DATE: Sunday, April 6, 1997                 TAG: 9704040207

SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN             PAGE: 20   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: SUFFOLK'S SPECTACULAR SPRING FESTIVAL 

SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   55 lines

FASTER AIRCRAFT WILL BE JOINING BALLOONS IN AIR, ON GROUND WWII PLANES, MILITARY JETS AND PARACHUTISTS WILL BE IN THE SHOW

Balloons will not be the only thing that will have you staring skyward during the Suffolk Spring Spectacular balloon fest.

The April 11 to 13 event is also paying tribute to more conventional aircraft, military and civilian - airborne and grounded.

The 49th Fighter Wing, stationed at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, will offer air shows from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. April 12 and 13.

The Old Dominion Squadron of the Confederate Air Force will show some of its World War II craft all day on the 12th and 13th.

The air shows will open with jumps by SkyDive Suffolk owner, Larry Pennington, and about 10 parachuting friends.

Earlier this month, he spent about a week in Arizona working with former President George Bush on his now famed jump.

Pennington, a member of the U.S. Parachute Association, jumped eight times before turning that parachute over to Bush for his headline-making leap.

During their time together, the men became good friends, Pennington winding up with some historical presidential memorabilia.

After the parachutists land there will be 20-minute aerial demonstration by an F-14 and F-15 on Saturday. The F-15 demon will repeat Sunday.

Keep looking up. There will be aerobatic demonstrations by John Greenwood of Richmond and Jim Reed of LaPlata, Md., flying Pitts Special aircraft, designed specifically for aerobatic stunt flying.

Commander William Busch of Jacksonville, N.C., an active duty Navy medical doctor, will fly a 1950s vintage British made DeHavilland D-100 Vampire jet, a British plane owned by the Swiss Air Force.

Busch, an ophthalmologist, is a former Navy fighter pilot.

Another fly-over will feature something more modern - the F-117A Stealth Fighter - its purpose is bombing.

It was used in the Gulf War to bomb strategic targets in Iraq.

It is an odd looking craft with a very practical purpose - it is undetectable on radar.

It is not all serious stuff. There will be a comedy routine by Charlie Kulp, The Flying Farmer. He will fly J-3 Piper Cub. He will thrill the crowd with the antics of an apparently untrained pilot who has been let loose at the controls of an aircraft.

Among the other performers are Bob Peters who will fly a World War II vintage Navy fighter, an FM-2 Wildcat which was used extensively in the Pacific. It is the only Confederate Air Force plane that will be flying during the air show. Many others will be at the ground display.

The Old Dominion Squadron is based at Chesapeake's Hampton Roads Airport where they care for Lady Lodestar, a Lockheed C-60.

If you want to look inside the planes they will have at the Suffolk Municipal Airport, ``the squadron will accept small donations for cockpit tours,'' said James P. Euverard, a colonel in the Confederate Air Force.

The Air Show Center will be on Runway 4-22.

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