Watching Snowbirds fly

Taxiing past
St. Thomas, ON, June 2009
[Click here to share your own view of the strangers among us.]

My favorite moment at any airshow is when a featured aircraft slowly taxis past the crowd. People's heads turn slowly toward the lumbering sound, as they hold their collective breath in a silent realization that something extraordinary is about to happen. The moment seems to take forever, as taxiing from an apron slot to the end of the runway can be a miles-long process. In today's instant-gratification world, where no one seems impressed by anything anymore, it's nice to see that some things can still captivate.

In the case of Canada's national aerobatic team, the Snowbirds (wiki, home page), multiply the anticipation by 9, as that's how many planes the team flies during the typical show. The Snowbirds were last here, just south of London, in 2009, and the kids are already talking about their next scheduled visit later this year.

On this afternoon, we found ourselves behind a fairly dense crowd of onlookers, and since we're polite Canadians, decided to hang back a bit and see what things looked like from the back. As it turns out, a little additional context sometimes adds a little something, I don't know, human, to the story.

Your turn: Ever get stuck at the back when you're shooting something? How do you work around it?

One more thing: More airshow/Snowbirds stuff here, here and here.

Oops, two: The Wings & Wheels Air Show that we attended in 2007 and 2009 has been renamed the Great Lakes International Air Show. If you're anywhere near southwestern Ontario June 24-26, drop us a line if you can make it down.