Half a Billion dollars worth of visitors

[MIKE JG]

It's airshow weekend here in Cleveland, fortunately for us, the USAF will not stage their aircraft at the show site (KBKL) due to the short runway length and the risk of bird strikes. So they stage here at the big airport in Cleveland where my company's airplanes are based which means we get a show every year.

This year we get the bonus of having both 5th gen fighters staging at the FBO.

These are not the quality that the guys here produce but it's the best I can do with my IPhone:











Poor people in the white vehicle get to guard the aircraft 24/7 for the time they are here. One of the F-35's took a bird strike on landing yesterday, welcome to Cleveland!

[btaylo24]

great view u got mike... in the first pic is that some sort of foil over the seat and cockpit displays on the f35?
my eyes not great.

[MIKE JG]

Yea it looked like those 'space blankets' that you see. Those are Luke AFB based F-35s so maybe that's something that they use there because it's so bloody hot.

[MIKE JG]

So the poor F-35s just can't catch a break. After performing all weekend at the airshow here in Cleveland, post flight inspection revealed that there was an issue with one of the jets, apparently metal shavings in the oil. So this is the view currently from my desk, looking out the door into the hangar.





Sounds like they have to pull the engine and try to figure out what's going on. Pretty cool to be literally sitting 20 feet from this thing!

[Victory103]

Any mx crew around? Not the best angle of her.

[MIKE JG]

The mx guys showed up today to start working on it. I'm a bit leary to take close up pics, there's an armed MP standing guard 24/7.....

[MIKE JG]

She's still here, and she's still broke. Sounds like an oil pump grenaded itself and put metal particles into the oil system.

Some better pics for Chris:

[Victory103]

Thanks, just not a sexy craft to me. Glad they had a towbar that would fit and didn't have to find some fancy one. I do like the intake plugs.

[clickclickdoh]

I can't help but think they are making popcorn in the cockpit everytime I see those covers.

[MIKE JG]

Jiffy pop for sure!

It's FUGLY, no doubt about it. The A model with its short stubby wings is the ugliest of them all. The C model is the most tolerable.

[Victory103]

Agree, both magazines I subscribe to have about the same feature covering the recent F-35 news. I stare at the pics and just can't compare the lines to other in-service fighters these will eventually replace.