Planes, history on display for Armed Forces Day

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Maryland (CNN) -- An unusual fly-by and the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift were part of the ceremonies held Friday and continuing on Saturday at a major open house at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a letter to visitors published in a program handed out for "Armed Forces Day," noted it was June 1948 that "the U.S. and her Allies extended a lifeline of support to the people of West Berlin."

The airlift was in response to a Soviet blockade against the divided city of Berlin, which was located within Soviet-dominated East Germany. Relief supplies continued until Stalin called off the blockade nearly a year later.

In that time, the Allies made nearly 277,000 flights and delivered 2.3 million tons of supplies.

Armed Forces Day, which is normally celebrated on the third Saturday of May, recognizes the country's military service. Military aircraft from World War II through the present have flown in for a display on the tarmac next to the main Andrews runway. Watch military aircraft swoosh by at air show »

Rain washed out a scheduled parachute jump Friday by the "Golden Knights" precision skydiving team, but the skies cleared for a while and an air show was held for invited military guests and schoolchildren.

An unusual-looking fly-by involved three jet fighters surrounding a little propeller plane. That was not an ordinary single-engine aircraft; it was the famous P-51 "Mustang," from World War II, and the pilot was able to maintain a tight formation with the more modern jet warplanes.

"We call it our Heritage Flight, where we fly with a P-51, an F-4, today was an F-22, and an F-15 'Strike Eagle,'" said Capt. Phil Smith, the pilot of the F-15.

Smith explained that the jet fighters slow down, and the propeller aircraft runs almost at its limit to stage the formation. "We are almost all the way back," he told CNN after the flight, "If we pull the power back any more, we start falling out of the sky a little bit."

One of the most dramatic flying demonstrations Friday involved the F-22A "Raptor," the newest fighter in the Air Force fleet. In a solo demonstration, the pilot held the aircraft vertically and nearly stationary in mid-air, held aloft by the sheer power of jet thrust.

The Navy's Blue Angels also flew on Friday for the select crowd. An airshow will be held on Saturday with weather conditions believed to be favorable for flying.

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