Great State of Maine Air Show

EAST HARTFORD - Randy Edsall walked into the interview room after he had gotten the kind of call that saves seasons, and, before saying a word, accidentally sent a tape recorder flying off the lectern and onto the floor.

"Oh, sorry," Edsall said. "I'm not nervous or anything."

If Edsall and his UConn football team go on to a bowl game, go on to find a spot on the beach in late December, they'll lie in the sun and thank the officials in this game for their bronzed bodies. Then again, if the Huskies don't do anything with this hair-raising 22-17 victory over Temple, well, you'll know they had a road map to mediocrity all along.



The Huskies were 291/2-point favorites Saturday at Rentschler Field. And after they made it look so easy, so simple on their opening 51-yard scoring drive, it looked like 291/2 might have been a little low.

Opponent No.1, Duke, had lost 22 in a row before winning Saturday. Opponent No.2, Maine, is an unranked Division I-AA program or whatever they call I-AA nowadays. Opponent No.3, Temple, has lost 26 of its last 27. The grass at the Rent, which had fallen apart against Maine last week, held together pretty well in this game, and in some ways that might have been the worst news possible. That meant they would have to play this one, and it was going to be an interminable bore.

And then it wasn't. Suddenly, it was beyond scary. Suddenly, UConn was looking at one of the worst losses in its I-A history.

Maybe the Huskies didn't heed the warnings of their coach. Maybe Temple is better than awful. Maybe UConn isn't as good as hoped. Whatever the reason - the rest of the season will provide that answer - the Owls had the ball at the UConn 11. It was fourth down and 6, 50 seconds remaining, Temple down five.

Before we go one sentence further, I've got to say I thought it was a Temple touchdown.

The fact that it didn't turn out that way wasn't the most egregious mistake in college football history. Not even close.

I still say it was a touchdown.

Edsall had a sniff of what the Owls might call. We'll call it a sniff because to get the full glory of the daring call you've got to breathe deeply. Temple quarterback Adam DiMichele called the play a "halfback toss, reverse pass to me."
BRUNSWICK― "I might have to ask you to pull that brake lever," said retired Marine pilot Art Nalls.

Background: I'd sat in the back of the room while the crew chief for The Blue Angels briefed my coworker, Rachel Ganong, and two other reporters about what they were about to experience.

Because I was on hand simply as Rachel's alternate, my only shot of going up in a jet Wednesday was supposed to have been if Rachel accidentally tripped and twisted her ankle or something. So while I heard the Blue Angel briefing, I wasn't writing down details in my notebook.

A thrilling experience for the 'Plan B' reporter― Times Record reporter Seth Koenig flies upside down Wednesday somewhere over the Maine coast in an eastern European-made training jet.

BRUNSWICK ?The aeronautical acrobatics of the Blue Angels didn't disappoint 7-year-old Allison Fish of Old Orchard Beach.

Their performance at the Great State of Maine Air Show on Saturday included high speeds and thrilling maneuvers such as rolls, inverted flying, crossovers and knife passes.

The spectacle had Allison jumping with excitement as she waved to the pilots with one hand and muffled an ear against the loud noise with the other. She said she liked how the precision flight team got so high up, they were near the clouds.

"I got so scared. It was cool," said Allison, who told her parents, Chris and Raina, that she wanted to return for today's show.

The headline act of the show was well worth the wet weather and wait for many spectators. Earlier, dark clouds and rain around the Brunswick Naval Air Station made air performances uncertain. The weather eventually cleared, allowing some of the acts to go on.

Organizers initially expected more than 200,000 people at the two-day event. But the bad weather meant sparse crowds for much of the day, although their numbers grew by the time the Blue Angels wrapped up the performances. John W. James, a base spokesman, estimated between 20,000 and 30,000 people attended Saturday.

James said a record crowd could be on hand today because good weather is expected. He said bicycling to the base is encouraged to avoid traffic.

The show could be the last in Brunswick. The Navy base is due to close in 2011. The air station has applied to bring the Blue Angels back next year and is expected to know the answer in December, according to Chief Petty Officer Luis Luque, an assistant public affairs officer.

Saturday morning, aviation buffs braved soggy conditions to attend. They took shelter under umbrellas, beneath the wing of a giant cargo plane and sometimes under overturned camp chairs held over their heads. Slickers and ponchos were the norm.

Mary Hudnall of Peabody, Mass., waited through a downpour in a virtually empty section of reserved seating. A former Navy flight nurse, she was part of the team that evacuated wounded troops from Iwo Jima. "I thought it was my duty to help my country and help the boys with my medical experience," she said.

As the rain increased, some sought protection inside the C-5 Galaxy, which the pilot, Lt. Col. John Bonomi, said was the military's largest cargo plane with a length of 220 feet and a capacity to carry 300,000 pounds of cargo.

Rob Merrill, an electrician from Sanford, said he would stick it out through the end of the day.

"I love watching the Blue Angels fly," he said. "The maneuvers, the speed and just seeing how well they perform."

