Xinzhu Air Show

Photos by MJ Klein

I love airshows!  Who doesn’t?  So when Hui-chen told me that there was going to be an airshow at the Xinzhu Airforce Base, we just had to go!  Here are the highlights of our experience.  You can find the entire collection of photos on Flickr.

We decided to park our car and take a shuttle bus to the base.  We arrived around 7:30 am, which we thought was early enough.  But by that time there was already a line going all around this park.

We stood in line quite some time before we could finally board a bus.  It seemed to us that there weren’t enough buses for the number of people.

On the final leg of the wait….

Once we got on board, Phoenix was a lot happier than she was just standing around….  Now onto the show!

From the dropoff point, there was rather a long walk for a kid, but we managed to get to the base and though the gate as you see here in the distance.  In the meantime, aircraft of all sorts were flying overhead, so we didn’t miss the entire show.

The base had lots of vintage aircraft on display.

I have to admit, that given my personal experience with the ROC Air Force, I was feeling a bit emotional.  But that feeling soon passed as I walked around, photographing all the cool planes.

I wish I could have been up there to take photos!

Now, onto what people really want to see!  Here is an F-16 going through it’s paces.

The sound was incredible, and Phoenix covered her ears several times!

As cool as the F-16 was, the Mirage stole the show!

The pilot, obviously very well trained and experienced, did some very cool maneuvers for the crowd, which often burst into applause.

My favorite shot of the day, the pilot did a very close flyby for us.  Thank you!

Here we see the Mirage pilot exiting the aircraft.

This guy is a rockstar.  In the USA, the crowd would never be allowed to come up to the plane like that and photograph the pilot so close.  One of the reasons I’m enjoying life in Taiwan.

Of course, I did have to deal with stuff like this while photographing….  Oh well.

Finally we had enough, and worked our way back to the bus stop.  But the show wasn’t over yet, as evidenced by this photo, taken while standing in line for the bus.  Overall, I very enjoyable experience.  I suggest that you take a look at the Flickr photo album and check out the rest of the photos.

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