Gwen Stefani music played just outside the exit to the large white tent while Maj. Rich Kletschka made his pitch for equations.

“I’ve been telling the kids, you know that math you probably don’t like?” said Kletschka, a member of the Aeronautical Systems Center housed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. “This is where it gets fun.”

Kletschka was showcasing a cockpit simulator in the technology tent, one aspect of the Air Force Materiel Command’s Freedom’s Call Tattoo event on Friday, June 26. The event, held on a large grassy area on base grounds throughout the evening and night, served as a mix of entertainment for free-admission guests (expected to number about 75,000) and education on the base’s operations and outputs.

Aside from the Honor Guard performance, concert by country music artist Aaron Tippin, fireworks display and fly-bys from a variety of aircraft, the technology tent served as a de facto show-and-tell as personnel manned booths to explain their slice of Air Force operations.

The long line of spectators viewed displays from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, the Human Effectiveness Directorate, the Air Force Research Laboratory and more to learn about their operations on the base.

Sitting in front of Capt. Aaron Stumpf, for instance, were models of various fighter jets and bombers designed by base personnel.

Stumpf, a member of the 312th Aeronautical Systems Wing, explained the example of the B-1, designed to drop nuclear bombs. It has since been modified to monitor air space and be useful for multiple attacks.

The explanatory tables served as the education portion while visitors were entertained by music and fed by 35 vendors spread throughout the field.

“It’s a thank you to the community,” event director Dave Egner said. “We put out a lot of noise and traffic, but we want to be good neighbors, too.”