Oshkosh 2008 was the first F-22 demo I ever saw and will probably never see one like it again. It was not a scheduled part of the airshow and was ( I believe) an impromtu display by two airplanes that were enroute to somewhere else. One did a routine over the show line and the other was over and behind the flightline. The entire place came to a standstill, everyone rushed out of the exhibit buildings, nothing moved, everyone was gazing skyward. When one when vertical over the Red lot and stopped, went into a tail slide, I thought, this is it. The canopy will come off, followed shortly by the ejection seat but he just powered over into level flight and accelerated away. I was dumbstruck and looked around at everyone's jaws dropping. I've never seen anything like it. The angle of attack changes were just incredible to the point where there were vapor trails off the top of the canopy. And it was not a humid day. I don't think there will ever be another display like that because these guys pulled out all the stops. I don't think they followed normal demo pilot protocol but , Jesus Christ, it was GREAT!

An F/A-18 friend of mine came back to our campsite later and said" the era of F/A-18 air dominance is over. Every fighter pilot on the field must be hanging his head."