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As a smiling 11-year-old, Josh Gunderson was elated to get his picture taken with an F-15C Eagle West Coast Demo Team pilot during the 1998 Tampa Bay AirFest at MacDill Air Force Base.

The encounter set the trajectory of Gunderson's career path. A dozen years later, by coincidence, that same Air Force pilot — Capt. John “Screech” York — would help teach Gunderson how to fly F-15Cs during training in Klamath Falls, Oregon. 

And now, Maj. Josh "Cabo" Gunderson has returned to Central Florida as pilot and commander of the F-22 Raptor Demo Team. He'll fly the stealth fighter jet as the headliner of this weekend's Space Coast International Air Show in Titusville.

“It's the most maneuverable and most powerful jet that the U.S. military has for fighter aircraft. So you're going to see things that airplanes just aren't designed to do — you’ll see the airplane go up, and stop, and then fly backwards," Gunderson said.

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"You're going to see backflips. You're going to see, effectively, cartwheels. You're going to see a lot of cool stuff that other airplanes just physically can't do," he said.

"And what's really cool about our demonstration is that we don't modify the aircraft at all. What you see at the air show is a combat-ready F-22. All we’d need is the missiles and bombs and bullets, and we'd be ready to go," he said.

The Space Coast International Air Show takes place Saturday and Sunday at Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville. 

Tickets must be purchased in advance at spacecoastairshow.com or by calling 321-328-8686. Gates open at 9 a.m., and flight performances will start at 11:30 a.m. and wrap up about 3 p.m.

The air show will also feature the U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler Legacy Team, Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II Warthog, U.S. Special Operations Command Parachute Team and a lineup of civilian and military aircraft, including more than 30 planes parked as static displays.

Thursday morning, two F-22s with the demo team took flight from Eglin Air Force Base near Fort Walton Beach in Florida's Panhandle. They flew over Titusville to scout the air show vicinity, then continued south and landed at Patrick Space Force Base just before 10 a.m.

The F-22 Raptor Demo Team hails from Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Hampton, Virginia. The squadron performed on the Space Coast during last year's Cocoa Beach Air Show, which was headlined by the Thunderbirds.

In February, the Raptor team participated in a five-plane Air Force heritage flyover alongside a P-51 Mustang, A-10 Thunderbolt, F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-35 Lightning after the national anthem at Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles.

The demo team kicked off its 2022 show season in March at Tampa Bay AirFest at MacDill Air Force Base — marking a homecoming for Gunderson.

After graduating from Bloomingdale High School in Valrico, Gunderson attended the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He earned his pilot wings in 2010 and flew F-15C Eagles before attending an F-22 Raptor transition course in 2014. He also served two deployments to the Middle East, flying the F-15 and F-22.

1st Lt. Kurt "Blitz" Klinkmueller serves as safety observer with the F-22 Raptor Demo Team. He described what it's like to fly the fifth-generation stealth fighter.

“Takeoff: accelerate to 500 miles an hour by the end of the runway. And then go straight up to 20-plus-thousand feet in under a minute. It's crazy," Klinkmueller said.

"I feel like I'm in a rocket, almost," he said.

Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1

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