Tag Archives: Fighting Falcon

F-16s In Odd Colors

Sentry Eagle 2022 had a couple of F-16s on static display that had been painted up in special color schemes.  They were supposed to be throwback schemes but, according to those I know that know more about these sorts of things, there are some issues with the schemes that they chose.  I have no idea about such things but I have to say, neither scheme seemed to look that great to me.  They felt slightly cartoonish but I can’t come up with a better explanation what it was.

Getting shots of them both was not straightforward.  First, there were a ton of people around as they were central to the static displays for the show.  Also, the sun was very high and bright and they was a lot of contrast to deal with.  One of them was also close to a shadow from a hangar which made for even more contrast issues.  Since we weren’t staying on base for the full show, I only had a narrow window to work with.  It did improve just before we left, thankfully.

Gate Guards At Klamath Falls

The 173FW at Klamath Falls has flown a variety of types over the year.  One of the advantages of the base being open for Sentry Eagle 2022 was the chance to check out the preserved examples that they have.  There is a central avenue on base that is the location of an F-4, an F-15 and an F-16.  They are mounted on poles and in the colors of the unit.  The lighting can be a bit tricky depending on the time of day but there are ways of making the most of what you can get.

Each plane is set up in a dynamic pose as is appropriate for a fighter aircraft.  They are well looked after and there aren’t too many items on them that you would want removed, like spikes to deter birds from landing.  I was surprised how few of the visitors to the event actually came to check them out as they weren’t far from the main route to the ramp but it certainly made it easier trying to get some shots.

Shooting Under The Arrivals

When the arrivals at Nellis on on the 03 runways, it means a trip to Cheyenne.  This is not the greatest part of the world to visit but it is a feature of a Nellis trip.  The sun angles were still quite low while I was there so I decided to try shooting from further around the road than I have done previously.  For the planes coming in on the left runway, I had a reasonable sun angle on them.  For planes on the right, they were coming right over my head.

I quite liked shooting like this.  The planes have a surprising amount of variety in their line up angles when this far from the threshold so, while they are all coming close to you, it is not a repeat of the same shot every time.  Each pilot takes a slightly different line and some variation in elevation too.  You get something akin to head on shots and then it is a case of rapidly swiveling around to get a shot from behind.

There is a lot of fencing and trees along that part of the road so getting a clean shot of everything is hard to achieve.  However, it is still possible to get something a little different.  With the light angles being less than ideal, rather than worry about shots that aren’t going to be very usable due to either glare or shadow, why not get something a little different.  It does require some quick adjustments and it can get a touch noisy but it is still fun to try something a little different.

The Light Comes Back At The End Of The Day

The weather at Nellis was definitely not playing ball for the majority of my time at Red Flag 22-2.  However, as the recoveries from the afternoon exercise were completing, some of the regular base traffic was getting ready to launch.  Nellis is a bit like Seattle (hear me out) in that, even when the weather is a bit crappy in the afternoon, there is a good chance the light improves later on.  This proved to be the case on my first full day there.

As the later jets were launching, the clouds had cleared up a bit and there was some nice low angle sun to be had on the aircraft as they headed out.  I had gone up past Gate 6 at the Speedway to be in place for any Flex departures and this proved to be a good spot.  Some of the jets turned a little beyond me but gave a better top side view while other turned a bit earlier and were almost heading overhead where I was.  The light was better than anything I had got earlier in the day so it worked for me.

Honolulu Military Traffic

While sitting at the terminal at Honolulu waiting for our flight home many moons ago, I was staring out of the window at the traffic arriving and departing.  Being in a different area meant plenty of different airlines as well as the more familiar ones.  I created a post a while back that included some of the more usual operators.  However, the airport shares a runway with the Air Force base.  When you are on final approach, you get to see some of the fighters in shelters.  It also means that some military traffic might arrive.

A bunch of F-16s started appearing as they rolled out after landing.  I don’t know whether Hawaii was their destination or just a good stopover as part of a Pacific crossing.  They weren’t making the journey unsupervised though.  A KC-10 was dragging them across the ocean and it soon showed up too.  I guess the last refueling was the cue for the F-16s to put in a burst of speed to get in first with the “Gucci” following them home.

