CLOVIS, N.M. (KAMR/KCIT) — The AC-130J Gunship, the MQ-9 Drone, KC-135 Tanker, and the Thunderbolt Demonstration Team are just a few features in the upcoming Wings Over Cannon Air Show lineup.
It’s the first air show at the base since 2018.
Get your popcorn ready!
Cannon Air Force Base will be rocking on April 22nd with the Wings Over Cannon Air Show, and they’ve got some pretty cool things on the lineup.
“The whole point of this is to open things up for the community, and expose the community to some of the things that that we get to see here every day,” said Col. Terence Taylor, Base Commander of Cannon Air Force Base. “We’re also bringing in the a 10 demo team. So that’s, you know, a bit of a faster-moving demonstration team, they’re going to be able to do some aerobatics and those types of things to get every you know, to to show off their capabilities as well. “
Ospreys, U-28’s, and some of the biggest cannons you’ve ever seen will all be on display, as well as an MQ-9 Reaper Drone.
“We actually fly it out of the ground control station,” said Captain Richard, an MQ-9 Reaper Drone Pilot. “So our cockpit that we fly out of is actually physically dislocated from the aircraft.”
He tells us the MQ-9 can serve in multiple capacities with a long range of flight time.
“We’re designed to be long endurance, though, so we can fly for pretty close to a full day. We carry a variety of payload payloads, we can carry hellfire missiles, we can carry bombs of the 500-pound variety,” he explained.
Another cool aircraft that will be featured in the show, you’ve seen it exclusively on KAMR Local 4 News, is the Air Force’s newest baby, the AC-130J Ghostrider Gunship.
“We’ve got a 30-millimeter, a 105-millimeter cannon,” said Major Riley Feeny, an Evaluator Pilot on the AC-130J. “That’s pretty much the reason that they call us the gunship. In addition to that the munitions we carry on this aircraft are hellfires, GBU 39’s as well as the common longitude munitions the griffin as well as the small glide munition.”
He told KAMR that the most exciting part about the performances is to, “show them what it’s like to be a gunner on the aircraft, show them what it’s like to reload the 105 and the 30 millimeter and sort of show us the high paced tempo it is whenever this aircraft is flying.
“It’s really cool to have the opportunity to really, truly show them what we do. Because I forget that not everyone speaks the lingo that I speak, and it’s really awesome to kind of give them that look into what it’s like to be an Air Commando and what we do on base,” he explained.
All of it is based on serving the community one aircraft at a time.
For more information on the Wings Over Cannon Show, click here.