The Westmoreland County Airshow 2023
Story and photos by Shawn Byers
It has been a few years since I was last at this Airshow at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport. The timing was such that I added it to my season roster enroute to Western New York for a family wedding. I attended Practice Day Friday and Airshow Saturday, June 16th and 17th, before moving up the highway. Weather was a mixed bag of sun, clouds and a heavy rainstorm on Friday. Our small group took refuge in the David Schultz Airshows equipment trailer.
Latrobe could be considered a suburb of Pittsburgh, about an hour’s drive to the city center. Surrounding the airport are lush treelined hills and Saint Vincent College making for appealing backdrops.
Obviously, the airport is named for Latrobe’s favorite native, Professional Golf Legend, Arnold Palmer. His formerly owned, Cessna Citation X landed on Friday. Latrobe has a single runway, 06/24 at about 8,200 feet. Sun angles are great until late afternoon as it moved to Airshow left.
LBE Airport remains open throughout the Airshow weekend. Spirit Airlines has multiple scheduled flights per day and Private and Corporate aviation is robust here with a couple of fixed base operators. There is a lot to aim your camera at that is just business as usual. Shop n’ Save is a major sponsor of the show and there are some interesting displays near the entrance like a huge shopping cart, a race car and a Batmobile.
A nice gesture that occurred early in the show was the flight of veterans flags over the airport in a T-6 Texan. Unfortunately, it was not a good photography moment as it took off well down the runway and the flbys were at high altitude over my location. The best shot I had of it was the pre takeoff runup.
Civilian acts included Rick Volker in his purple Sukhoi 26 M, Erik Edgren in an underpowered high wing Taylorcraft, the Alabama Boys comedy act with a Piper Cub and the Northern Stars Aeroteam with a 3 ship Pitts S2B routine. This was my first time seeing them. Precision Exotics was also present and could be seen and heard driving on taxiways and the runway.
Notable static aircraft, some of which arrived on Friday and Saturday morning were the lone flyable C-123 Thunderpig, a few T-6 Texan IIs from the Navy, a Navy T-44 (King Air), the colorful Air North DC-3, and an equally striking Air Force T-1 that I caught “Iceburgh” posing in front of.
Military acts were the USAF Thunderbirds, the U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey and I was excited to see the A-10 Warthog Demonstration Team. Unfortunately, the color bird was in maintenance so they brought two gray birds. Although Demonstration Pilot, Lindsay “MAD” Johnson is from Virginia, she knew where she was performing and waved the familiar Pittsburgh Steelers “Terrible Towel”. One was also covering the Head Up Display on a static, Navy T-6. Steelers fans are everywhere.
The Osprey performed the hover and landing maneuvers directly in front of my location which allowed for some slower shutter speeds. That was a treat.
The Thunderbirds closed the show as the sun began to creep toward the showline on the left.
This was a fun show with old and new friends and I want to thank and recognize Dwayne Pickles who handled my media request and dropped me off in a good spot Friday that I kept for Saturday. He is always a pleasure to work with.
