Tag Archives: F/A-18

Hornet After Dark

The Canadian Hornet that was at Chino was the last display to fly during the sunset show. (We had a long discussion about whether it is a CF-18 or a CF-188 during the down time but that can be saved for another day.) The aircraft taxied out as the sun was just getting close to setting. We were thinking this would be the perfect combination. Taking off before sunset would allow us to get some shots of it in the low sun when it would look at its best and the, as the sun finally set, we would get the glow of the burners against the darkening sky.

AU0E0401.jpgSadly, they decided to hold their departure until after the sun had already set. I think this was a missed opportunity. It did mean, though, that things were really dark by the end of the display. This was a time that really testing the capabilities of the camera. I was shooting at very high ISO settings in ranges that I would normally avoid. However, getting the shot sharp is better than having a low noise shot that is blurred.

AU0E0345.jpgThe aircraft pulled off the runway pretty aggressively and the burners really showed up nicely against the runway surface. The display itself was fine but the camouflage of the commemorative scheme was a bit tricky in the conditions. The finale of the display was the landing with the hook lowered. The Hornet touched down and the arrestor hook dragged along the runway surface leaving a bright shower of sparks behind it. The effect was pretty dramatic! I talked to one of the maintenance technicians later about it and asked how many of those they could do. One landing is enough to kill the head of the hook. He did say that they are easy to replace and that he had brought five of them on the trip. A neat way to wrap up the show.

Canadian Battle of Britain Hornet

AU0E3110.jpg1940 was a tumultuous year in the UK. While the war had started in 1939, 1940 was the year in which it came home to the British. The German air campaign was supposed to be softening up the defenses ahead of an invasion. Things turned out differently as a consequence of some valiant defense, some great pilots and aircraft and some strategic blunders by the Germans. As a result, Operation Sealion was cancelled and the UK remained out of German control although still subject to constant bombardment.

C59F1716.jpgSeventy five years later, there are many celebrations planned to commemorate the Battle of Britain. Many air forces participated as part of the Royal Air Force with squadrons being operated by crews from individual countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Canada. Canada is marking the anniversary in many ways but one is decorating a CF-188 Hornet in a special scheme.

C59F1730.jpgThe paint finish is replicating a Hawker Hurricane from 1940. The colors are reproduced and there are even red marking on the wing leading edge to represent the locations of the gun ports on the Hurricane. It also carried commemorative markings to recognize those that took part in the battle. I was lucky to see the jet at Chino. It flew after sunset on the Friday and then as part of the main display on the Saturday. The sunset show concluded with it dragging the hook along the runway in a shower of sparks!

AU0E3097.jpgThis jet will appear at a number of venues throughout the year. If you can see it, do try and make the effort. The RAF has a Typhoon marked up similarly and I am sad that I won’t see that. This is a great alternative for me.

C59F1726.jpg

Planes of Fame Review

C59F8630.jpgAfter a period of relative inactivity, I have been a bit busier recently on getting material together for GAR.  After a piece on the tenth anniversary of the first flight of the A380 and a review of Dream Machines at Half Moon Bay, I had my first real show of the year.  I took a trip down to Chino for the Planes of Fame show.  This was the first time I had been to this show, despite the fact it is one of the highlights of the airshow calendar.

AU0E1828.jpgThe piece went live on GAR recently and can be found at this link.  http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2015/05/12/airshow-review…e-airshow-2015/.  Meanwhile, here are a few shots that I liked from the event.  I will say how much I enjoyed the access you had at this place and it was a very pleasant change not to be herded out as soon as the flying stopped.  It was also a lot of fun to hang with Mark, Kev and Jim.  Their company made a good weekend great and also meant I didn’t miss the sunset show!  Cheers guys.

AU0E2874.jpg

Blue Angel

wpid9133-C59F7796.jpgA surprise visitor at Boeing Field timed his arrival perfectly.  I had just pulled up at the field when I saw something running in on the approach at speed and not descending.  This had the look of a military break.  I didn’t have the camera out but, fortunately, given that it looked like they would break downwind to land, I had some time to grab the camera.  Sure enough, it was an F/A-18 that broke overhead.  More interestingly, it was a two seater from the Blue Angels.

wpid9131-C59F7780.jpgI was ready by the time it was on the approach and managed to get a few shots as they landed.  They then taxied over to Clay Lacy’s FBO and parked up.  Not sure what they were in for but it could involve the planning for Seafair later in the year.  Whatever the reason, a nice surprise.

NAS Oceana

The recent ISAP symposium took me to Norfolk VA.  It is a short drive to Virginia Beach and NAS Oceana – the home of the east coast fighter squadrons for the US Navy.  The field trip for the symposium was going to include a visit to Oceana but, since I was there ahead of the event, I decided to pay a quick visit after my arrival.  A slight delay due to travel complications and then the passing through of a pretty significant storm meant I was a little later than planned but no great problems resulted.

The weather was not great so the light was a bit sparse.  Combined with a cloudy sky, photographing grey jets is always a challenge but I was meeting up with a friend from FenceCheck.com who lives locally so there was always time to chat even if nothing was happening.  However, after a pretty quiet period, a few more jets got up and started flying.  I was supposed to be leaving to go and pick up a friend from the airport but the storm that I had come through was not alone and his inbound flight was significantly delayed.  Therefore, I had the time to see what else would fly.

The activity kept going for a bit was the light was fading fast and my ISO settings were getting higher and higher.  Since the time to pick up my friend was now approaching, I decided to pack up my stuff.  Another jet arrived as I did so.  This didn’t bother me until I realized it was one of the CONA painted aircraft so the kit was rapidly extracted again and a few shots taken.  Then it really was time to go.

