Miramar Airshow

Yesterday, Jake and I went down to the Miramar Airshow to meet up with Jon and watch him fly and hear him do announcing and we had a great day! We got up at 5am to make sure we made it on base by 8:00 so we could catch Jon's little morning routine he does with a hanglider. I was worried we would be exhausted after such a long, hard day on Saturday followed by an early morning and another long day, but it was a such a good time, we never felt tired and we were there on our feet (no seating unless you bring your own) until 4pm. That Airshow really is fantastic- the planes and helicopters on display and the shows all the performers (combination of military demos and civilian showmen) put on are really crowd-pleasers.

And Jon was SO great with Jake. He spent a lot of time with him both "backstage" and on the show grounds, introduced him to other performers, explained every aircraft, gave him a ton of individual attention and overall made him feel like a VIP for the day. He even made sure to introduce him as "my cousin Jake" to everyone, and since Jake's middle name is Counsell (the "C" in "JC"), he got a real kick every time we heard over the speakers "Introducing Lt. Col. Jon 'Jughead' COUNSELL!!!!"

For Jake's Student of Week poster for this week, last night he filled in the "Members of my Family" section like this: "Jon, Heidi, Mark, Jordan". hee hee. The only hitch in Jake's self-proclaimed "best day of my life!" is that he woke up moaning with stomach pains at midnight and proceed to -ahem- get sick, so the posting of the Star Student poster (and the photos from the show of Jon and Jake that he wants to share) will have to wait a day. Airshow food, maybe?

Speaking of which, Jon and I were talking and we can't think of a single boy of Jake's generation that bears the last name Counsell, to theoretically pass it on to their children. There are certainly none from grandpa or Uncle Ed (Mike's not having kids and Jon and Scott both have 2 girls). Are there some we don't know about from one of the other branches? Made us sad to think that from the 9 original Counsell kids on the ranch, that 4 or 5 generations later there wouldn't be a single Counsell left. It's a little weird that all the boys named Counsell only had girls, and all of us that had boys are not Counsells (in name, I don't mean in spirit- because we all are in spirit!) Aaanyway, it was just a random thing that came up.

Here's some pictures from our day:

Jon with Jake and Dan Buchanan- the stunt hanglider who does the routine with Jon where Dan pretends to be mistakenly flying in Jon's airspace (reallllly high for a hanglider!) and Jon then proceeds to "teach him a lesson" by buzzing him and shooting at him before clearing out and letting Dan show off a bit more before he lands. They don't announce that Dan's a paraplegic until after he's on the ground and his support crew brings him his chair. Dan is also a pyrotechnician so he's outfitted his own glider with smoke and fireworks.

Jon explaining something to Jake in the backstage area.

Jon doing a fly-by before that pesky hanglider appears ;)

Jon gave Jake this much effort at explaining and showing Jake everything at every single plane or helicopter he had time to see with us.

Jake in a cockpit. He insisted on wearing his bomber jacket and I was afraid it would be hot and I would end up lugging it around, but the weather was cool and windy and every crewmen inside the different aircraft told Jake they loved his jacket and some of them really checked out his patches and said he had some good ones. The jacket has fulfilled its destiny. :)

Jon's airshow team, "The Patriots," seems to be a great group of guys with a good support crew. They have 4 Russian-type L-39 jets that they have retrofitted for performing in airshows, and have 2 more they are ready to add to the show if the increased sponsor money can appear (Frys.com is their marquee sponsor). There are 5 pilots that trade off doing different things with the 4 jets. Jon doesn't usually get to fly in the big airshow routines with all 4 jets because he's so good at announcing they want him on the ground with the mic in hand. But he does get to fly when they have non-announced routines like flyovers, and individual routines like the one with the hanglider. It was definitely worth getting there early to be able to see him in the air, but also fun to hear him do the announcing later in the day. He does a great job at both.

Here he is one last time as the speck in the sky, trailing red smoke.