New look 'Hoosier Hoopla Air Show'

Billed as "Lake County's first air show," the high-flying event took place Aug. 6, 1988, at what was then called the Gary Airport. It featured the U.

S. Army Golden Knights Parachute Team, the Holiday Inn Aerobatics Team and other stunt plane performers. Tickets sold for $6 at SportMart, Carson Pirie Scott and Holiday Star Theater, according to a Times story.

"The purpose was to highlight the importance of the new Gary Airport," recalled 84-year-old Judith Root Stiles. She was among of group of Region residents who helped promote that air show before it became so popular in Northwest Indiana. "We heard that a group in Valparaiso was planning one at their airport and we convinced them to move it to Gary," Stiles told me.

"My personal memory was going up with the U.S. Army Golden Knights and watching them jump out of an airplane.

" I have a similar memory of going up with the famed and fearless Golden Knights during another air show years later. "Ready, set, go!" U.S.

Army Staff Sgt. Brian Karst yelled over the deafening engine noise. The team's Fokker F-27 military plane repeatedly circled the sky as the flight's crew chief gave hand signals to the team, telling them the ever-changing wind speed and direction.

The pilot kept circling around "wind drift indicators" that were tossed out a few seconds earlier. A few minutes later, team members would launch themselves from the aircraft like human kites. I interviewed them while taking notes in the back of the plane near two gaping o.