Category Archives: publishing

Hawgsmoke 2014

Every other year, the A-10 community in the US Air Force holds a competition called Hawgsmoke. This year it was being held in Arizona. The aircraft were based at Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson and the Goldwater range complex was where most of the exercise was taking place. With the possibility that the A-10 might be taken out of service hanging over things, I was keen to get down there in case this was the last time the event would take place.

I covered the event for Global Aviation Resource so you can see the article I produced here. Rather than repeat that, I shall provide a little of the back-story. Arizona in July is not the coolest place in the world. Head out into the desert and it is even warmer. Get taken there in an Air Force bus which has air conditioning that doesn’t work properly and you will be pretty toasty. If the young guy driving the bus appears to be falling asleep all of the time, you are feeling a bit more alert than might otherwise be the case in that heat.

Our time on the range was a bit short. One of the TV crews from a local station obviously decided he had seen enough and told the organizers that he would miss his deadline if we didn’t leave. He had been given the same schedule as the rest of us so I suspect he was talking crap. However, while we were on the range for less time than expected, we still got a great experience of the A-10s running in to shoot the targets. The close proximity as they fired was something else as was their break over the top of us after each pass.

It was a good bunch of guys on the trip and we all headed out to shoot around Davis Monthan when we got back. This gave me a chance to get some more shots of the A-10s that would fill out the article a little. By the end of the day, I was shattered. I had been drinking liquid all day but I think I was just keeping out of trouble rather than being properly hydrated. Still, it was really worth it. A little longer and the benefit of the sun coming around would have been nice but it was still cool (but hot!). Below is some video that I shot for GAR while I was there too.

Dream Machines

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Half Moon Bay on the Pacific coast hosts a great little event each year called Dream Machines. It is a combination of an aircraft and car event. I took a trip with my buddy Hayman to see how it was this year. The weather did not start out favorably and it looked like it might be a bit of a dull day. The clouds early certainly stopped a few visitors from making it in. However, the weather got a lot better as the day went on and there were still lots of great things to see.

Dream Machines is not an airshow so there are no displays. However, some aircraft get airborne and might do a few flybys. I covered the event for Global Aviation Resource and you can read my coverage in more detail at http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/05/05/aviation-event-review-dream-machines-half-moon-bay/. There are a couple of sad notes associated with this day. The Sanders owned Sea Fury, Dreadnought, was at the event and departed in mid-afternoon. It was closely followed by a Cessna support plane. Unfortunately, en route to their base, they collided over the water and the Cessna was lost along with its pilot. Dreadnought suffered damage but returned to base. Also, as it was his home base, Eddie Andreini was part of the day’s proceedings including flying his Mustang. On the static line was his Stearman and this was the aircraft he was flying at Travis a few weeks later when he crashed on the runway and died. Both losses are very sad and our thoughts are with the friends and families and all involved.

Red Flag 14-2

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When things go according to plan, the USAF holds their Red Flag exercise three times a year at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas NV. Global Aviation Resource like to provide some coverage so, with the second event of the 2014 program taking place in march, I headed down to cover the event. I spent a couple of days down there. One day was on base as guests of the public affairs people at Nellis. They started out the day with an interview panel with a number of officers from different units and air forces. They were a good bunch and willing to answer our questions – well, most of them since they wisely avoided answering some questions that should never have been asked of them.

With the interviews over, we headed out to the runways. There are two runways at Nellis that are used together. We were able to stand between them and given relatively free range as to how far up and down we wanted to go. There are clear preferences as to which runway you want them to use based on the light. The launch took place around the middle of the day and they launched off to the northeast. In this case he light was best on the aircraft on the left runway. However, you have to do what you can for those on the right as well – often the aircraft you want to focus on. (There is a bunch of aircraft that you are told not to photograph. Often it takes a while to realize that what is coming is something you can’t shoot but most people seemed to play by the rules.)

When the recovery starts, they tend to use the opposite runways. By now the light has come around so you really want them to come in on the left. Sadly, a lot of traffic went to the right. If you had been outside, you would have got a good amount of traffic to shoot. When recoveries had wrapped up, we all got back on the buses and headed out. The second day I spent outside the base. This provides an opportunity to get a different selection of shots for the article. It also is unrestricted in what you can shoot so some of the stuff that was restricted while on base can now be shot for the coverage. Sadly, various things resulted in a lot of the recovering traffic going to the left. This would have been great if I was on base but sadly it meant a lot of interesting stuff was a long way off. Still, plenty of stuff came our way. With the Speedway building up to a NASCAR racing weekend, the crews had been told to keep it tight. Some certainly did that and came a lot closer to us than expected or even turned within us. It made for some interesting angles to shoot.

The finished article is available through the magazine we publish. You can find it here. Please go and download a copy if you haven’t already seen it. Aside from my work, there is a bunch of great stuff to take a look at.

Woohoo!

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I shall be a touch self-congratulatory here and celebrate something good that happened to me. Rotor Magazine held their annual photo contest and I entered a picture in the category Helicopters at Work. I am happy to say I won the category. The picture was in the edition of the magazine for Heli-Expo and was on show at the event itself. Many thanks to the guys at Midwest Helicopters. It was one of the shoots with them that the shot came from. I hope they are as glad as I am!

