Share your videos, photos, and stories below

The North Georgia Transportation Expo was held at the Richard B. Russell Airport in Rome, Georgia. I have to thank the staff of the North Georgia Transportation Expo for treating everyone to an excellant show. Not only was there the air show that we all came for, but there was also a classic car show and other performing acts, including a Blues Brothers tribute act.

This show was also the first air show with Bryan Reagan flying the #1 plane of the AeroShell Team. Bryan is the former leader of the Red Barons. I will post some photos of them as soon as I get them processed. I only took a little over 1,500 photos on Saturday.

As a photographer, I also have to extend a big Thank You for the wonderful access we were given during the show. The photo pit area was extremely large and allowed us so close to the planes taxing out for take-off, that a couple of times I had to duck to avoid being hit by a wing going by.

I was able to get some great shots and will be posting them later, as I get them processed. I did want to go ahead a post a photo of the other members of the "photo pit". In the photograph below, the photographers are (from right to left) Carl, Mike, Chris, Jeff, Craig, Vance, Kathy, and Kathy's friend.

Thanks to Hurricane IKE, the C-17 demo scheduled for the show was cancelled by the military. The plane scheduled to do the demo flight was needed for Hurricane relief flights and had be staged in Oklahoma. Instead of a C-17, the military send a F/A-18E Super Hornet from VFA-105, the Gunslingers, to be on static display.

The big surprise was the pilot of the F/A-18E. The plane was piloted by Lt. Liz Tremel, who has to be one of the best looking fighter pilots that I have ever met. Lt. Tremel is based out of NAS Oceania, so anyone going to that show should try to look her up and say hello.





Lt. Tremel proved to be a good recruiting resource for the Navy. Young children at the show were amazed that a woman could be a fighter pilot. Lt. Tremel proved to be a good role model, taking the time to talk with all of the children and answer their questions about the jet, and Navy careers. She also had most of the male show staff and the media photographers all wanting to join the Navy.

Navy Lt. Tremel wasn't the only beautiful female pilot at the North Georgia Transportation Expo. Flying several demonstrations during the show was Jacquie Warda, known as "Jacquie B". She flew the 'Red Eagle' Pitts Biplane and showed that women are just as good pilots as men. Here are a few photos I took of her:

Just wanted to chime in and say that I enjoyed meeting everyone in Rome. It was HOT but I think we all had a good time. I also want to say thanks to Travis Reynolds for all of the help. I especially appreciated the opportunity to shoot from the top of the 110 ft ladder truck!

Chris

By the way, this is the first show I have attended in a while where I actually had pretty good light to work with!

Chris

The air show opened with members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles jumping from an Army HU-60 helicopter.

Below are a couple of photos of the team setting up for the jump. Notice the one man with an artifical leg. He was the jump master of the team and a Veteran of the Iraq war, where he lost his leg to an IED.




The two team members made perfect jumps and landed right on target

The annoucing duties for the show were performed by Hugh Oldham of Proairshows. The air boss for the show was Kevin Sullivan of Air Boss Inc.

Here are a couple of photos of them, for those you haven't seen them before. Hugh is the guy in the yellow shirt and cap.

Here are a couple of photos I took of Chris Buff and Mike Riffle up on that Fire Truck snorkel platform.

I was also invited to go up on it, but for those who know me, you know my body is not built to go up on those things, and I was afraid I might overload it and tip it over.




The fact that the air show arranged for and made available to the photographers, the use of a platform such as this, is proof that the show management was a class act and really tried to make things great for the members of the media.

It was a pity that the Atlanta media didn't promote this show. If they had, I am sure plenty of more people would have had the opportunity to enjoy a very well done, small air show.

Many thanks to Travis for the outstanding access and hospitality he provided. All of the organizers and volunteers worked to make this a top-notch show. Great job everyone!

It's going be tough getting everything posted before I leave for Oceana on Wednesday. To start, here are some of the Friday arrivals...

One of the fun things the show did this year was organize some Friday Night Flights. Kent Gorton, Jacquie B, Red Thunder, and Aeroshell formed up into several sorties and performed fly-overs at some of the local high school football games. Killer B also departed as a photo ship so Jeff Green could capture the fly-over at the Rome Wolves game. Here are some shots of the launch and recovery...

Great Shots everyone. It was a pleasure sharing the experience with ya'll. I will get some shots up soon. Travis and I really wanted to cater this event for photographers and we hope you had as much fun as we did. Mike...I want to see my fat head hanging out of the B-25 in our holding pattern if you don't mind. Thanks again to all for coming!

Here are a few of the shots I have processed so far, enjoy!













Chris

I was able to attend Saturday and I concur with everyone else that the show was very good, especially for a small airport. I might add, for all you pilots out there, that Rome is a great airport to plan a cross country flight to. The C-17 scheduled to fly over the week-end had more important things to do, like fly relief missions for the victims of hurricane Ike. My prayers are with all of these folks. OK, here are a few of my shots.

Here is my shot that made the front page of the Rome News Tribune. I took these pictures from the nose of the B-25 "Killer B". This image will forever go down in history as "Contributed Photo". Team Aeroshell performing a flyover of Rome High School's Barron Stadium just after our National Anthem.

I also had the pleasure of coordinating Skip Stewart's ribbon cut on both days. Thanks to all of the "pole holders" who assisted, but most of all thank you to Skip for performing in our show last minute. Here are a few shots from the runway.

Jeff,

Great air to air!!!

First off great shots everyone!



Here you go Mr Contributor...



but you might like this one better...



or maybe this one...



BTW, is that Gary Ward holding the pole along with Craig?

That is Gary Ward....since he couldn't fly, I am glad he got to experience the next best thing! Thanks for those shots Mike...they're great!

Had a really special weekend with some old shooting friends and finally meeting Carl, Jeff and Craig. Thanks to Travis Reynolds for for taking the time to make special arrangements for us.

Great show!! Thanks Travis!!

Whata great shot of O'le Hank in the B-25! How'd he get in'ere? Look, his head is so big they hadta take tha winder out!!

GREAT shots Vance!! Nice to meet you too, and a pleasure shooting with you. Very nice looking shots!

Craig

Chris:

Congratulations, the AirShowBuzz people really like your photo of AeroShell and placed your photo in the 'HOT Shots' gallery.

Good shooting!

Gary Ward blew an engine and we were lucky enough to have Skip Stewart fill in for him. Skip has one of the most dynamic acts in the business.

nice shots vance, Skip Stewart is a wild man!!!
bob mcpherson

Thanks Bob, he should be at Pensacola. Can't wait.