D-M's open house comes to a close

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Michael Washburn
  • 355th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  The rise of the sun on the morning of April 16 marks the close of the 2012 D-M Thunder and Lightning over Arizona open house. For two days, D-M opened its gates and allowed the public a chance to see its military might.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn't want to cooperate with the open house.

The open house started with poor conditions. Rain, cold weather and high winds were the major villains in what would have been a nice Tucson day. With the bad weather, attendance for Saturday took a hit. Roughly 30,000 people came out, far less than expected. The wing walker, the Wings of Blue parachute team and the hang gliding performance were all cancelled due to the wind.

"Saturday was rough with low attendance due to the weather," said Maj. Keith Wolak, 355th Fighter Wing open house director. "Our base did a great job braving the weather to host our guests and the performers did everything they could to put on a great show despite the winds."

By the time Sunday rolled around, the base was sunny, warm and completely packed with visitors. More than 100,000 people came out to witness the aerial demonstrations and see static displays up close. None of the scheduled performances were cancelled and they all went off without a hitch. Overall, the open house was a great success.

"Sunday was an awesome day with perfect weather, a good attendance and incredible demonstrations by all of our performers," Wolak said. "Everybody seemed very pleased and we received great feedback from our event."