Blue Angels, Shockwave bring out crowd to this year's Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival

The Blue Angels and a host of other airborne performers took to the skies with flips, dives and corkscrew maneuvers during Day One of this year’s Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival on Saturday at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport. And those observing near the airfield also felt the heat coming from the engines and stacks of the jet-powered 36,000-horsepower Shockwave truck.

Airport manager Bruce Loy said Saturday always ends up being the biggest day for attendance.

“Visually, to me, it had to be a record,” Loy said Saturday. “Because we never filled every parking lot and had this much trouble getting traffic in.”

Sunday night, City of Cape Girardeau public information manager Nicolette Brennan said preliminary attendance figures showed about 18,000 people attended the air show — about 15,000 Saturday and 3,000 Sunday.

Arriving early Saturday and seated up-close to the action within the Blue Angels Coors Lite Reserved Seating area were Jim and Sharon Griffin of Cape Girardeau. It was their first time at the Air Festival.

Alex Hendrickson of Cape Girardeau takes a video while his son Parker Hendrickson, 1, rests his head during the Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival on Saturday at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.Jacob Wiegand ~ jwiegand@semissourian.com

“We used to go to the air show in Kirksville when we lived up there, but this is a lot bigger deal than that,” Jim Griffin said, adding he also used to fly and now likes attending air shows because “it’s a hoot.”

Griffin, once a private pilot, took lessons and learned to fly a Cessna 172 and Pipers for a couple years in the late 1980s, he said.

He and his wife were most looking forward to the performance by the Blue Angels. They also recommended the coconut shrimp from one of several on-site food vendors.

“We bought our tickets quite a while ago; we thought it’d be a lot of fun to come and see them. And we like the other parts, too,” he said.

Sharon Griffin chimed in with one of her favorite parts of the air festival: the parachutists. And just in case of inclement weather, they purchased tickets for both days, they said.

David and Beverly Mirgeaux were admiring the World War II bomber group including, B-25, TBM and AD-5 — which is why he said he attended.

“Every opportunity I get, I go to an air show. It’s well worth it,” he said, adding even though he anticipated seeing the Blue Angels in the sky, he was there “for the whole thing.”

They arrived at 11 a.m., around the same time Shockwave garnered much of the crowd’s attention.

David Mirgeaux said he was familiar with similar Dodge pickup versions of the custom-built vehicle, but has never before seen anything like Shockwave.

“I’ve seen them on YouTube, but it’s a lot better live,” he said.

“Overall, we’re ecstatic about the crowd,” Loy said, adding he received no complaints of muddy conditions thanks to using six semi-truck loads of wood chips along festival pathways.

Loy said this year’s festival cost the City of Cape Girardeau roughly $90,000 — a little more than what Loy preferred, he said.

The Blue Angels cost $12,000 to be part of the show and around an additional $40,000 for food and other necessities, Loy said.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

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