Thunder Over Louisville
air demonstration and fireworks show
Posted April 22, 2007 by James E. Nelson
We arrived in Louisville on Saturday morning, had lunch at a quaint and historic neighborhood fish market, and then got checked in to our motel all in time for the start of "Thunder of Louisville," the annual kick-off to the Kentucky Derby celebration.
We were pleasantly surprised that our motel room was "riverside" instead of "cityside." We chose not to pay the extra $100 for a riverside view and reserved a "cityside" room. The motel was walking distance from the riverfront, saving us the cost of parking or bus fair to the event. But they gave us a "riverside" room on the 12th floor, so we got an excellent view of the activities from our room without paying the premium.
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| The Presbyterian Center on the Louisville river front. |
We spent an hour down at the riverfront watching the first part of the air demonstration, including the relatively new F-22 stealth fighter, a team of F-16 jets from an Indiana Air Guard Wing, and the Lima Lima civilian precision aircraft team. But there was a catch. We were in the shadow of the Presbyterian Center underneath the decking of the I-64 viaduct and between the 2nd Street and I-65 bridges. A big percentage of the action was happening behind the bridges, or other structures, so we weren't seeing it. We decided to head back to the motel.
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| Riverfront Park from where we were standing. |
Being Kentucky Derby festival, and given the fact that we were south of the Ohio River, we decided to stop into the motel lounge for a Mint Julep. (One can hardly go to Louisville in April or May without a Mint Julep and a slice of Derby Pie.) As we sat down, we realized that the air show was on television. We watched the next hour of the air show on the lounge's high definition television and got a much better view of the action than we would have down by the riverfront. It was double the fun because we could hear the jets roar past as we watched them on the screen.
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| AEGON Center. L'ville's tallest building. Photo taken from our motel room. |
After dinner we watched thousands of people hike by the hotel toward the riverfront and the ongoing air show from our hotel room. We realized we were going to get a better view of the festivities from the room than if we tried to worm our way back down to the park. The crowds were unbelievable, and it was clear from the television that all the good spots were gone. The initial crowd estimate (made shortly before dark) was 800,000 people, which is approximately the same size as it has been the last couple of years.
The air show (which started promptly at 3:00 p.m.) continued until 9:30. The Lima Lima group returned as it was turning dark for a "lights on" precision flying display that was impressive. The planes were difficult to make out until they turned toward the motel and then their lights shown brightly in the sky. Below is a photo of the team coming out from behind the Central Bank towers. It's a long exposure photo, so the sky appears brighter than it was and the planes' lights are streaks. Once it was dark, a single stunt flyer took to the air, his plane shooting sparklers instead of smoke.
At 9:30 p.m. the $60 million, 28 minute fireworks display, which the producers claim is the largest fireworks display in North America, began. It was staged from three areas. There were two groups of barges to the east and west of the bridge that were shooting essentially identical fireworks, and then there were the fireworks shot from the bridge. The one set of fireworks was hidden behind a building, but watching the fireworks explode behind the building was impressive in and of itself.
It was well worth the trip. I posted a 30 second video of a bit of the display on YouTube and that is linked below.
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