McChord air show back, bigger

SEATTLE – The Thunderbirds, the Air Force’s precision flying team, will be in the skies over McChord Air Force Base this weekend for the first time in three years with the return of the McChord Air Expo.

Also at the show will be Capt. Jammie Jamieson, a Washington native who is the first woman to qualify to fly the nation’s newest fighter plane, the F-22A Raptor.

The air show was an annual summertime fixture until 2002, when McChord officials canceled due to heavy operational demands in Afghanistan and the buildup for war in Iraq. The show went on in 2003, was skipped again in 2004, and then on again in 2005.

Officials canceled the 2006 and 2007 shows, again citing operational demands and the fact the base was playing host in 2007 to the Air Mobility Rodeo, a kind of Olympics-style games for military transport planes and crews.

But from talking with local government and business leaders and groups sponsoring the event, base officials say they’ve gotten the message that there clearly is pent-up demand for the show.

This year, “we want to have the biggest show that McChord has ever put on, and we were going to pull out all the stops to make that happen,” said Maj. Doug Edwards, the Air Expo director. “The whole idea of the air show is to open our gates to the community, to come see their base, come see their military, and for us to say thank you for their unwavering support.”

Five hours of flying shows are scheduled Saturday and Sunday, when more than 100 aircraft and other military hardware will be on display.

The Thunderbirds will headline 14 flying acts performing Saturday and Sunday. Also on the bill are demonstrations by Air Force C-17 transports, F-15C fighter jets and a B-2 stealth bomber; historic and acrobatic aircraft; and a demonstration by the Navy’s F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter-attack jet.

Among those showing off aircraft is Jamieson, a native of Prosser who now serves with the 525th Fighter Squadron at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. Last August, Elmendorf became the second air base to host a squadron of the new stealthy F-22As.

Jamieson, 30, was nominated to the Air Force Academy in 1996 and received a degree in aeronautical engineering in 2000. She earned a graduate degree in public policy from Harvard.

She spent three years flying F-15Cs, then had 10 months of additional training to transition to the F-22A. She is married to a fighter pilot who teaches at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

Like other women who have begun flying combat missions since restrictions were lifted, Jamieson sees herself as a fighter pilot and officer in the U.S. armed forces, period.

“Either you can meet the standards and do the job or you cannot. In this life-or-death business, my demographics is irrelevant,” she said.

“The two things that bring me (or any other fighter pilot) safely home from missions every day are my knowledge of the aircraft and my ability to physically execute the necessary tactics – my gender, race, religion, etc. have nothing to do with it.”

The Air Force now has an estimated 14,000 pilots, including nearly 3,700 fighters pilots. Of those, 70 are women.