100,000 Turn Out for Air Show’s First Day

Beneath gorgeous blue skies and the contrail designs left by dozens of stunt planes, about 100,000 people attended the first day of the annual Navy Relief Air Show Saturday at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Authorities expected twice that crowd and double the traffic created by Southern California’s largest free show. About 200,000 spectators attended the first day of the 1985 show when traffic flow was snail-like, and during which a private stunt pilot’s vintage World War II plane crashed out of the crowd’s view.

Instead, cars and recreational vehicles moved at a steady pace through the entrance gates of the sprawling air station Saturday and left after the five-hour event only slightly more slowly, perhaps a first in the show’s 36-year history.

No Incidents

And though security was beefed up because of an “increased terrorist threat” after the American air raid on Libya last month, spokesmen for the air station said there were no arrests, incidents or threats of violence.

“I have no idea why the crowd was smaller this year, and I really can’t make a speculation,” said Capt. Joanne Schilling, a base spokeswoman. “We didn’t canvass the crowd; we didn’t survey them, so I really can’t tell you.”

An April 26 air show at Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento was canceled because of concern about a possible terrorist attack. But William A. Bloomer, the commanding general of El Toro air station, decided that this weekend’s show must go on.

“I have carefully weighed the pros and cons of having the air show in light of the increased terrorist threat,” Bloomer was quoted as saying in Friday’s edition of The Flight Jacket, the base newspaper. “It is my decision that we cannot cave in to these threats and live with a siege mentality. We are, of course, taking many extra precautions which I’m sure you would not want me to go into in print.”

Other than a few people wearing T-shirts on which a picture of Col. Moammar Kadafi was labeled “America’s No. 1 Target,” spectators seemed more interested in derring-do, drinking beer and getting a tan than in world politics.

Most turned out to see the famous Blue Angels scream through the air in dazzling displays of precision flying, and many said the show gave them a better time than going to the beach or the movies. After all, the show, which continues today is free.

Thomas Keller of Tustin didn’t have far to drive for all the excitement. Keller, formerly a Vancouver journalist who now works as a truck driver, is also a “military historian” and model airplane enthusiast, and he had come to the show to see the real things.

Running Commentary

“See that,” he said, pointing into the sky as a plane took off from the field, “that’s a Chipmunk.” For the next five minutes, everyone around Keller got a running commentary that challenged Lakers’ announcer Chick Hearn.

“He’s going straight up; he’s doin’ a couple wing-overs, a loop--ah!--now he’s in the power dive; he pulls out; he’s in inverted flight (upside down). God. That’s why I don’t fly. I get motion-sick.”

Keller, 39, regained his breath as the plane continued its acrobatics, leaving its drawing of pink smoke in the sky. “Now he’s in a hammer head (going straight up); he’s hanging in the air, hanging on the propeller like he’s lost his power. Ah, and there he goes!”

There was plenty to do if you weren’t quite as intensely interested in the stunts. Scores of olive green and gray helicopters and fighter jets were lined up for view, and children and teen-agers scrambled over the wings and into the cockpits for a closer look. Booths selling military paraphernalia--T-shirts, badges, inflatable Blue Angel jets--did a steady business.

“Buy a raffle ticket, only $2. Help the Marines, help yourself,” a man barked over a public address system. “You can win this Camaro. It’ll look great in your parents’ bedroom. You can’t win if you don’t buy a ticket.”

$3 a Picture

For $3, you could zip into a drab green flight jump suit, put on a white helmet and get your picture taken in the shadow of a fighter jet flown by the Black Sheep squadron. The fee for the Polaroid shot went toward the Navy Relief Fund to help young servicemen with expenses such as child care. Photographers at booths beside four A-4 Skyhawks had gone through 50 or 60 rolls of film by the show’s end.

Those sitting in the VIP section nearest the air field had the clearest view, most of them guests of Gen. Bloomer and Gen. John I. Hudson, commander of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, the Blue Angels and other performing stunt pilots.

But when the famous Navy flight precision team took off at about 2:25 p.m., you could see the shiny royal blue jets from anywhere on the air field.

As the Blue Angels thundered through the sky, narrowly passing each other upside down and finishing their show as though crossing in the center of a pie, 5-year-old Dana Walden scratched her sunburned knees and concluded this had been her favorite part.

Her father, Bob Walden, had seen this all before.

“I grew up here; my dad was stationed here, so I’ve seen the Blue Angels about 50 times,” said Walden, a private pilot who lives with his daughter and wife, Gretchen, in Irvine.

It was the rest of the family’s first time out, but they are used to planes flying overhead at their home near the air station.

“Her dad’s got her so trained that when they go overhead he says, ‘Dana, what kind of plane is that?’ and she says, ‘That’s a Sea Knight twin-prop helicopter,’ ” Gretchen Walden said.

“I thought she should see this,” the father said of the air show. “I want her to be a naval aviator, but, hey, it’s up to her.”