Pacific Airshow, bigger than ever, ready to rip in Huntington Beach
The United States Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jets are debuting at the Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach this weekend.
Kevin Elliott, the founder and chief executive of event operator Code Four, expects thousands of fans to be excited by that news.
“It’s been the No. 1 comment we’ve gotten on social media for all of these years,” Elliott said. “When is it coming? When is it coming? And now it’s here. Yeah, really stoked about that.”
Elliott, local officials and media attended a military aircraft kickoff event Thursday afternoon at Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos.
The three-day Pacific Airshow launches Friday at 10:30 a.m. at the beach, continuing Saturday and Sunday until about 4:30 p.m. each day.
The F-22 pilots are stoked to be performing in Surf City for the first time.
“This air show is known for being one of the biggest in America, in terms of spectator size, but also just one of the best, well-run air shows,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Samuel “RaZZ” Larson, from Davenport, Ia., who will be piloting one of the two F-22 planes at the show this weekend. “It’s just in an iconic location, being over Huntington Beach. It’s very popular amongst military and civilian performers, with all of those aspects tied in. We’ve been trying to get here for years, and we’re thrilled we got to finally get here.”
Larson said spectators will see the world’s first fifth-generation fighter showcased, with aspects like thrust vectoring and super-maneuverability.
“They’ll see a controlled flight spin, a tail slide where we slide backward, back flips, cartwheels,” Larson said. “Things that no other combat aircraft can perform. While we’re doing all of those moves, since we are an over-water show here, we’re going to be dispensing flares out of the jet. We think that adds a lot to the show, and at 70,000 pounds of thrust, it’s also the most powerful jet in the inventory.”
Col. Brandon Tellez, who grew up in Brea and Huntington Beach, returns to Orange County this weekend as part of the F-22 crew that calls Langley Air Force Base in Virginia home.
“Seeing the beach from that perspective, that’s a new look at my hometown,” Tellez said. “And golly, it looked beautiful, I tell you what”
The F-22s will join familiar headlining air show performers like the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and Canadian Forces Snowbirds.
Gates are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day for ticketed areas, and the Pier Plaza Festival area is open until 8 p.m. throughout the show.
Tickets are $25 for general admission, $50 to $75 for pier seating and $199 to $299 for premiere club tickets. To encourage the element of surprise, a schedule for each day is not available on the show website but will be given to those who sign up for the Pacific Airshow’s newsletter.
The Pacific Airshow has been in the news a lot this year for other reasons, as the city settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit with Code Four in May. Elliott, a Huntington Beach native and resident, had sued last fall after the final day of the 2021 air show was canceled due to an oil spill. Though the city settled, a lawsuit against then-Mayor Kim Carr remains active.
Current Huntington Beach Mayor Tony Strickland has said saving the air show from going elsewhere has been his top accomplishment as mayor, and he reiterated that during his remarks at Thursday’s event. But full terms of the settlement have not been released, leading Ocean View School District vice-president Gina Clayton-Tarvin to file a pending lawsuit against the city and City Atty. Michael Gates.
“The air show is really for everybody,” Elliott said Thursday. “I’m just a community guy. I didn’t even go to City Hall to so much as pay my water bill before I got involved with the air show … To be thrust into that situation where it became very political was uncomfortable.
“We’re still suffering a little bit of that reputational damage as a result of the oil spill and all of the politics around it. But I’m focused, and our team is focused, on putting on a bitchin’ event, right? I think ultimately, that will go away, and I’m really excited for that to go away so we can focus on this event and making it as [great] as it can be.”
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