Crowd Barrier Broken

The thunderous clap of sonic booms, coupled with the screaming roar of jet fighters and exploding bombs, pierced the High Desert skies here Saturday as record crowds trekked to the air show marking the 50th anniversary of the Air Force.

More than 375,000 visitors inched their way onto the base in bumper-to-bumper traffic to witness a re-creation of the aerial bombardment in the Persian Gulf War. The air show will be repeated today as the culmination of a weeklong celebration that also marks the 50th anniversary of supersonic flight.

A sonic boom at precisely 10 a.m. is scheduled to open today’s show as the pilot who first broke the sound barrier, Retired Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager, steps for the last time into the cockpit of a military fighter. A mighty cheer arose and fists shot into the air Saturday as Yeager soared 30,000 feet overhead, sending a shock wave across the massive dry lake known as the landing strip for the space shuttle.

Many of the visitors Saturday said they braved a more than a 20-mile traffic backup to witness Yeager’s final booms. The California Highway Patrol reported the bottleneck at one point stretched along Highway 14 across the Kern County line to Avenue K in Lancaster.

Cars were still backed up trying to get into the base after 3 p.m. as the main attraction, the flight of the Air Force Thunderbirds, was about to begin. For the first time at an Edwards air show, all available lots were filled Saturday, forcing officials to use the dry lake itself for the overflow. At 4 p.m. officials began turning back cars that had not yet entered the base.

“Rosemead Boulevard has become a parking lot,” said George Fox, chief of community relations for the base.

Way ahead of the crowd were Jim and Tonye Bishop of Gilbert, Ariz., with their son, James, 7. They said they planned the trip for more than a year and carefully mapped out the logistics of getting to the base.

The family spent Friday night at the Panorama City home of Tonye Bishop’s parents, then were up at 4:30 a.m. for the 80-mile journey north to the Air Force base. Thousands of others joined them in the predawn darkness as vehicles lined up for miles along the side of the road until the gates opened at 7 a.m.

“It looked like we were watching the ‘Field of Dreams,’ with all the headlights lined up behind us,” said Tonye Bishop. In all, 12 members of her family caravaned to the show in four vehicles and vowed to stay until the event closed at 5 p.m.

Jim Bishop, who describes himself as “an airplane fanatic,” said the annual air show here this weekend became his top priority when he learned it would serve as Yeager’s final military appearance.

“I wouldn’t have missed this for anything in the world,” said a grinning Bishop, a manufacturing technician for a computer company.

Byron Lutsey, 69, and his wife, Pat, 67, traveled 100 miles from Lake Isabella, primarily to watch their favorite performers, the Thunderbirds, flying F-16 Fighting Falcons. The pair had set up their folding chairs in the front row long before the show began and sat in the hot sun all day, protected only by straw hats, to wait for the afternoon performance.

“We’ve been coming here since Day One,” said Byron Lutsey, who served in the Army Air Corps and the Air Force from 1946 to 1949. “Except for a couple of years when the Thunderbirds weren’t here,” his wife reminded him.

The couple, who said they travel to air shows throughout the Southland, called the Edwards production one of the best. “It’s a larger and better show than most,” said Byron Lutsey, who said he is drawn by “the activity, the airplanes, the excitement.”

Among more than 1,700 visitors who took advantage of RV parking, Shields Krutzsch, 73, and his wife, Dody, 60, arrived at the base Friday night in their motor home from Dana Point in Orange County. A 1943 graduate of the U.S. Army Air Corps, the predecessor to the Air Force, Shields Krutzsch said they have been traveling to air shows for eight years, including trips to Arizona and Texas.

They ventured to the Kern County base, he said, “because this is the only one going on and because of Yeager.” The couple sat in the shadow of a T-39 Sabreliner jet as they munched on hot dogs and sipped sodas.

The shade of planes was a welcome refuge for many who sought escape from the 89-degree heat. Thousands didn’t seem to mind waiting in a long line under the massive wings of the two largest aircraft parked side by side, a B-52 test support plane and a 747 shuttle aircraft, both owned by NASA.

Many of the visitors said they had served in the military or worked in the aerospace industry and regularly attend the annual show. But others said it was the assemblage of more than 90 of the most unusual and powerful aircraft that prompted their pilgrimage.

One man, standing in a precious shady spot, said he couldn’t complain about the weather. “Last year it was 35 degrees and the wind was blowing 65 mph,” said Steve Shobert of Lancaster, who works for Lockheed.

“Practically nobody came and those who did soon left.”