More than 100,000 Tucsonans showed up to the 2014 Thunder and Lightning over Arizona show. Our videographer Alan Davis infiltrated the base and uncovered what was really going on. Davis used his dashing good looks and dreamy eyes to extract all the information you need to know about the air show.
He’s the Abercrombie & Fitch model of secret agents.
This article appears in Apr 17-23, 2014.
Better than a monster truck rally and a Destruction Derby rolled into one! And if the airshow was only one day a year, I could miss it. But I have to endure these kids flying over my house nearly every day and every night. I do get tired of the noise. The thrill is gone, I suppose. I think it is time to get rid of the planes and offer the base to Tesla.
@ Cascabel: So you must be one of those Tucson natives who remembers when the airport was out by the rodeo grounds and a train whistle made more noise. But then if you are of more recent vintage {post WWII} then you came here after the airbase and no one forced you to buy a home in such a noisy community.
Harold, Cascabel is not so near Tucson…except as the planes fly. This is not a city problem. These kids are disrupting half the state’s sleep cycles.
@ Cascabel: Shame on these “kids”; no regard for anyone else including the local citizenry that helps pay for all that “noise”. I must be in the half of the state that isn’t being disturbed. Fortunately, that “sound of freedom” brings not only noise but money.
Harold, how much money did you get from those kids this year? Sounds like you may get a piece of the action. I don’t. I am taxed at about 20% and roughly half of that went to pay for those kids grandstanding here and around the world. So, 10% of my income went to pay for something that I do not want to support. That is a lot to ask of the citizenry. Why not just call it “the sound of money” and be a little more honest about it.
@ Cascabel -Let me know when freedom becomes free again because I want a piece of that action! Unfortunately that is a highly unlikely scenario. Until then I think a bit of noise and some bucks are a perfectly reasonable price to pay for freedom especially for little rattlesnakes in the desert who like to rattle their tails at every opportunity.
@ cascabel: You lose! You will just have to endure these continued outrages toward you and half the state and it looks like the rest of us will continue to endure your incessant whining. I AM rather curious, though if any member, and I mean ANY member from the time you family first came to our shores has ever served in the military. It would be interesting to know how they felt about those exorbitant taxes you have been forced to pay.
Yes, move if you don’t like the Military here, they WERE here before you. Move to a garbage dump so you can complain about the smell, call the ACLU, and sue someone…
OK, I lose, because it is three against one and that’s what Democracy is all about. And the military was here first, freeing us from all those people who lived here before we discovered Gold and and copper and Manifest Destiny and all that. And that is what Freedom is all about…and you are willing to give up some Freedom to continue to identify with the “winners”, because you think that’s where the butter for your bread comes from. And maybe it does…do people still retire here just to buy cheap cigarettes at the PX? I still think Tesla would be a better investment and they would probably be better neighbors.
@ cascabel: I don’t understand your rant, giving up freedom of what? The liberties you and I currently enjoy are greater than anywhere else on this planet. And none of us enjoy some of the frivolous uses to which our taxes are put but at least we have the right to say and do something about it. Even your own rudeness here is God given and therefore an “inalienable right”, your discontent is also something you are allowed to freely express just as is your right to move anywhere you choose if where you are now doesn’t suit you or is impinged by some outside disruption.
I agree the base would be of great use as a Tesla facility if the base were shutting down but the reality is that 2016 will soon be upon us and the reality is that the overwhelming abilities and lower operating costs of the A~10 will give reprieve to this tremendous military asset. In that regard it appears the low level flight routes through your area will continue to be filled with that ever sweet, wonderful sound of freedom.