The 2024 Pacific Airshow Huntington Beach (Oct. 4 – 6) was quite a different event from the MCAS Miramar Air Show a week before. Whereas the latter enjoyed a mostly sunny weekend in San Diego, a low, dense fog bank hovered above the water in front of Huntington Beach for most of the three days.
The only exception was Friday afternoon, when the fog lifted long enough for spectators to see the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds perform. I went on Saturday and only saw one plane (an F-22) fly all day, for a few seconds as it emerged from a small gap in the fog bank.
Kevin Elliot (executive director of the Pacific Airshow Huntington Beach) offered everyone who purchased a ticket for Friday or Saturday, the opportunity to return on Sunday for free general ission. He told us “There is nothing more that we want to see than airplanes in the sky. Unfortunately, when you are doing live events outdoors, the one thing you do not control is the weather. We’re not going to give up until we exhaust every opportunity to show you everything we’ve brought for you this weekend. At least we can have three days of party out here at the beach!”
This was not a totally wasted day at the airshow. There were interesting, interactive exhibits; special appearances by look-alikes for Maverick and Iceman (from “Top Gun”); there was merchandise for sale; and we got to spend a thoroughly relaxing day hanging out at the beach — a welcome, albeit unexpected, change of pace.
Announcers kept us informed throughout the day, telling us: “This is a very expensive and complicated event to put on. Here at Show Center, we’ve got a team of people from the FAA, from SoCal TRACON, all led by our Air Operations Director Ken (Ashmore) and Wayne” (Boggs — Air Boss), who told us: “In order to put on an airshow, whether it’s at the beach over water or at an airport or something, there’s all the paperwork and documentation that has to bedone with the Federal Aviation istration, because what we’re going to do out here is actually disregard a lot of Federal air regulations. The FAA gives us permission to do certain things that a pilot would (not normally) be able to do.
“Once all of that is taken care of, they send out an IIC — an Inspector In Charge. You have SoCal TRACON, John Wayne Airport, Long Beach Airport, the army base — temporary flight restrictions greatly impact all the airports around here. The air traffic controllers have to miss this five-mile ring that is centered over us up to 15,000 feet. Traffic that would normally go through this to the airports are vectored around this particular area, in order to protect the aircraft that are flying within that five miles. All of this is a prerequisite for an airshow to be approved. Then 10,000 personnel-hours will put into motion everything you see on the beach.”
“There is one common denominator that drives everything that we do, and that’s S-A-F-E-T-Y. Here again the FAA plays a huge part in that. Everything is designed not just to protect the pilots, but also protect the spectators. This paperwork that is submitted to the FAA to waive these Federal air regulations dictate where we’re able to do aerobatic flight. They have to meet certain standards, certain distances from people, where the airplanes can fly, and then you bring the weather involved into it. Instrument Flight Rules start basically when the deck of the clouds is below a thousand feet and the visibility is less than three miles. Once it reaches that point we’re at a standstill. We can’t do anything, and basically that’s what we’ve had. We didn’t have the ceiling to actually do things. The top of that ceiling — you heard the airplanes flying over it — was actually a thousand feet. Basically, a thousand feet above this beach level it was clear above.
“Here it’s nice and cool, but above that thousand feet it was 90-degrees. You’ve got all that heat up there and you’ve got all this coolness down here. That causes an inversion layer which creates all of this, and unless the sun can penetrate and burn it off, it’s going to hang around.”
After the airshow, we walked across the street to one of the many trendy restaurants, where we sat at an outdoor table and watched as interesting vehicles, including a large group of classic VW vans, slowly cruised by.
Hopefully next year’s Pacific Airshow Huntington Beach will be scheduled for a time of year where fog over the beach is less likely, if there is such a time.
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Copyright © 2024 by Jan Wagner – AutoMatters & More #857
