2006 Summer Heat Air Festival, Muncie, IN
17-18 June 2006

Each Father’s Day weekend , the Muncie Summer Heat Air Festival comes to the town of Muncie, IN to showcase the best in hot air ballooning and nightly concerts as well as a carnival and airshow.   The 2006 Muncie Summer heat Air Festival took place this year on 17-18 June 2006. 

Saturday’s event started with great weather and featured some of the best civilian aerobatic pilots in the world today.   With the US Army Black Daggers Special Operations Command Parachute Team opening the festivities with the jumping of the American Flag as well as a mass exit demonstration by the team while be circled by Skip Stewart in his Pitts.   Following a brief aerobatic teaser by Skip Stewart, the Red Baron Stearman Squadron performed their two ship aerobatic performance in their barnstorming aircraft.   

The Firebirds Aerobatic Team performed twice daily in their 2-ship Extra 300s and Tim Hawley also performed a great solo routine in one of the Firebirds Extra Aerobatic aircraft as well.   

John Black also participated in his Decathlon aircraft which was a great demonstration of the capabilities of this great little aircraft.   Along with great narration and crowd interaction, John kept young and old entertained each day during his demonstration.

The Army Black Daggers performed their Combat Equipment Demonstration Jump in the late afternoon to the delight of the nearly 10,000 airshow fans that attended the event on Sautrday.    Following the Daggers, Skip Stewart took to the skies with his style of aggressive and thrill seeking aerobatics that left the crowd in suspense during his 12 minute routine.    The day’s flying concluded with the crowd favorite Red Baron Stearman Squadron in their 4-ship of PT-17 Stearmans.    

Sunday started off extremely rainy but cleared just as the USAF B-2A Spirit Stealth Bomber appeared over the town on Muncie.    The magnificent aircraft kept everyone’s attention for the 7 minutes it was in the Muncie sky.   

Unfortunately poor cloud decks prevented the Black Daggers from jumping on Sunday, but all other performances went on as planned with the Sunday show a repeat of the show the day before.   Nearly 6000 airshow fans were welcomed to the Delaware County Airport on Sunday. 

Along with numerous carnival rides, there were nightly concerts at the airport including Tracey Byrd, Darryl Singletary, the Parrotheads, and Red Hot Karaoke.    There were also numerous classic car clubs in attendance as well as a craft fair and amusements.   

The airshow was just a small 4 hour a day part of the overall event that lasted nearly 16 hours each day.