My primary reason for attending Oceana was to see first hand and document one of the last times that we will see the venerable F14 Tomcat fly.

VF31 (Tomcatters) are the last operational squadron flying the F14, and they are due to retire the Tomcats on Sept 22/23.

It tuned out to be quite an emotional weekend, with VF31 performing in the Fleet Flyby and showing off the great lines of this majestic machine.

After landing, the 4 ships taking part taxied down on the closest taxiway to the crowd, lined up and lowered their nose gear (as they would before a catapult launch) and bowed to the ecstatic crowd Felix Rules!

Later on Saturday night at the Beach Bash, a lone F14 performed a full 360 turn followed by a vertical climb to god knows what altitude - all on full afterburner. The huge crowd on the boardwalk were cheering and yelping in respect.

There were almost as many large white lenses down on the boardwalk than there were at the air show! What a weekend.

Personally for me the show was about the F14 but there were plenty of other things to be happy about.

First up the parachutists - now normally people don't pay that much attention, but they had both the US Black Daggers and the British Army Red Devils jumping at the same time. Unfortunately for the Black Daggers the Red Devils showed them up big time on each jump.

The BD would all jump, form up and land - the RD would jump, perform a stack and then fly the last 100-200 feet at amazingly fast speeds, before flaring for perfect landings. This was to be the way all the jumps went - including the nighttime jump on Friday, where a couple of the RD had hundreds of glows-sticks attached - looking like stick-men.

Things were pretty much the same at the beach bash on Saturday night. A roped off area was set-up on the beach, with a couple of cars pointing inwards to light up the DZ.

1st up the BD jumped and landed to the delight of the large crowd. Unbeknown to them, as the BG were landing the RD were jumping. Again each and everyone of the RD landed at simply amazing speeds, bang on target, and the crowd was going crazy.

Back to the air show - it was pretty much non-stop and a great weekend with interesting aircraft both in the static and flying.

Best flying display (apart from the F14's) was the F15 and F86 piloted by Dale "Snort" Snodgrass (who has the highest hours in the F14 ever).

A close second was the F104 Starfighter and the Blue Angels.

Interesting static? U8 (Beaver) of the Navy Test Pilots School had a rare showing and it was nice to see the unglamorous C2 Greyhound.

Did I mention Fencecheck? Did I? I met so many great people from Fencecheck - Larry, Andy, Paul, Liza, Roger, Bloke, Dave (Mr. Tomcat), Meatballs and many many others that I have forgotten the names of. A great organization to be part of with great people - thanks Roger and Liza.

Also thanks should go out to Troy Snead and Regina Wright from the PAO - thanks for all your help in getting on base.

And last but by no means least Commander Erie "Corky" for organizing the air show of course - all expectations exceeded!