Air Show’s Preview a Knockout : Extravaganza: Special guests attend the dress rehearsal, exploring warplanes, watching aerobatics, meeting Persian Gulf heroes and then--the Blue Angels.

Dazzling jets flew upside down in the sky and war heroes on the ground were dogged by autograph-seekers. But what 6-year-old John Nguyen wanted out of the El Toro Air Show Friday was simply a book with pictures.

“Book!” he yelled, cupping his hands over his ears as a gray AV-8 Harrier jet thundered overhead. “Book of airplanes!”

As a team of Clydesdales lumbered by pulling a stagecoach, his face lit up like Santa Claus had just appeared. And the Navy’s wildly popular Blue Angels were hours from scraping the sky.

“It’s a wonderful day for the kids,” said Patty Baker, his learning-disabilities teacher who chaperoned eight “special day” students from Excelsior School in Garden Grove. “It’s really an educational day for them, and they each get their own Marine escort.”

Thousands of people whose handicaps might otherwise prevent them from attending the air show got to watch a dress rehearsal Friday for this weekend’s performances.

More than a million Southern Californians are expected to attend the two-day annual event that ends Sunday. More than 30,000 people saw the show Friday, base officials said.

From special parking and seating to military escorts and handicap-accessible bathrooms, the sprawling air base was equipped to make everything easier for those with special physical needs. About 150 schools for the developmentally disabled and organizations for the handicapped and seniors were invited to attend Friday’s show, and many of them arrived by bus, compliments of the Orange County Transit District.

Sunny skies and a stiff breeze meant perfect weather for the show, which began at 9 a.m. and climaxed about 4 p.m. with the Blue Angels’ knockout precision.

By 10:30 a.m., buses were lumbering in and parking near the airfield as America the Beautiful poured out of speakers positioned throughout the sprawling base.

“The wind and weather are cooperating with us beautifully today,” remarked air show announcer Gordon Bowman-Jones, as the Holiday Inn aerial team enthralled the crowd.

Led by T.J. Brown, the pilots created a huge palm tree in the sky with contrails from their green and yellow planes.

By noon, Zyl and Cliff Gritz, senior citizens from Huntington Beach, were ready for a break from the sun. So they ate lunch beneath the wing of an A-7 Corsair II, then rested, he in a racer’s cap, she in a sunbonnet--and surgical mask.

“I’m allergic to things in the air,” Zyl Gritz said. “This is great, such a thrill to see! We’re glad they have this senior citizens day.”

Base officials don’t publicize the pre-show nor do they invite the public, but no one is turned away.

“We get a lot of people from the surrounding community, too,” said Lt. Col. Barbara Ellen Haman, a spokeswoman for the show.

Toting camcorders, sunscreen, beach chairs and binoculars, thousands of spectators roamed the vast exhibits of military hardware on display Friday. A B-52H dominated one row of planes, attracting swarms of people all day.

As he stood in its bomb bay, navigator Mark Bartelt was riddled with questions about its home base (Spokane, Wash.), its wing span (186 feet), the size of its crew (six) and when it was built (1960).

Aircraft and officers who served in the Gulf were hugely popular.

Marine Capt. Newell Day fielded a steady stream of admiring questions Friday afternoon, given hero treatment as he stood in front of an F/A-18 Hornet.

The 28-year-old pilot from the El Toro-based Black Knights squadron said his was the first Marine Hornet squadron to arrive in the Persian Gulf--on Aug. 22. Two of the squadron’s planes were hit by enemy missiles, but no one was killed.

Of the Gulf mission, he said, “I’m glad we got to do it.” He sipped a beer and grinned. “This is for all the beer we missed.”

By 2:30 p.m., Carla Bauer and her three children were getting restless waiting for the Blue Angels to perform. The San Juan Capistrano mother had brought her three towheads--Jeffrey, 3, Brant, 5, and Jennifer, 10--to their first air show.

Bauer and her family sat picnic-style on a blanket near the airfield. She said they had spent hours looking at helicopters and planes, and that meeting two pilots who “actually fought” in the Persian Gulf was a grand thrill.

“They had stencils of tanks on their planes, meaning they’d blown up two tanks, and I thought, that’s exciting, meeting someone who was actually in Operation Desert Storm.”

“I was glad we had a chance to actually tell them, ‘Glad you made it back OK, and thanks.’ ”

Her sons like GI Joe dolls, Bauer added, and “I have a feeling they are going to be playing Air Show after today.”

As the Blue Angels prepared to wow the crowd, the front-row seating area was filled with a sea of wheelchairs and those physically challenged.

Patrick Williams maneuvered his wheelchair so that he faced the airfield. Injured eight months ago in a car accident, Williams, 26, has some use of his arms and hands, but his legs are paralyzed. He had come with other wheelchair-bound friends with whom he shares a house in Paramount. He had come to see the Blue Angels.

As the planes zipped by in a diamond formation, Williams, a man of few words, made one comment.

“I hear they go 400 m.p.h.,” he said. “That’s pretty good.”

Map, INFORMATION: B3