Fort Worth F-16s

Ahead of an ISAP symposium many years ago, my friend Richard had arranged a visit to JRB Carswell at Fort Worth.  As well as being the home of the Lockheed Martin assembly plant, it also hosts the 301st FW of the USAF Reserve with their F-16s.  They were great hosts and we got to spend a bunch of time around the base.  On their ramp space, we had a lot of freedom to shoot them prepping for missions and heading out.

We also got to go to the EOR and see them come in after their missions and have the jets safed prior to taxiing back to the ramp.  Being close to the jets while they are doing real work is such a different experience to seeing them at an air show when things are all a bit more contrived.  This was a new experience for me at the time and so I was following the example of a few of the other guys when looking to see what sort of things to get shots of.  It was a great learning experience and a bunch of fun too!

Edwards F-16s

Another day, another retro post.  I am pleasantly surprised by what I find as I go through old shots since I am not able to get any new shots while we are all self-isolating.  In this case it was a visit to Edwards AFB that was a pre-symposium trip ahead of an ISAP meeting.  I think Richard was the one that organized it all.  Anyway, the Edwards test fleet includes a bunch of F-16s.  Some are from the test pilot school and some are test program assets or chase planes.  There was also a Danish jet that was supporting the F-35 program.

We got to hang out on the ramp as see the jets under the shelters as well as get up close and personal as they were heading out for a mission and recovering.  We later went out to shoot near the runway which was fun but not ideal from a shooting perspective because of heat haze.  Who would have thought the Mojave Desert would have heat haze!  Still better than a day at work of course.

Here are a bunch of shots from that day.  I haven’t been through most of these for ages so it is interesting to see what upgrading them to the latest editing algorithms of Lightroom can do for the processing results.  I have yet to find one that doesn’t look better with the new processes applied.

Odd F-16 Vortices

With a sharp LERX, the F-16 regularly pulls a nice vortex on each side as it maneuvers hard.  Getting a shot of that is not a surprise.  However, I have recently been slowly making my way through shots from RIAT (months after the event) and I was working through some shots of the Belgian F-16 display.  I came across a shot of the jet pulling and rolling, taken from astern of the aircraft.  I noticed a second, smaller vortex trailing from the tail plane.  It appears that, with differential tail for the roll, there is a vortex coming from the tail plane – possibly at the route.  This pleases the old aero guy within!

Smokewinders Not Smoking

My F-16 shots from RIAT didn’t just throw up vortices (like this post).  They also showed something that seems to be a common occurrence in flying displays.  That is the failure of a Smokewinder to perform.  Smokewinders are a smoke generating pod that fits on a Sidewinder launch rail.  They are controlled from the cockpit and should add a nice effect to a display sequence.  The Belgian Air Force display aircraft was using them for its display.

In the early 90s we used them on the BAe company Hawk demonstrators at shows.  The crews had got to understand the workings of the pods well and knew what could cause them to quit during a display.  At one Farnborough, they actually helped out one of the other companies that was having trouble keeping theirs running smoothly.  I guess the problem hasn’t gone away and the knowledge is not widely shared as the Belgian jet lost one pod during its display.  In the shot above, you can see a small amount of flame emerging rather than the intended smoke and, a short while later, the pod quit for the rest of the display.

One of the Early F-16s

The early versions of jets are often repurposed throughout their life.  They serve a role for testing but they are not configured like production jets and to make them so is too expensive to be worthwhile.  Besides, they are instrumented to some extent so they can be useful for carrying out alternate tests.  As a result, they often get used for trials, research tasks or development of alternate concepts.  The early F-16s did a lot of this sort of work and ended up in some odd programs like the AFTI effort.  Sitting outside at the Frontiers of Flight museum is one of these test aircraft.  It spent its life with General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) at Fort Worth and, once it was done with, it found a new home at the museum.  Compared to the average F-16, this jet will have had a lot of interesting experiences!