If you haven't already figured it out, the US military does things big, really big, like C-5 Galaxy big. During the first weekend of September, the Grissom Air Force Base upheld that tradition with their Grissom Air and Space Expo. The planes were big, the show was bigger, and the crowds were certainly to scale.

As I pulled up to the tail of the traffic entering the show Saturday, a groan came unbidden at the sight of the two-mile lineup. But never fear, military precision is real and the guardsmen and women at Grissom had us through the gate and in a parking space in under an hour.

Did I tell you things are big at Grissom? The walk from the parking area was big, the "paint booth" of Baldwin was larger than I've ever seen, and the altitude that the Golden Knights were preparing to jump from was certainly no small number! All of this just on the approach to the Air and Space Expo.

The sight that greeted us in the security line as we rounded Baldwin was pretty impressive as well. The tails of static displays jutting into the sky. AC-130's, a C-17, and a KC-10 from the local refueling wing all towering over a sea of tents and people.

Add the tail feathers AND the nose of the C-5 Galaxy to all the rest of the obstacles in the air, and there wasn't a safe place for a bird to fly in a straight line on the entire tarmac...except maybe through the belly of the beast. Not that it was too terribly safe for birds there anyway. With a dizzying array of aircraft flitting about the sky, it was a good idea to stay on the ground unless you were cleared into the air by the air boss. But the aerial work will have to wait for another article. Grissom is an aerial refueling base and they have a tarmac sized for it. As a result, on this weekend they had enough aircraft on static display to qualify as a combination museum and air superiority show all wrapped up into one.

The stars of the air superiority, of course, were the two F-35A Lightning fighter jets on center stage. Not that the Thunderbolts are anything to dismiss, after 47 years of keeping the ground cleared from high, and low, in the sky.

If you want ground support with a little bit bigger teeth, you need only have looked farther up the tarmac. Grissom is the first place I have ever seen these birds up close and personal. Guns sticking out the side make either variant look like a porcupine. As the saying goes, these planes were bristling with gun barrels. Each variant comes with a different name, but all of them come with a Howitzer in the side. And with the parting shot down a 105mm barrel, that concludes the air superiority displays at the Grissom Air and Space Expo. The next article will pick up with the historic aircraft and training aircraft that were on display, and a couple of grey fuel toting monsters that call Grissom home for good measure.