Gratuitous Self Publicist

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If you are searching through the TV listings for something to watch, take a look at Strip the City on the Science Channel. There are a number of episodes from different cities but take a look at the episode about Chicago. One part of the show features the bridges across the river and they include the Michigan Avenue bridge getting jammed open when the weather was too hot.

If you are a regular reader of this blog or a subscriber to my YouTube channel, the footage might seem familiar. Have a look here and you will see what I mean. This is one of a couple of projects where my video footage has been used. I guess video is a useful addition to the portfolio!

Wings Over Waukesha

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The Wings Over Waukesha air show was recently held in – you guessed it – Waukesha. I covered it for Global Aviation Resource and, rather than duplicate everything here, why not head over to their website to see the original piece. Here is the link.

Airshow Review – Wings Over Waukesha

What Are They Thinking – Or Are They Thinking At All?

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Something happened here in Chicago the other day and I thought a blog post was in order. I seriously doubt the volume of traffic this blog has will strike fear into the hearts of those concerned but I couldn’t let this go by without some mention. There are two main papers in Chicago. The Tribune and the Sun-Times. This week the Sun-Times laid off all of its staff photographers. Gone! In their place, the journalists are being trained to take better pictures with their phones.

I know, as a photographer, I am a bit biased here. However, I can’t be too far from the truth in thinking that is one really bloody stupid idea. I know the newspaper world is not a happy one at the moment but I am thinking this is not going to help them. Newspaper pictures have a tradition of illustrating a piece dramatically. That is because they employed people who knew what they were doing telling a visual story. I am not picking on the journalists who will pick up the slack here but will they be the ones to take on this skill as a result of a course on shooting with their phone? Will their focus be on getting a great shot or getting the information they need to write the piece. I imagine they have to get video too for the online version. Three jobs in one. Great value for money or three jobs being done half-assed (should that be third-assed)?

If you had seen a number of the positions disappear over time, you could imagine that they were cutting the slack out and working the remaining staff harder. This might even be construed as trying to maintain things on a smaller budget. however, when you just cut out the whole staff in one go, there is no way to view that as anything other than giving up on part of the story telling process. If telling stories is all you do, that really is the beginning of the end. I am sure that the paper will be more than happy to have readers send in their pictures and, if they are really lucky, get them printed for free! Hurrah! Lucky reader getting their work published for nothing and lucky rest of the readers getting someone’s free images instead of something more thought out from someone who has been doing this for a long time and knows what they are doing.

I don’t get the Sun-Times so I am not going to notice the difference. However, if the Trib follows suit, we are doomed. Someone has to maintain some standards. For a while, the Trib went downhill rapidly as some of its ownership issues got worked out. It was crap! There was virtually nothing there for a while. It has picked up again and the new owners seem to have given the team a bit more scope to make a decent paper. One wonders whether the Sun-Times will be so lucky. I do hope so. Once these institutions are gone, they won’t be back.

New Gallery

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For a while I have been looking at changing the gallery software I use on this site. The gallery is a relatively fixed part of the site. New images are included as posts are published but the gallery is relatively unchanging over time. However, the previous software I had used was based on Flash technology. A look at the demographics of those visiting the site shows that a significant number are now coming from mobile devices, particularly those running iOS.

Consequently, a large portion of the visitors would get nothing if they tried to see the gallery. This wasn’t something that I could accept. I have now introduce a new gallery that runs on html5 as opposed to Flash. Configuring it took a little work but it seems to be running now. Therefore, it is now live. If you click on Gallery above, you should be able to see the new format irrespective of your device. However, I don’t have the resources to try it on every operating system so please let me know if it doesn’t work on whatever you are looking at.

Thanks

Rob

Goodbye Zeppelin

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A little bit of sad news recently came through to me from the West Coast. Airship Ventures have ceased operations. They are a company that bought a new generation Zeppelin airship from the manufacturers in Germany and based it in the Bay Area around San Francisco. They provided tours around the Bay as well as operating further afield in the state. I got to catch up with them when they undertook a national tour that included a stop not far from Chicago.

I was writing an article for the website at Global Aviation Resource which you can see here. I also blogged about it here. There is an effort underway to rescue the business. We shall see whether they are successful or whether someone buys the assets at a discount and sets up something new. I hope it works out and wish them well.

Hello Fifi

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As part of her tour of the country, Fifi, the B-29 operated by the Commemorative Air Force was coming to the Chicago region. She was scheduled to appear at DuPage Airport, west of Chicago. I had been in contact with the team about covering the visit for GAR. This is something to be published soon so I won’t spoil everything just yet! However, it is safe to say that I did head along and meet up with the team and see Fifi flying.

She was scheduled to fly three times during the day with the first trip being in the morning. The layout of the main part of the airport meant that the light wold be bad in the morning but better later in the day. I found an alternative spot to catch her as she took off and got myself ready. Unfortunately, my brain was not totally in gear and I had one camera on the wrong settings. I did get lucky though and did not end up with frozen props in the shots, even if they are a little less blurry than I would like!

I then headed around to the approach lights to get her heading back in. It was very impressive to have a B-29 coming right over your head. I got the shots but did peak out the side to enjoy the experience – something that is a little lost some times when focusing too much on getting the shots. I was about to head back when I noticed a P-51 on approach too. A nice bonus. Then it was back to the airport to get the interview and some ground shots. A great bunch of people and a very interesting day.