Pilots dazzle crowd with aerial tricks

When asked what his favorite part of the Air Fiesta Show is, Hunter Guadiana mimics the sound of a jet fighter plummeting through sky, dipping his hand through the air for emphasis.
“I like the explosions and the dog fights (between planes),” 8-year-old Guadiana says, sitting on his father’s shoulders.
More than 7,500 spectators gathered at the Brownsville-International Airport Saturday for the kick off of the 20th Air Fiesta Show. Families set up lawn chairs throughout the airport grounds and got a close up look of F-16 Fighting Falcons, A-10 Thunderbolt IIs and a massive
C-130 military transport aircraft on display.
This year, the airport also had something more to celebrate. At the show’s opening ceremony, Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz announced that the Federal Aviation Administration would grant $3.5 million to the Brownsville-South Padre Island International Airport. The funds will be used to rehabilitate its taxiways, he said.
But the highlight of the day was the rumbling of World War II vintage war birds, the shrieks of jet fighters and, as Guadiana put it, the “Kabooms.”