Lots Of High-Flying Action At This Year's Fort Lauderdale Air Show
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - It's one of the stars of the show, the Stealth F-35 "Joint Strike Fighter" will be featured during this weekend's Fort Lauderdale Air Show.
At the controls of the military's newest aircraft, Capt. Kristin "Beo" Wolfe. She tells us this plane is ready for action.
"These jets have either gone to combat or are about to go to combat any day and have every single thing that you would want to take to war in them. That's pretty cool. It's not like we dumb them down or do anything different to make them not combat-ready," said Wolfe.
If you are going, expect to see some pretty spectacular moves in the air.
"We hope to give you guys a full high show, which is a series of high-performance maneuvers, high AOA's, angle of attack maneuvering, our slow speed passes at about 100 knots, the high-speed pass which near 700 miles per hour, just under the speed of sound. And a whole lot of loops, Aileron rolls, and stuff, just kind of crowd-pleasers," said Wolfe.
Keeping the plane in the air is Crew Chief Sr. Airman Malik McKenzie. He is a 2014 graduate from Nova High School in Davie. As a kid, he remembers heading to Fort Lauderdale Beach for the show.
"It's just super exciting to be able to tell people I used to come to air shows. As a kid and right now I'm partaking in the air show, I'm part of it," said Sr. Airman Malik McKenzie, F-35 Crew Chief.
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The show takes place on Fort Lauderdale Beach from Sunrise to 16th Street this year. There's a lot that's different, to keep this from being a COVID super-spreader.
"The premium viewing areas, we've sold less tickets than we normally would have and as far as the public side, you're going to have people come to the beach regardless. We're going to be enforcing people wear the masks and social distance," said show organizer Chris Dirato.
Aside from signs laying out the rules, organizers say you will also see lots of personnel in the crowd, making sure everyone's doing their part to follow the "stay safe initiatives."
