Airshows and other disasters.

After 4 years at an aviation university and nine years of working in the industry, I went to my first air show today. This is a big, free public airshow put on at Dobbins Air Reserve Base/NAS Atlanta. I almost didn't go because the guys at work told me the crowds would be insane. My friends guilted me into going and I thought...hey...stop being a crybaby, you can handle a crowd. On my way to meet everyone for lunch before the show, I got a text from Rich. You cannot just drive onto the property where the airshow is. You have to park at either Lockheed or Whitewater and be bused over. Rich's text message said that it took his family an hour and a half just to get on a bus. I told everyone at lunch that I was not going but they stole my purse and would not give it back until I agreed to go. We lucked out and as we drove onto Lockheed property, we were directed to drive onto NAS Atlanta property and park at Hanger 5. We only had to wait 15 minutes to get on the bus. Now, the airshow was just on the other side of the base but this involved driving off the side we were on, driving around to the other side and then sitting in a line of busses...which equated to another 45 minutes.

We walked around, met up with Rich's parents, met Joe's "friend" Michelle, watched some planes and decided to leave before the Thunderbird finale was over so we didnt have to wait for a bus. What a disaster the exit was. They had three large "areas" for people to gather in order to get on the right bus. The "areas" were poorly marked and crowd control was basically zero. There was no designated stop for the buses so they just stopped wherever the soldiers told them. More than once we were at the front of the line, then they would move the bus stop and we'd end up towards the back. We ended up splitting up our group just to get on a bus. It took another hour and a half for us to make it back to the car. I realize they probably had more people show up than they planned but crowd control was just a joke.