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Most people will be at the Patriots Rally West in S.F. at noon or freeping Davis in Pasadena at 5:30 but this will give you something to day dream about when the assorted socialists, anarchists, and mafioso start to blur your vision.

Chuck Yeager kicks things off with an F-15 mach 1 boomer, later a B-1 will cast its own boomer across the desert and echoing off the mountains. Peace through strength.

Students to fly historic B-17 as training test.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE -- Test-pilot students training to test the Air Force's next generation of aircraft will get a chance to fly one from three generations ago -- a B-17 Flying Fortress.

The Air Force pilots are expected today to take turns flying the 57-year-old bomber named Aluminum Overcast in a session worked out as part of the bomber's visit to Saturday's Edwards Air Force Base air show.

Just finished with a weekend visit to Van Nuys Airport, Aluminum Overcast will be at Lancaster's Fox Field on Thursday to take people up on half-hour flights -- at $350 or $390 a person. The plane takes seven people up at a time, and at least one flight is booked. People can take tours of it on the ground Saturday at Edwards.

Aluminum Overcast is owned by Oshkosh-based Experimental Aircraft Association Aviation Foundation. Built in 1945, the airplane never saw combat in World War II and was sold as surplus in 1946. It was used as a cargo hauler, for aerial mapping and in aerial spraying.

A group of investors bought it in 1978 to restore it to military condition, and the investors donated it to the EAA in 1983. The plane is painted in the colors of the Army Air Forces' 398th Bomb Group, whose veterans helped finance its restoration. The original Aluminum Overcast was shot down over France in 1944.

Static Displays: B-1, B-52, C-12, C-17, CH-46, CH-53, CV-22, F-15C, F-15E, F-16B, F-16C, F-117A, F/A-22, Global Hawk, JSF, KC-135, T-3, T-38A, T-38C, T-39, U-2, Vista.

H-3, NC-141, SR-71, T-46, YA-7, YA-10B, C-9, C-141, CF-18, CT-33, Dauphin, LAPD, T-1, T-6II, T-37, UH-60, B-52, B-747, DC-8, ER-2, F-15, F-18, X-43, X-45.

AF Stearman, AT-6, B-17, B-25, C-46, C-121, CAP 182, Casa Jet, Drakken, F-6, F-8, F-86, Hawker Hunter, L-19, L-39, L-29, MB-326, Mig-15, N9M Flying Wing, Navy Stearman, P-38, P-51, RocketLongEZ, SBD Dauntless, T-6, Yak-18.

Air Show Acts B-1 (will also do a sonic boom in the afternoon), B-52, C-17 Cargo Drop (beer rations?), F-15 (Sonic Booms for Opening Ceremony), F-15E/F-16 Fighter Attack Demo.

F-117, KC-135, Marine Helicopter Demo, T-38, Test Parachute Team Demo, A-10 Aerobatic Demo, C-141 Cargo Drop (frozen mango marguaritas?), F-18 Aerobatic Demo.

Golden Knight Parachute Team, Navy Leap Frog Parachute Team, AT-6 Texan, Aerobatic Glider, F8F Bearcat, Marine Helicopter, Mig-17, N9M Flying Wing, P-51 Mustang.

I got a chance to meet both Gen. Yeager and Gen. Engle while stationed at Edwards in the late 70's. Chuck attended a dinner at the Officers Club in honor of a balloon team that had just crossed the Atlantic for the first time or something like that (Abbruzzo and company?), and I got his autograph on my student pilot license thinking that some of the Right Stuff would rub off (it didn't). Also saw him when he took the Budweiser Rocket Car for a spin on Muroc Dry Lake when they were attempting to break the sound barrier with it. Sorry to hear that this is the last time Chuck will be flying a military aircraft, but I guess when you are just shy of 80 years old maybe it's the right time to hang up the g-suit (God bless you, General Y; fly safe). Also met then-Col. Engle when he knocked on my door at Desert Villa BOQ wearing his orange Space Shuttle zoombag and handed me a dress uniform that he had borrowed from the bird colonel living next door and asked me to hold it for the colonel's return. While he was there, I got him to autograph a color glossy of him and his shuttle crew. Ahh, this posting brings back memories of those good old days at Eddie's Pea Patch ...