TICO Warbirds Airshow Set For 38th Annual Event In Titusville, Sure To Thrill Audiences
By Go Port Canaveral // January 24, 2016
AIRSHOW STARTS MARCH 11
BREVARD COUNTY • TITUSVILE, FLORIDA – Florida’s Space Coast has a historic connection with aviation that stretches back more than half-a-century.
The region is, after all, home to the Kennedy Space Center, and it is one of a handful of places you can see a real space shuttle.
The Atlantis is on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex. Nearby, a less famous, but just as impressive display of aviation history is open to the public at the Titusville Warbird Museum. It’s worth an hour or two of a cruiser’s time to see.
Every year for the past 39 years Titusville has been hosting the annual TICO Warbirds Airshow.
In 2016, it happens from Friday, March 11 to Sunday, March 13, and visitors will get the chance to thrill to the formation flying of both the Air Force and Navy demonstration teams, as well as private stunt flyers and performers. It’s an impressive display organized entirely by volunteers.
The all-volunteer Valiant Air Command is dedicated to preserving military aircraft and has created a museum whose collection takes up two hangers at the Space Coast Regional Airport. It contains 45 aircraft, and a few of them still fly regularly.
It’s history that still lives and the scent of hydraulic fluid and aviation fluid brings it alive in a way that most museums can’t manage.
Nearby, a less famous, but just as impressive display of aviation history is open to the public at the Titusville Warbird Museum. It’s worth an hour or two of a cruiser’s time to see.
It’s an impressive display organized entirely by volunteers.
The all-volunteer Valiant Air Command is dedicated to preserving military aircraft and has created a museum whose collection takes up two hangers at the Space Coast Regional Airport. It contains 45 aircraft, and a few of them still fly regularly. It’s history that still lives and the scent of hydraulic fluid and aviation fluid brings it alive in a way that most museums can’t manage.
The non-flying collection may no longer take to the skies, but it is still pretty impressive anyway. It’s most famous resident is probably the F-14 Tomcat, of Top Gun fame. Another impressive airframe in their collection is the F-5 used in supersonic NASA experiments.
Planes from other nations include a Luftwaffe Me-208, the F-86 Sabre’s opposite the Mig-17, and a Mig-21 in Czech Air Force livery. Aircraft from the First World War are also on display like a Fokker from the First World War, which somewhat inevitably is painted red in imitation of the Red Baron.
What makes the Warbird Museum so special is that all of the aircraft have a history behind them. The aforementioned TICO Belle did not only fly on D-Day. The names of her crew, the positions they served in, where they were from, and where the plane took off from are all on the record.
There is a similar story behind each of the aircraft at the museum. For instance: the odd-looking F5 in the collection was part of a DARPA experiment in altering the shockwave of sonic booms by changing the shape of a plane’s fuselage. It makes for a history lesson that’s alive in a way that no documentary on a screen ever could be.
In addition to the aircraft, the museum also hosts a collection of uniforms, medals, flags and other interesting military memorabilia like typewriters and other period equipment. The organization behind the museum, the Valiant Air Command, has also hosted an airshow for the last 37 years. In 2016, it returns in all of its low flying, pyrotechnic glory.
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