Outside the base, a group protested. About 50 people gathered in downtown Brunswick in the morning, marched toward the base and held a rally.

Doug Rawlings of Farmington, a member of Maine Veterans for Peace, called the show an example of the insidious militarism in the culture.

"To use as entertainment the weapons of war is absolutely disgusting," he said.

For participants in the air show, the event is about recruitment as well as entertainment. Branches of the military had recruiting stations on site, and the show's announcer encouraged attendees to visit them. The Army drew people toward their station with a virtual reality combat game. The Navy had a flight simulator with footage that would make passengers feel like they were riding with the Blue Angels.

Josh Varney, a junior at Windham High School, said he hadn't thought about the military as an option before but was now gathering information.

"Just today we've been talking about it," he said.

Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at: akim@pressherald.com



More or less, the crew chief for perhaps the most polished and well-known aerobatic team in the world told Rachel to do a couple of body exercises in the cockpit to avoid passing out, that there were a bunch of controls that she shouldn't touch and to "enjoy the ride."

The Blue Angel pilot would eject her in an emergency, take care of anything dangerous and, as far as I could tell, serve her an in-flight meal of low-calorie vegetable soup if she wanted.

So when Brunswick Naval Air Station Public Affairs Officer John James managed to finagle me a ride with another stunt pilot performing at this weekend's Great State of Maine Airshow, I initially assumed my ride would be similar.

In walked Art Nalls, an immediately likeable man in a dark green flight suit and red T-shirt. His white hair was slightly unkempt and he spoke with a friendly southern drawl. The name "Kaos" appeared on his breast patch.

If Rachel's pilot was Brad Pitt, mine was John Wayne. If Rachel's was Superman, mine was The Punisher.

He matter-of-factly mentioned that one time the front controls for his L-39's brakes didn't work and he had to have the passenger stop the vehicle on the runway before it collided with another taxiing aircraft.

"Since I've started briefing the passengers on where the back brake lever is, it hasn't happened since," Nalls said.

He began to assure me that his 8,000-pound tactical military jet― a slick, black and red dart of a plane― was "capable of flying with no hydraulics, capable of flying with no engine..."

I'd never been in a tactical aerobatic jet, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be reassured that, if the engine goes, we'll probably be OK.

Eventually, though― after hearing about how the cockpit isn't exactly "attached" and that if we have an emergency, I'd need to take care of ejecting myself― I pulled on my dark green flight suit confident that the Navy wouldn't let me do anything that would probably kill me.

Once in the air, Nalls kept commenting on how great the weather was. This weekend will be his first appearance at the Great State of Maine Airshow, but our state seems to have won over the Washington D.C. resident.

It was indeed sunny out, but I was too distracted by the fact that we were spinning around on an axis to really comment on the weather. He let me take the stick and perform an "aeleron roll" and then we visited some beach-goers in Phippsburg, whipping by at 280 miles an hour close enough to the coast that I half expected seaspray on the cockpit window.

During a couple of simple tricks, I went from hanging upside-down in my harness― my rear end feeling completely detached from the seat― to hitting 3.5 Gs and feeling like my seat was sucking me in.

"This is not like a rollercoaster," Nalls told me beforehand. "This is not like any other ride you've been on. I've been doing this 30 years and I still can't describe it."

Edsall coached with Temple offensive coordinator George DeLeone, a UConn graduate, at Syracuse. He called DeLeone a great coach and a good man. He also is a guy whom Edsall says likes a certain play.

"George likes to block the tight end for about five seconds, roll very hard right and then let the guy slip out and go to the back," Edsall said. "We thought we'd probably get one of those. We practiced it. We also worked on the toss and throwing it back. They added a little wrinkle to it in terms of giving it to the receiver and letting him throw."

DiMichele pitched right to Jason Harper, who then pitched the ball on a reverse to wide receiver Dy'Onne Crudup. Crudup was a quarterback at Hyde Leadership in New Haven, and he was going to get his chance to show it. How wild would it have been for a Connecticut kid to beat State U. on this crazy play?

Crudup sent the ball into the end zone for DiMichele. Safety Robert Vaughn tipped the ball away, only it wasn't away enough.

"Robbie has to understand the situation a little bit better," Edsall said. "Take the ball and knock it out of the end zone. Don't even try to catch it. Don't tip it in the air."

So the ball continued to the back of the end zone and - voila! - into the hands of Temple receiver Bruce Francis. Back judge Larry Orrico ruled the pass incomplete. Well, I believe it was Orrico. It's his call, but I can't say for sure, because head referee Tom McCabe of the Mid-American Conference would offer no explanation. He offered a no-comment.

That's weak. McCabe has to do better than that. A horde of media didn't descend on him. A couple of pool reporters asked him. It was done the right way. This wasn't an argument, or even a debate. It was fact-finding. The public deserved an explanation of the call on the field.

Francis kept one foot inbounds and that's all you need in college. Replays showed three angles, and that much is clear. The question seemed to be if Francis had control of the ball before his other foot hit out of bounds.

So the whole matter, the outcome of the game, went upstairs to the Big East-appointed replay officials.