Tag Archives: Burlington

Heritage Flight Museum May Fly Day

I was planning to head up to Skagit for the May Fly Day at the Heritage Flight Museum anyway. As it turned out, I had been talking with Rich at COAP about the trip he was leading and, when he asked if I would like to tag along with their group, I said yes. They had been working with the Museum and arranged some opportunities to shoot from locations that normal ticket access wouldn’t allow.

The team at COAP and the team at the museum were super helpful and friendly. Add to that, the weather was great and the combination of aircraft they were able to put up was excellent so, the day was set to be a bunch of fun. It did not disappoint. I have shot at the museum fly days before but, sometimes, the planes I was after didn’t fly and sometimes the conditions weren’t ideal. On this occasion, everything came together. I did play around with my shots trying to get more dynamic images. The high vantage point we had available helped with that too.

I took a ton of shots and culled them heavily. The result was a few shots I was particularly happy with and it was nice that the museum shared a few of them on their social media platforms too. Seeing the Skyraider fly is always cool but the day was a trainer day and they put up some great trainer formations. The conditions were a little bumpy but they made a good job of it and there were shots to be had. I look forward to the next time I am up there.

Yak With Gear Issues

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The opening fly day at Skagit County included a bonus in the form of a visiting Yak 3. It arrived early in the day and then started up to be part of the flybys. On one of the passes, the gear did not look fully up and then, at some point while it was off to the east, the gear door came off the plane. Fortunately, it didn’t cause any serious issues and the pilot was able to land safely.

When he taxied in, it was easy to see that the door was missing on one of the legs. I wondered how long the plane would be down for but I understand it ferried home later in the day to allow them to sort out the repair. Plenty of planes have lost gear doors over the years. As long as they come away cleanly and don’t damage any systems as they depart, things will probably be okay.

Heritage Flight Museum Fly Day

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I made a trip to the Heritage Flight Museum last year for one of their fly days. I only shot from outside and that was quite good fun. This year, I made the effort to get up there earlier to take a look around inside before the flying started. Once I got inside, I decided that the location was worth staying inside for given that I could watch the planes start up and shut down and also get the best of the low passes.

Sadly, the Skyraider was not signed off to fly but everything else put on a good show. We had flying from the T-6, an O-1, a pair of T-34s and a P-51. They all flew more than once (except the O-1) and the location on the ramp provided a great place to watch the start JP, taxi out, flybys and the recovery process. I was even able to be in the shade for a lot of the time which made for a very relaxing day.

They flew some formation flybys including a missing man formation. Then the individual planes would do a series of passes. Having shot a similar day from outside before, being inside did provide a good opportunity to try different things. Outside has angles to offer but inside gives some shots that can’t be matched including the lower passes. Besides, watching them taxi by at such close range is really cool. I hope to get back up for another of their fly days this year. I also need to explore the museum in more detail.

Stealing A Composite Idea

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Quite a while back, I saw a shot that someone had composited of a Typhoon display over an airfield where they had the jet throughout its routine to show its route through the sky. I liked the idea and, while it was totally different, it got me thinking when I was up at Heritage Flight Museum. They had the Skyraider on the ramp but not flying. It was ready to go but hadn’t yet been signed off.

However, they did do an engine run for the visitors and unfolded and folded the wings a few times. Having got some basic shots, the idea of the Typhoon display popped in to my head so I shot a sequence of shots of the wings as they folded and unfolded. I took way more than actually was a good idea. I imported them all in to Photoshop as layers and then hid all of them except one and then progressively added some back to get the wings in different positions. If I had used them all it would have just been a blur of wings.

With the ones I wanted selected, I changed the blend mode for all but the base layer to Darken and that meant the dark wing elements overlaid anything brighter behind them. The result was a composite with multiple wing positions all showing at once. I think it came out quite well. I thought I might have issues with hiding things I didn’t want to or having to much movement between shots but that wasn’t a problem in the end.

Heritage Flight Museum Fly Day

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Thanks to my friends, Bob and David, I became aware one Saturday morning that a fly day was underway that day up in Skagit County. The Heritage Flight Museum was going to have a few planes flying so I made a quick change of plans and headed up there. The conditions were a bit overcast so not ideal but it was still worth a look. There were a few of the regulars up there too so it was a chance to see some people I hadn’t seen for a while.

Of the various warbirds that they had flying that day, the A-1 Skyraider was the one that was of most interest for me. It was the only one I hadn’t seen at previous events so I was keen to get a chance to photograph it. On takeoff, it seemed to be trailing a fair bit of smoke. Since it was recently off overhaul, this concerned me a bit but it seemed to clean up as they flew for a while so everything seemed to be fine.

There were straight passes across the field from various formations followed by some arcing turns over the museum ramp individually. I backed up the road a bit to try and get a bit more of an angle on the planes as they ran across. It would certainly have been nicer to have a bit more light on them but it was still good fun to be shooting something different. I’m very grateful to the guys for giving me the heads up.