Bad weather from Tropical Storm -- and soon to be -- Hurricane Barry prevented many Stearmans that had committed to participate in Veterans Flight from flying to Pensacola. However, by mid-afternoon Thursday three Stearmans flown by Carey Hardin, John Rettick, and Howard Thomas arrived from Mississippi. Phil Webb's and Roy Kinsey's Stearmans are based in the Pensacola area, so five Stearmans were on the flight line Thursday night. David Duplantis and his Navy #254 were trapped in Destin by heavy rain until late Friday.

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First time participants Quin Ducharme (T-6) and Tony Diez (T-34B) flew in from Destin early Friday morning ready to fly veterans. Dave Robinson, who is part of superstar air show performer Skip Stewart's operation, joined the flight line in his SNJ, giving us eight airplanes ready to fly Friday.

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Four Stearmans and another T-6/SNJ that regularly come from Roy Ray airport south of Mobile were blocked from coming to Pensacola by bands of hard rain that kept moving north from the Gulf of Mexico into south Alabama. The rain continued all day Friday and into Saturday, so none of these regulars ever made it to Pensacola.

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Friday's first flights launched shortly after 0800 and headed for Pensacola Beach into strong winds, but with surprisingly good visibility. Although the winds were gusting to more than 25 knots, they remained almost directly down Runway 17 so the Stearmans used less than 100 feet of runway to get airborne. The winds were so strong the Stearmans ground speeds were less than 50 knots to the beach and more than a 30 degree crab angle was needed to fly parallel to the beach. Returning to Pensacola International the tailwinds were so strong that ground speeds exceeded 120 knots, which is the fastest ground speed many of us have seen in our Stearmans.

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Everyone was surprised we were able to fly Friday as the strong winds and intense rain ultimately resulted in all the civilian aerobatic acts being cancelled both Friday and Saturday. However, thanks to our pilots, our volunteers, and some fortunate breaks in the weather, we were able to fly all the veterans on both Friday and Saturday's flight schedules. More importantly, we were able to do it safely. 

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In addition to Photo Ops Chief Steven Stopler who spent much of Friday taking aerial photos from the Robinson R44 helicopter flown by Hang Ten Helicopter, LLC's Kenny Brown, this year we were fortunate to have several volunteer photographers. Below are some of the great photos from Friday and Saturday.

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