, to operate the plane, to maintain the plane. … So we’re just inspiring them to go into these career fields.”
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
