From: venky@thelonious.bellcore.com (G A Venkatesh)
Subject: Sussex Air Show '92: An eyewitness report (long)
Reply-To: venky@thelonious.bellcore.com (G A Venkatesh)
Organization: Bellcore, Morristown NJ
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 23:11:14 GMT

Getting to Sussex airport is fun even if you drive. It is nestled amongst green
rolling hills in Northwestern Nu Joisey (rated in the top 20 of best places to
live by Money magazine) and getting there can be fun if you leave early enough 
and take your Miata (or del Sol or whatever).

When the first indication of being near the airport was the sight of the
just arriving GeeBee-2 making a beeline for the runway, I knew it was going to 
be a fun day. Sussex Air Show is definitely not Oshkosh. There are at most 
a dozen homebuilts and another dozen showplanes most of which appear at 
Oshkosh, but it isn't something I would miss even if I went to Oshkosh the
same year. Why?

It is small, intimate and charming. You feel more involved. There are a lot
more choices in food. You get to see people like Daniel Heligon performing 
their preflight, five feet in front of you. If you are one of the lucky many, 
you get to put your head inside the GeeBee belly door, and see what Delmar
Benjamin sees. You get to stretch along the BD5-J and see if it is longer
than you are and you get to gawk at its cute trailer, shaped like a boxy
space shuttle with no wings. You get to drool at the pretty ice-cream and soda
girls. You sit closer to the runway than at Oshkosh and the runway being
only 3500 ft, you are almost at show center wherever you sit and the grass
is much thicker and more comfortable.

The show usually starts with a parade of antique cars. Sonny Everett, the
perennial show announcer must have gotten stuck in a Port-o-Potty (which
don't smell like the ones at Oshkosh) since he didn't get back to announcing
the cars until all of them had almost completed their round.

The Cessna Jump plane departs with occupants who will arrive before the
plane. The green Holiday Inn and the red Coca Cola Pitts specials depart with 
the cockiness only Pitts Specials can muster. Jim Roberts (the resident 
aerobatics pilot of Sussex) and Leo Loudenslager (the ex-resident pilot and 
still the local favorite) take off in their homebuilt Laser 200s and do
warmup jousts from opposite ends. Testing winds mostly.

The winds aloft on Sat were not at their kindliest. It was gusty and almost
perpendicular to the runway. Hence, it was a show that featured aerobatic
performances with constant wind corrections. The jump plane has to unload 
about 2 miles upwind. It unloads one and the parachute deploys. As the 
obligatory US flag unfurls, the 6 planes (4 Pitts and 2 Laser 200s) start their 
ceremonial circling around the descending jumper, a member of the Misty Blues
all-women parachute team. With 6 planes in tight circles and in opposing 
directions, you can almost feel like there is going to be a loud "oops".
No such incidence. 

Jim Roberts starts his performance as the others land.  Nice, tight 
performance not really exemplary except for the 3-point hammer head
stall.

The rest of the Misty blues team unload. One of the members does her usual
routine of letting go of one of the ends of her parachute and starts spinning.
She casts of the main parachute after about 8 turns and deploys the backup
after a few seconds of free fall. The cast off parachute floats away and will
enter the picture again a bit later in the show. The Misty Blues land but
nobody counts them to see if they all did.

Darrell Montgomery takes off in his Stearman, the Cadillac of aerobatic planes
(at least in weight). His wing-walking partner Jimmy Dorsey is to follow him
in a later act. The plane whips around in controlled frenzy, aided by the
powerful engine. To me, the mass seems very detracting.

Next up is Daniel Heligon, the male half of the French Connection team that
unlike Oshkosh, always gets his own individual act at Sussex. The CAP-10 is
amazing for a 180hp engine. Takes off with his signature snap roll 20 ft
above the ground. Before he can get to his signature Heligon turn (outside
horizontal 360), someone reports a parachute down a mile away from the airport.
The flustered controllers ask Daniel to go and investigate. While he heads 
away, they start counting the Misty Blues. None are missing. They remember 
the cast off parachute. They ask Daniel to come back and he does and completes
his act.

