A Day At The Circus-- The Flying Circus!!!!!

There is a Flying Circus in Bealeton, VA, which is pretty close to where we live.  They do shows each Sunday between the first Sunday in May and the last Sunday in October unless the weather is bad.  We went to see the show today and it seemed that due to upper air conditions, the weather was apparently too bad to run the whole show, but they did put on a scaled down version.  The good thing about the show being scaled down is they don't charge admission!   

1943 Silver & Black Stearman.  This is the only plane actually owned by the Flying Circus.  All of the rest are pilot owned.  

It was pretty cool to see these old planed flying in formation and not crop dusting which is pretty much what every bi-plane I've ever seen was doing! 

This 1939 WACO UPF-7, flown by Mike King, is one of 14 purchased by the U.S. Army Air Corps to determine whether the Waco or the Stearman would be used by the U.S. Army Air Corps and the U.S. Navy as a trainer. 

The Flying Circus started as The Flying Circus Aerodrome in 1970. 

If your brave enough, you can go for a ride.  

John Corradi in his Waco ZPF-7 (Which saw Army Air Corps service in 1942-1944) signals he is ready to go.  

These guys drove out on the airfield and put the balloons up for the pilots to hit.

The pilots get into formation to take off.

1946 Piper L-16 “Sweet Sixteen”, flown by Johnny Corradi demonstrates the “Air Mail Bag” pickup. 

Success...

Balloon strike.

The six bi-wing planes return from their precision flying.

Stearman "No Bucks - No Buck Rogers" flown by Dave Brown.

John Corradi's WACO ZPF-7 

WACO ZPF-7

Stearman "No Bucks - No Buck Rogers" flown by Dave Brown.

1941 Stearman “Inverted Roberta" flown by Rick Conn.

Mike King's WACO.

 Mike King's 1939 WACO.

We will definitely be back to see the full show.  They do other things each Sunday also.  Today was a classic VW show also but that's a blog for another time......