SELINSGROVE — Engines roared in the air Saturday above Penn Valley Airport, as planes swooped, looped and rolled, leaving behind tails of smoke that colored the sky in art-like design.
Thousands of spectators, spread out over half a mile, set up lawn chairs parallel to the runway to watch Selinsgrove’s first air show — and the only one of its caliber — in more than 30 years.
“The air shows that happened 30 years ago,” airport manager Jim Taylor said on Saturday, “were not a quarter of what happened here today.”
The host, Schultz Airshows, which presents air shows every week, categorized the Aviation Heritage Days event as a large, medium-sized air show, Taylor said.
Guests may have suffered a little in Saturday’s heat, but it was nowhere near what the pilots faced.
According to seasoned air show pilot Dan Caldarale, of Reedsville, Mifflin County, it gets around 110 degrees in the cockpit of the AT-6 plane he flew in a formation routine with four others.
“We drink a lot of water before we go,” he said.
His father was a Marine Aircraft Wing member. When Caldarale was about 10 years old, he began his own love of flying, building model airplanes and pretending to be a pilot.
After many years of practice, he lived his dream and flew with air-show teams called Six of Diamonds and The Four Horsemen.
“It’s challenging,” he said, “especially when you fly in formation. You’re always trying to improve and do better.”
After 20 years, he still is working toward that end.
Admitting that it can be scary at first — “You got to show some kind of fear and respect” — Caldarale added: “You do get used to it.”
Learning how to turn, pull up, make sharp turns and rolls, and seeing what it’s like to be upside-down, takes time and an ability to overcome discomfort until maneuvers are perfected.
His first time doing a G-force, Caldarale’s head set and microphone had wrapped around his neck.
Pulling two Gs, he said, is similar to feeling the pressure of two times your body weight against you as you climb the sky. While 3 to 3½ Gs is normal, he said, if you foul up a maneuver, that can rise to 4 or 4½ — “and then you really start to feel it,” he said, by graying out or seeing tunnel vision, for example.
Guests on Saturday, particularly those who have flown before, recognized the skill of the performing pilots.
Arlen Lenker, of Northumberland, sat on a chair by the runway, proudly wearing the hat that displayed his service in the “B” Battery Hawk six missile battalion, 567th missile artillery.
Serving from 1962 to 1964, when the Vietnam War was beginning, Lenker worked with anti-aircraft missiles used to shoot down enemy aircraft. They are now obsolete, he said.
In addition to the air show, the second annual Aviation Heritage Days at the Penn Valley Airport included re-enactments from World War II, complete with military campsites, jeeps, rifles and other equipment from that era.
Guests had the opportunity to ride in a biplane or B-25.
Mike Mooers, of Hagerstown, Md., said biplane rides through his company, Classic Radial Air Power, were already fully booked by early Saturday afternoon. The rides are offered for $100.
Visitors could also get their photo taken in the nose of an actual F-4 Phantom, owned by Steven and Patty Blevins, of Harpers Ferry, W.Va. It was not hard to find, painted in the scheme of the Blue Angels, who flew F-4s from 1964 to 1974.
This particular plane was built in 1963 and flew until 1996, when it began appearing in air shows. The Blevinses now take it to about 25 shows a year. Steven is retired from United Airlines.
A couple of World War II veterans were in attendance, their love of flying still strong, though they are enjoying it from the ground these days.
“I love it,” said Joe Diblin, 94, a columnist for The Daily Item. His favorite plane on Saturday was the B-25, which was made available at the beginning of World War II, he said.
“I love it,” he said of piloting. “If you fly, you got to love it.”
He and fellow World War II veteran William David Gross signed a bomb replica on the B-25 plane at the air show Saturday.
Gross had the unique opportunity to leave his home at the skilled nursing unit of Sunbury Community Hospital so he could see the planes he once flew.
“We could see the flight line when all the planes took off and landed,” the 89-year-old said after he returned home.
Under a tent to stay cool, he said he got a “really good seat” to watch the B-25s and P-51s in the air.
“It was a great day,” Gross said. “I truly enjoyed the view, the excitement and everything that happened.”
Applauding Saturday’s air show pilots for their expertise, Gross said he never did the acrobatics in the plane he flew in the military. His mission was straightforward: “You do what you have to do,” he said.
“I flew a lot of places where they were shooting at me,” he said, “and I shot back.”
“They were mad,” he said, and then, with raised eyebrows added, “and so was I.”
Gross had enlisted in the Air Force in 1942, along with two of his Susquehanna University classmates. They traveled to Harrisburg to volunteer for acceptance in the Army Aviation Cadet Training Program.
“I was fascinated with flying,” Gross said. “I wanted to do what I could.”
Gross then took a little more than a year to go through the necessary training before he could be certified and enter into combat.
“I was very lucky,” he said. “I never really got hurt. I got bullets in my plane a couple of times. I believe in divine intervention. I really do. It wasn’t my turn to go yet.”
The air show continues today, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with the acrobatic pilots and their planes taking to the air beginning at noon.
“I was very much expecting to see the kind of numbers we saw,” Taylor said, estimating the crowd in the thousands. “After all, it was a real, first-class air show.”
Though he spent the entire day making sure all details were in place and the show was operating smoothly, Taylor hopes to mingle more with the crowd today.
“It’s just a wonderful day,” John Miller, president of the EAA Young Eagles chapter 1513 of Selinsgrove, said Saturday. “I think tomorrow is going to be the same, or more.”
He is also looking forward to the next Young Eagles Rally, which will take place this fall.
