Here's how Rod Gier got into the airshow business: Back in February, 1972, someone called him up and asked him to make a bomb. Gier, a special weapons expert in the Marine Corps during the Korean conflict, agreed. "That was during the railroad strikes, you know," he says. "I had a lot of good connections with the FBI at the time. The strikers were blowing up tracks and bridges and so forth."

The call came from the manager of a small airport in Titusville, FL. Then, a few months later, came another call. And another. "One led to two, two led to three and so on," said Gier, during a telephone interview with ANN. Gier is one of the two or three full-time pyrotechnic vendors booking dates at the International Council of Air Shows Convention in Las Vegas this week.

Gier loves to "see things come apart." When he was first approached to build pyrotechnics for air shows, he already had a demolition company in Florida. "Air shows became a sideline," he said. "Then, one day, it became more than a sideline." His company, Mad Bomber, still uses explosives to demolish buildings and such, "but now, that's the sideline."

Gier says his operation is environmentally friendly. "We don't use cardboard boxes or garbage bags. That just leaves all sorts of trash at the airport when you're done. When we leave a site, that site is as clean as it was when we got there."

Mad Bomber does about 15 shows a year all over the United States.

FMI: Madbomber@mindspring.com