Meanwhile a tractor with a farmer on it has been wandering around near the
runway. After a brief interrogation with the officials, the farmer wrangles
a free ride from the resident instructor in a J-3 cub. While the instructor
gets out to investigate a stuck tail wheel, the farmer takes off and thus
begins Roger Lehnert's farmer routine. No matter how many times you have
watched him, his exquisite "novice" flying tricks never cease to amuse. He
dips in and out of parked planes, trees, etc. Unusual attitudes are to
aerobatic shows what uncoordinated flights are to Roger Lehnert. Amazing
cub flying.

The six of diamonds take off in their T-6s rumbling across the runway. Next
up is Jim Roberts in his Long-Eze aerobatic routine after a brief pause for
the wake turbulence from the departing T-6s to dissipate. The Long-Eze routine
is graceful and serene. Almost glider-like quality to it. Loops and rolls
in abundance.

The six of diamonds put in their formation flight sequences.

Dave Hoover fires up his BD-5J and takes off featuring the quick retract
wheels. Comes back for a low pass with a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't display
of his landing gear. Must be the fastest retract mechanism around. There is
something quaint about a tiny jet shrieking across 10ft above the ground at
250 miles an hour. The cloudy sky forms a nice background for his "afterburner"
display leading to an intentional engine out and dead-stick landing. Does 
anyone what the wing-loading on this plane is and its rate of descent? Can't be
better than the space shuttle.

Roger Lehnert comes back with his "Teeny Weeny Airport". For those people that
are used to his normal landings on the truck at Oshkosh and take it for
granted, the landing this day with the gusty cross-winds is an eye-opener.
He has to settle for a go-around and two brief "touch-and-go"s.

Next up is a show that will make both gliders and tow pilots green with envy.
The gliders are two neon-colored 1-26s towed in formation by a Pitts Special! 
The Holiday Inn/Coca Cola gang. Why use a Pitts for the tow? Because you can 
show off by towing while inverted. The two brightly colored gliders put on
an amazing formation aerobatics show.

Next up is Delmar Benjamin and the GeeBee. I missed this at Oshkosh since I
was there the first day only. I am not sure if the plane likes the knife edges
or the pilot does. He spends most of the time in knife-edge attitude.

Next up is Sean Tucker. He was unbelievable at Oshkosh and he was unbelievable
at Sussex. In his modified Pitts special, he performs what I think has to be
the most dazzling display of all aerobatic shows. He turns his plane around a 
hundred different axes and moves the plane in a hundred different directions.
His hanging by the tail pass across the runway has got to be seen to be
believed. I can only describe his act as the movements of a bird that has
a persistent wasp on its back and is trying to shake it off, and as violently
as possible. Leo Loudenslager had always been the star of the Sussex show. But
it is evident now, the next generation has arrived. 

The French Connection team is up next with their standard routine. For people
that go to Oshkosh, this routine is very familiar and dated.

Montgomery and Dorsey taxi off to run-up area and come back dissatisfied. A 
brief inspection reveals a cracking exhaust manifold. The performance is 
canceled for the day.

The Holiday Inn & Coca Cola team go up for their formation aerobatic routines.
Very tight and very precise.

And then the local hero Leo Loudenslager in his Laser 200. Sean Tucker has
already stolen the show. But if Sean is the John McEnroe of aerobatics, Leo
is the Jimmy Connors. His act, somehow reminds me of Bob Herenderen in his 
Glasair III (he didn't make it this year). I wonder what would happen if they
switched planes.

The final act of the show is a Bell 47 helicopter trapeze act by the Nock 
family. The helicopter hovers around the field with a trapeze hanging from it, 
while a man does his best to fall off it by hanging on his hands, legs, toes, 
etc. No safety net, no cables. A true Flying Circus.

The show ends with a parade of warbirds and other assortments. There is a
wonderful camera position at the landing end of the runway just outside the
field. I wish I had though of it when the parade started. May be next year.
I am not missing it.

venky