I am sitting in my hotel room in Dayton, Ohio, here for the 2007 Vectron Dayton Air Show and am a little confused and saddened.  Confused because the room comes complete with coffee, and a selection of ‘fine tea’.  I thought I would take the opportunity to sample this tea and to be honest am quite dissappointed.  They have both English Breakfast and Chamomile teas and are both ‘fine’alright … served in tea bags as ‘fine’ dust particles.  These have to be the worst tea bags I have ever seen!  Wow.  The chamomile is the same consistency as the powdered English Breakfast (memoirs of matcha really). 

So I am left to sip my memoirs of matcha el-dusto tea as I think about the air show and how quickly life can be taken away. 

You see, earlier today a stunt pilot was killed performing with another bi plane an act referred to as ‘Mary’s Lamb’.  I was with family up close to the runway at one of the corporate pavillions, and had my Canon DSLR w/ 75-300mm zoom lens when the pilot was pulling out of a downward spiral he was performing.  The plane smacked into the runway as he tried to pull up and immediately caught fire.  I think it was the oil pan underneath that caught at first, then shortly afterwards the entire plane shot up into flames.  I could see through my camera that the pilot, Jim LeRoy, wasn’t moving at all, and I can only imagine the intense heat that was generated by the fire.  The fire department came a few minutes later in my opinion a few minutes too late- they took way too long.  He was pronounced dead at the hospital, although it was clear as day that he did not make it after the plane ignited.  *sigh*

The weirdest thing was that it felt surreal and that I had the strangest feeling that something bad was going to happen minutes before hand…even though the Dayton Air Show has been accident free for 30 years.  It was just one of those bad feelings, and I can’t really describe it.  Most of the pilots are staying at our hotel tonight, and the whole place just has a subdued and somber feeling here.  It’s sad tragedies like this that really puts life into perspective.