On a Clear Day, Air Show Has Thunder and Lightning : Point Mugu: Ear-splitting jet noise and supersonic speed thrill a crowd of about 75,000 at the annual event.

A second day of rumbling, ear-punishing flight entertained about 75,000 people Sunday under clear skies at the weekend-long 33rd annual Point Mugu Air Show.

The crowd laid out blankets and brought lawn chairs to the edge of the Tarmac as supersonic Tomcats, Hornets and Falcons whizzed through the air, afterburners aglow.

The jets were loud--loud enough to set off car alarms--but many in the crowd couldn’t get enough of the raw mechanical noise or the way the jets attacked the air.

“I love the noise and how fast they go,” said Joel Zarate, 7, of Pacoima.

His slightly confused little brother Jesse, 6, said he liked watching the space shuttle best.

Although the shuttle was not among the featured aircraft, Sunday’s crowd was treated to a daylong performance by aviation’s finest jets, stunt planes, dogfights and the precise choreography of the Canadian Snowbirds. There were also plenty of stationary airplanes to check out among the concession stands.

Spectator Dan May spent the day craning his neck, holding his ears and saluting against the sun as he watched the steel-skinned birds roar across the military base.

“Look at the G-force they must be pulling,” said May, 32, wearing a flame-emblazoned baseball hat, his tattooed chest basking in the sun. As he spoke, an F-16 Falcon spiraled straight up into the sky at more than 1,000 miles per second.

“Their stomachs must get pulled down to their feet instantly. Is that bitchen or what?”

A welder in the San Fernando Valley, May says an eye condition has kept him from flying jets, but not studying them. He tries to be around them as much as possible.

May and his friends spent the day drinking beer and trading plane facts. But when one friend remarked that flying a jet must be like riding the ultimate motorcycle, May was taken aback.

“No way,” he said. “Those jets are the ultimate. The ultimate rush. The ultimate ride. There can’t be nothing better, or even close,”

May and the large crowd of spectators weren’t the only ones impressed by the planes and the aerobatics.

The pilots were as well.

“I tell you, it sure is a lot of fun,” Kurt Gallegos said of the $31-million F-16 he flies.

“But it’s pretty hard on the body, too,” said the pilot from Hill Air Force Base in Utah. “It’s hard to even move your arm when your pulling nine Gs (nine times the force of gravity). You really have to concentrate.”

Jim Howell, who performed aerobatic stunts in his propeller plane, said pilots never lose the excitement of flying.

“Man has always been fascinated by flight and always will be,” he said.

Howell said stunt flying is the biggest thrill of all.

“It’s like being on a roller coaster,” he said, “but better because you can control which way it goes.”

The jets and stunt planes fueled the imaginations of hundreds of youngsters who squinted into the sun with their jaws agape.

“I want to go up there and do that,” said Brendon Moffett, 8, of Los Angeles. “I want to fly with them. I want to do the cool stunts and stuff.”