This year marked the first time that the Texas Flying Legends Museum had ever been west of the Rocky Mountains with the Los Angeles County Airshow and the Planes of Fame Airshow. With the generous support of those in the museum, instead of taking the direct route back across the desert to Minot, ND where the planes would undergo maintenance, the fleet traveled north through California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and landed in North Dakota. This first leg started in Chino and the California desert and ended in Madras, OR.
The film crew flew with the fleet the entire way back in order to capture the splendor that was the western United States. It was quite a thrill and culture shock to go from the southern California valley, past the desert and into the forested snow capped mountains of Oregon. The photography was beautiful as each area offered something different.
To keep things interesting the group flew a series of different formations and solo’s to make the most of the flight back. Everything from stack ups, stack downs, vics, break away’s and solo’s were performed. We included some of the local landmarks as we flew north including the dry lake bed of Edwards Air Force Base, as seen in the far background, and Mt. Shasta. For many of the pilots this was new terrain and they enjoyed it as much as the film crew did.
