Air Show
05 December 2011 | over the main beach of Mazatlan
Connie
We took our beach chairs, and hopped on the bus, eager to see the air show over the main beach. Sat. was practice between 12-3 and Sun. was the show from 12-3. On Sat. we sat in the sand, under a shade palapa, and enjoyed the nice weather and beautiful view while we waited and waited and waited to see some planes. Finally (almost 3:00) 3 Cessna's showed up trailing smoke and did a few manuvers, then flew away. That was it! Oh well, it's Mexico. I guess no one else needed to practice. We really didn't expect to see the Blue Angels! We would return on Sun. with hopes of seeing more of an air show.
On Sun. we again took the bus to the Malecon/beach and this time it looked more promising as there were crowds of people and the street was blocked off for the traffic. There were shaded bleachers set up and loud music blaring. We got there about 1:00 and were dissappointed to find out that we had missed the Cessna's. I guess they were on time (unusual in Mexico). But, then there were ultra lights and hang gliders on the beach and they put on a show for us. There were also motorized para sailers which were basically a man hanging under a parachute wing with a big fan strapped to his back! The ultra lights did some loops and spirals. An ultra light towed a hang glider so he could get up high, then when he got released he did 2 big loops and didn't quite pull out of the second loop in time and hit the water pretty hard near shore. We were happy to hear later that he was alright. The ultra light took off the beach with 2 men on it and when it got up high one jumped off and free fell for a while before opening his parachute wing and glided down doing turns and landed on a big bulls eye painted on the beach. The show ended with the Red Cross helicopter being put through it's paces. It swooped back and forth along the beach, hovered low over the water, went straight up fast, slipped sideways, and showed off all it's moves.