Rochester Air Show

When Lincoln developed his love for airplanes (and watching the Blue Angels on YouTube) I began scouring the internet for an airshow we could attend. The closest one I found was in Rochester, NY about two hours away from us. When thinking in distances from Ithaca (at least 45 minutes from anywhere), that wasn’t too bad and we figured Lincoln’s joy was worth it. So, last Saturday we made the trek to the ESL International Air Show in Rochester.

It was a hot, hot day, but there were hundreds of planes on display for us to explore. Lincoln loved getting to walk right up and touch them. Even for those of us a little less enthusiastic about airplanes, it was pretty interesting.

                                                 

One of the highlights of the day was getting to climb up to the cockpit of this huge carrier-based aircraft. We had to wait an hour in line to do it, but it was worth it (and a lot cooler inside the plane then outside.)

                                                

We got to look at a lot of smaller planes lined up around the airport including the replica of “The Memphis Bell” that was used in the film of the same name.

                                                                                     

                                                                                     

Lincoln really wanted to get in the cockpit of this little plane until he discovered it was the pilot that had to lift him up and put him in. When he discovered said pilot was also going to talk to him, he decided he’d had enough and that it was time for lunch.

                                                               

Here are all six Blue Angel planes lined up on the runway before their show.

We bought these special noise cancelling headphones for Lincoln on Amazon the week before the show. He calls them his “mail” (because they came in the mail.) The week leading up to the airshow he’d wear them around the house and sometimes even out, but he only wore them for about six seconds when we actually wanted him to. Oh well, I guess we’ll have to attend more airshows! (Look at those poor red cheeks! I was so worried he was getting burnt, but I had been faithfully putting sunblock on him. It turns out he was just hot so the redness went away when we finally got back to some air conditioning.)

                                                                                             

The Blue Angel’s show was really, really cool. Lincoln was breaking down a little by this point (it had been a long, long day), so I’m not sure he was able to fully appreciate it, but we filmed a lot, so he can watch it later.