Daily Archives: July 20, 2009

Minot Air Force Base hosts Northern Neighbors Day 2009

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I was blessed with the opportunity to attend the Minot Air Force Base’s “Northern Neighbors Day” this weekend. I believe this show runs every two years, but it’s been a while since I’ve been able to make it to one. I have been looking forward to this day for two years, and I was not disappointed. Boy, did I take a lot of pictures. Here are a few…and there’s a link to a gallery of more at the bottom of this post.

Starting with the star of the show, the B-52 Stratofortress.

Check out the riflings on the barrel of this A-10’s 30mm gun! That’ll get those depleted uranium shells spinning.

Of course, there were plenty of aerobatic demonstrations.

How’s that for a ribbon cutting ceremony?

Various planes and helicopters were available for people to inspect, including a peek into the cockpits of some such as the F-15 and F-16. Pilots were on hand to chat.

Don’t get any funny adventurous ideas. You’re still on a nuclear weapon facility. I need one of these for my property, at least the last line anyway.

Yes, attractive women DO fly deadly planes.

I’m sure I’d have even more photo opportunities if my truck did this.

If I couldn’t attach these to my motorcycle, I bet I could make a monster go-kart with them!

The Barack Obama fighter. Hope™! Change™!

As some of the Army’s “Golden Knights” parachute team spiral toward us, the Pietsch brothers circle in their stunt planes.

These jets can fire up at a moment’s notice. They have explosive charges on the engines that can be detonated to spin the turbines up instantly, negating the use of an APU. They can be airborne and ready to go make some mayhem in a matter of minutes. We got a demo.

Something you don’t see every day: an F-16 Fighting Falcon alongside a P-38 Lightning!

Something else you don’t see every day: a B-52 Stratofortress next to a B-25 Mitchell!

This was my first experience with the B2 Spirit stealth bomber. I came away from it very pleased. All radar invisibility aside, the thing is just darn near impossible to see or hear when it’s coming or going! Only when it flies by is it detectable, and then it’s too late. It’s quite BIG, too.

U2 flyby. No, not Bono…he only THINKS he can fly. I was stunned at just how loud this aircraft is, and it was a real hoot to see it peel off and head to 60,000 feet. I don’t think they’ve ever let on how high it can REALLY go. Space, pretty much.

Uniform-01, the missile training facility. It’s an exact replica of a Minuteman III silo and launch facility. Through a stroke of luck my friend Jerry and I got a personalized tour of this thing, with the better part of an hour to just have the instructor to ourselves and ask questions. This alone made the trip worthwhile. No, I was NOT allowed to take my camera with me when we went down the hole.

Beauty.

Amen, brutha. I know the pusillanimous, sissified PC crowd thinks that this statement is imperialist and overbearing…but it’s not. America has been the greatest stabilizing force in the world. It’s because of the folks serving here at Minot Air Force Base, and all over the world, that we enjoy peace. If there’s a war, they win it for us. If there’s peace, it’s because people are afraid to mess with them. They stand by our allies and defend our nation and its friends.

Want more pics? I took a TON of them. These were just some of my favorites. I took the opportunity to make an online gallery of the ones I like the best. You can find it by clicking here. I hope you enjoy. Thanks to the friendly (and I do mean FRIENDLY) folks at the Minot Air Force Base for all that they do and all their hard work and hospitality in making this Northern Neighbors Day one that I’ll remember for the rest of my life!

And now for my next trick…

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I had the great opportunity to poke around up at the Minot Air Force Base this weekend, as part of their Northern Neighbors Day. It was amazing. I had an incredible time and took over 1,500 photos. Obviously it’s hard to go through them all in a timely fashion and post them here, but I’m almost ready.

In the mean time, I noticed that I took my 44,000th photo over the weekend, the one above. Time flies (pun intended) when you’re having fun! Of course, the photos come more slowly in the winter time. I need to maximize my opportunities during the summer, balanced with family time of course, and so far this year has been pretty good for that.

Check back soon for some amazing aircraft photos! I’ve got so many “keepers” that I’ll have to make a special gallery; a blog post containing them all would take forever to load.