Thanks for the advice on the spot to those concerned and also for the chance to catch up.  Maybe not the most ideal conditions but still a fun way to kill an hour or two.

Bye Bye El Centro

You might have thought that we had covered El Centro enough.  Nah!  The day after the photocall, I was planning to head across to San Diego.  However, I didn’t have to be there until lunchtime and it is only a couple of hours drive to get there.  Since I was going to be up early, why not finish of the time at El Centro with one more visit to the base to shoot from outside.

I wasn’t going to be there too long but there was the probability of an early launch wave and they would recover before I was going to depart.  I got there early enough for some of the first launches and was the first visitor.  I was going to be joined by some of the friends from the photocall and there was a second visit scheduled by another group for that day so the attendees for that were likely to show up before too long.

We did get a similar bunch of traffic to the previous day with waves of T-45s heading out as well as some F/A-18s doing their thing.  I got to cover the first wave without any trouble and then quietened down around the time I was planning on leaving.  However, leaving proved to be a bit more troublesome than I would have expected.

Some of the people that arrived for that day either hadn’t been before to the location and/or were not very thoughtful when it comes to accommodating those around them.  The location is alongside a drainage ditch with a drop off to a lower level which then has another ditch beside it.  There is space to park along the ridge and leave space for other vehicles to get past.

Sadly, some of the new arrivals hadn’t bothered with that concept.  When it came time for me to leave, the easier was out – since there were poorly parked vehicles both ahead and behind – was actually backwards.  Reversing around the parked cars on the top of the ridge was hardly fun and then reversing the remaining length of the ridge was also less than enjoyable.  It wasn’t difficult but the presence of water on one side and a drop on the other tends to increase the level of concentration.

Anyway, despite the thoughtlessness of a few, I did make it out and got a good start to the day.  Sadly, I should probably have hung around a bit longer since my next stop didn’t go quite according to plan – but that can wait for another post.

More El Centro Stills

The main purpose of the visit to El Centro was to shoot still images.  I have previously posted some of the shots from outside here and some video from inside here but the real purpose was the stills on base.

Michelle Dee and her team at El Centro are very progressive in their approach to allowing photography on base.  They organize regular visits for photographers where it is possible to shoot from right alongside the runway at the LSO shack.  This means the aircraft are touching down right beside you and launching past you in close proximity.  This provides a chance for some shots that are not the norm.

Such access is quite unusual but the success of these events is hopefully persuading other facilities that it can be done safely.  A big part of this is having people on the shoot who understand what is possible and what is not and following those rules.  Everyone is ready to self-police as well.  Besides, the location is so good, where could you possibly be that would be any better?

Anyway, enough of the description.  Thank you again Michelle and team and thanks to Kevin for setting things up from our side.  Great to see you again buddy.  Here are the pictures.

 

 

 

 

El Centro Video

We were kindly hosted by the team at NAF El Centro for a photocall.  I will post later with some of the shots from the visit to the base itself.  However, one of the things I wanted to do this time that I learned following my previous visit to El Centro was to shoot more video.

I was still going be predominantly shooting stills but the motion and proximity of the aircraft is hard to appreciate sometimes from a still image (a failing of mine as a photographer of course).  Video gives you more of a  sense of the activity.  Therefore, I took a GoPro with me to the day and mounted it on top of my camera on the hot shoe.

This had the advantage of allowing me to shoot video at the same time as stills.  It did have a couple of disadvantages.  One is that the sound of the shutter clicking is picked up by the camera on the soundtrack.  When the jets are close it isn’t too bad but when they are further away, it becomes more intrusive.  Second, the GoPro is fixed at quite a wide angle so it makes everything look a little further away than it is.  However, this is an add-on to my normal shooting so both compromises are worthwhile.

I did shoot a small bit of video with one of the SLRs and it probably won’t be hard to spot which bit of film that is when you watch.  I didn’t bother with any music since I think the sound of the jets does a pretty good job.  Here is the result.

El Centro Preamble

In a previous post, I mentioned that I was heading to NAF El Centro in California for a photo shoot.  The main part of the shoot was going to be on the base.  It was due to commence at noon.  That left a free morning.  El Centro has a couple of good locations off base where you can photograph the aircraft and one is better suited to morning shooting since the light is good for departing aircraft and those breaking into the pattern.

I was ready for an early start and got out as the early departures were underway.  Not only was this a good spot to shoot from, it was also a good gathering spot for some of us going on base later so it served multiple purposes.

There was a fair amount of morning activity.  The majority of traffic was from T-45 Goshawk from NAS Meridian who were deployed to El Centro for training.  The local ranges provide opportunities for basic weapons training but other missions as also flown including some field carrier landing practice (FCLP).

Hornets and Super Hornets from the west coast training squadron were also operating and provided a regular stream of departing and arriving traffic.  The Canadian forces were also operating Hornets from the base.  They tend to depart reasonably straight out and break into the pattern a little early but sometimes come into a good location for shooting.  When they are weapons training, though, they always come to the end of the runway to make all weapons safe so we get a good view.  They had also brought a C-130 tanker with them which was a nice addition.

A couple of C-2 Greyhounds were practicing their pattern work to mix it up.  Helicopter traffic included some AH-1 Cobras from the Marines transiting and a British Army Apache although they stayed well to the south so were not something I could get any shots of.

All of this gave us an idea of what was on base and provided some good shooting opportunities from a different position to that we would get later in the day.