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My One Chance With The Bones

Red Flag 22-2 included a detachment of B-1B Lancers.  The Bone is a cracking jet as it combines the size of a bomber with the shaping and engines of a fighter.  It is an elegant shape whether the wings are fully swept or not.  I have shot them at Nellis a few times over the years but I was still keen to get some shots of them on this trip.  Unfortunately, things did not quite go to plan.

They didn’t fly on the day that I arrived.  I had gone out in the evening for the night launch but they were not part of it.  The following morning, they launched a lot earlier than I expected so I was still at Cheyenne when they went.  My last day, they again didn’t launch.  That meant the recoveries from the early launch were my only chance.

Weather was not helping too much.  This was not just for the Bones.  It was pretty overcast for a good chunk of the afternoon.  The two jets came back in formation and broke into the pattern.  Thankfully, the arrivals were using the 21s and they were allocated to the right runway.  A pretty sporty pattern for a big jet combined with me having chosen a good spot by the Speedway meant that they were almost filling the frame as they turned on to final.  Some nicer light would have been great but, since this was all I was getting in daylight, it would have to do.

Do My Eyes Deceive Me?

Is what I am seeing real or is it a Mirage?  Sorry, pretty crummy pun usage.  When I was going to Nellis for Red Flag, one of the things I wanted to shoot was the Mirage F1s of Draken International.  It is a long time since I have seen an F1 – it was back when the Spanish Air Force was still flying them and they came to RIAT.  Now that Draken is using them for aggressor support services, I was keen to catch one or two of them.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long.  The first time I drove up to the base, a pair of the Draken jets were recovering.  I grabbed the camera as they came in straight towards me before going over my head.  I had not set up the camera as I would have intended but just turned it on and pointed it at the jets.  Not bad luck and some of the shots came out okay.

I did get a couple more opportunities.  These were departures at the Speedway.  In one morning I had a pair of them heading out without flexing.  The camo pattern they have is the same but the colors vary.  The black and white scheme was interesting.  However, I prefer the brown scheme and the last two jets I got to shoot before I headed to the airport were F1s flexing north.  Top and tail the visit with Mirages!

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.

Nellis Says Goodbye To The Original Eagles

It was recently announced that Nellis AFB has ended operations of the F-15C/D Eagles.  The Eagles have been at Nellis since the 1970s so this ends a long association.  The Strike Eagles are still based there and there will, no doubt, be F-15EX jets based there in the not too distant future but this was still noteworthy within the aviation community.  I have shot a bunch of based Eagles over the years including the aggressor jets.  They went a while back so I won’t include them here but here are a few of the Nellis jets over the years.

Back to Red Flag

It had been quite a while since I made a trip purely for aviation photography.  I may have managed to sneak some photo elements in to other trips but nothing just for planes.  I decided to go to Nellis for Red Flag 22-2.  I had skipped 22-1 because it clashed with some other stuff despite having some things I was quite keen to shoot.  German Tornados were supposed to be at 22-2 which I was keen to shoot but they sadly canceled before the event even kicked off.

Despite this, I still wanted to go.  A couple of days off work seemed like a good plan and it was a chance to explore the capabilities of the R3 on aviation subjects.  While the Germans were not attending, there were some foreign operators taking part.  Singapore had brought its jets – admittedly, they didn’t have far to come with Singapore having units at Luke and Mountain home – and Saudi Arabia had brought some F-15SAs.

Things were not as active as they have been on some previous Red Flags.  Not everything seemed to be flying in each wave.  The B-1s only flew on one of the evening and one of the day sorties of the two I was there.  Also, things seemed to happen earlier than is sometimes the case.  There were some long gaps in flying when I wondered whether something was up.  It was just a slow Flag I guess.  However, it was a good chance to hang around and photograph some jets.  I guess I can’t complain about that.

Spot the Shed

Sometimes, when in Nevada for Red Flag, I will head down to McCarran in the morning to shoot some of the airliners prior to heading back to Nellis.  This time, I barely went down that way.  However, I did see a movement that caught my attention.  There is a daily rotation of a Shorts 360 freighter from Phoenix up to Las Vegas.  I haven’t shot a Shed for a while and figured this was worth a look.

There is a viewing area along the south runway at McCarran but it was closed for COVID and hasn’t been reopened yet.  Short staffing means it is low on the airport’s priorities which kind of makes sense.  Consequently, I ended up scoping out a parking lot that would give me an alternative.  It was pretty hot and heat haze is always a concern plus I didn’t know whether to use the long lens or the zoom.  I used a couple of jets coming in before to decide what to do and also stuck the polarizer on to cut the light down to get better shutter speeds for the props.  Then the box on wings came on to the approach and I grabbed some shots.  If you had told me 30 years ago I would make an excursion to photograph a 360, I would have laughed.  Now they are rare enough that is exactly what I do!

Random B-2 Spirit Shot

I was working through some shots and came across a sequence a little before a bunch of shots I have used a lot in the past.  It was of B-2s on approach to Nellis just before sunset.  I had some clear shots of them in the distance including as the gear was traveling.  Here is one of those shots.  I just liked it and thought I would share it here.

Red Flag Night Launches

Adobe periodically updates the processing algorithms that are used by Lightroom and Photoshop. Each update provides some improvements in how raw files are processed and it can be good to go back to older shots and to see how the newer process versions handle the images.  I find this particularly useful for images shot in low light and with high ISO.

I have some standard process settings I use but have also experimented with modified settings for use with high ISOs and the higher noise levels that come with them.  I got to some night launch shots from an old Red Flag exercise and had a play with the images.  The E-3 launch was actually as the light was going down but it still had some illumination so it didn’t need much work.

The KC-135 and B-1B shots were a different story and were at high ISOs and with very little light.  I was able to update the process version and apply some new settings I had worked out since the original processing and it resulted in some pretty reasonable outputs considering how little light there was to work with.

Some Nice Flexing

Departures over the Speedway are best when they flex.  The straight out departures are fine but not that exciting and they often get pretty high pretty quickly.  Those jets that flex seem to stay a bit lower and provide a more interesting shot.  The later in the day it is, the better the light on a flexing jet.  If they are doing an evening departure after the Flag participants are back, the conditions can be ideal.

Here is a selection of jets in both good and okay lighting.  If a four ship goes out, you hope for the last jet to be more dramatic since it will be playing catch up with the others and shoot turn in a bit tighter.  The fourth Saudi F-15SA was another story though since he went very early and then straightened up before having another go inside us.  Not sure he had been paying attention at the brief!