Tag Archives: Warbird

Stirring Spitfire Performance

In my younger days, I was all about modern aircraft and didn’t have much interest in warbirds. Over time and having been involved with a number of groups that operate these aircraft, I have grown far more interested. Being in the US, you get a lot of American vintage aircraft to see. In the UK I might not have been so bothered about Spitfires but, now I see them less often, they have become of greater interest.

The later model Spitfires seem less graceful to me but the earlier models have a simpler and more elegant appearance. This one was carrying out some flybys at Paine Field during the Open Day. The rumble of the Merlin is well known and common to the P-51s. The line of the Spitfire is unique, though, and seeing it swooping by was really quite exciting. What a great looking aircraft.

Wall of Fire Take Two

Leave a reply

While I was walking around the display line of the Airshow of the Cascades during the evening show, the Erickson collection’s P-38 was carrying out its display. I was in amongst a lot of people when the announcer told everyone to be ready for a special pass. My location was not great but I got ready as the P-38 ran in for a topside pass expecting the detonation of some pyrotechnics behind it. Nothing happened. The P-38 flew by and no explosions.

A short while later, the announcer had a second crack at getting us ready for the pass. Obviously the first pass had not worked as planned. This time the P-38 was coming in from the opposite direction. I also had a few moments to try and reposition myself to get a better view. This shot was the result. Some of my friends were further up the display line and got a different angle on the shot which was cool. Even so, I am pretty happy with this.

Erickson Aircraft Collection

Leave a reply

I attended a course recently that was held in Madras OR at the home of the Erickson Air Museum. This museum is a fantastic collection of vintage aircraft, some of which were used for the course, more of which will appear on this blog in due course. At various times while we were there, I had the opportunity to wander around the museum and see the collection. This included during the evening when a party was underway but which also meant they had some interesting illumination.

The majority of the aircraft are warbirds but not all of them. A Bellanca was present which is, to be generous, a most unusual looking aircraft. I would certainly have liked to have seen it outside had the opportunity arisen but that wasn’t to be. There was also a Martin Mauler which is an aircraft I had never heard of previously. It looks like a Skyraider but you could tell it was different. It was just hard to know what it was without checking the information on the display.

Madras is not on the trail for most people so I imagine the museum does not have a lot of people happening upon it. However, it is a nice facility with a great collection and a super bunch of people working there. If you like warbirds and vintage aircraft, it should definitely be visited at some point.

A2AX Workshop

Leave a reply

About a year ago I saw a ton of cracking images showing up online from friends of mine that had attended the Madras A2AX workshop. At the time I figured I needed to start panning on being there for the next edition of the workshop. It is run by Scott Slocum and Lyle Jansma at the Erickson Air Museum’s facility and their aircraft provided the subjects for the photo flights. Scott and Lyle were joined by Paul Bowen. Paul was not instructing but he did provide his own perspective and guidance on what we were working on and also could be relied on to show up with his camera whenever you were looking at your goofiest and to tell some hilarious tales of his various exploits.

I met some familiar faces and made a whole bunch of new friends. Various hurdles were thrown in the way of the team due to weather and serviceability issues but they adapted well and the team were intent on having a good time whatever was going on. It was a fantastic weekend with some great learning opportunities and some beautiful aircraft to photograph. Here are a couple of samples of what we had to play with.

Collings Foundation at Livermore

Leave a reply

The annual visit of the Collings Foundation to Livermore with their vintage warbirds is a popular event with many people turning out to look at the planes and, in some cases, fly in them. This year I didn’t plan on spending a lot of time there but I did head down for a while to check out how things were progressing. It was a hot day so the heat haze was playing havoc with shots as usual but there was still enough to see.

I had pondered what other spots might be useful for getting a shot or two and tried wandering down the street. However, the area is not pedestrian friendly so that idea didn’t progress too far. I did wrap up the day by driving to the public golf course at the end of the field to see whether I could get a different perspective on the departures. It wasn’t a bad spot but not somewhere I shall try again unless there is a good reason. You get a brief view and have to grab your shots before the planes are behind the trees.

Whatever the limitations, having the P-51, the B-24 and the B-17 on display is always nice and worth taking time out for given that it is so close to home.

Dream Machines Article

Leave a reply

While it isn’t actually an airshow, Dream Machines at Half Moon Bay was my first aircraft event of the year. Hayman and I headed over there to see what would show up. I was also planning on writing it up for GAR again this year. That piece has now gone live at http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/05/05/aviation-event-review-dream-machines-half-moon-bay/ so you can head over the GAR to see the finished version.

The piece focuses more on the aviation side of things than the cars since it is an aviation site. However, the cars were really cool. Here are a couple of cars along with a plane to give you a hint. I might add some more at a later stage!

Flying Heritage Collection

Leave a reply

The Flying Heritage Collection has a museum facility at Paine Field that was the first thing to trigger in my mind when I was thinking about things to see up there. The collection is owned by Paul Allen and they have got a great collection of vintage warbirds. They also have some newer jets but they aren’t in the museum at the moment. I have been tracking the collection on Facebook so wanted to drop in and see what they had.

The museum was easy enough to find and if you can’t spot it, listen out for the noise of construction. They are building a new facility next door and the crews were hard at work making quite a racket as a result. The current building is an old hangar but it does the trick for the time-being. Since nearly all of the aircraft are flown periodically, the hangar is a working hangar. Work is done on the aircraft where they stand and the barriers are moveable so the planes can be taken outside when it is their turn to fly.

The place is not huge and you are close to the planes which is good from an interest point of view but makes photos a little more difficult. If going back, I would take a wider angle lens. However, it wasn’t too bad and the light was pretty reasonable too. The Axis and Allied aircraft were very interesting but I was particularly keen to see their recent addition, the Ilyushin IL-2 Shturmovik. It had not long been in the collection after delivery from restoration in Russia. I was a touch disappointed when one of the docents told me that, with the flying of the German aircraft they had planned for the coming weekend, Steve Hinton was coming in and was going to take the chance to get the IL-2 up in the air. Missing the flying at the weekend was one of those things but something even more rare in the air just after I left was rather unfortunate!

Putting that aside, it was good to take a look around the collection and I shall endeavor to get back there at some point soon – hopefully next time to see some of the collection up in the air!

First Flight – for a while at least

Leave a reply

My friends at the Warbird Heritage Foundation in Waukegan have been working for a long time on adding another aircraft to their already excellent collection. The newest aircraft is a P-51 Mustang called Baby Duck. It is many years since Baby Duck last flew and she has gone through an extensive restoration since being recovered from a storage location near Philadelphia.

The work has been undertaken at Tap-Air in East Troy WI. They have been putting her back together after a thorough restoration of the whole airframe and engine and the whole process has been coming to a climax with the approach of the first flight post restoration.

After some engine runs and taxiing tests, the date for the first flight was set. Paul Wood, the owner of the foundation, kindly invited me up to see the flight and I headed up to East Troy on a gorgeous day. Pilot for the first flight was Vlado Lenoch. Vlado is a highly experienced pilot of Mustangs. He has his own aircraft, Moonbeam McSwine which he displays all around the country. However, he has flown many other aircraft. I think he said that this was his 25th!

After some final checks on the airframe, Vlado fired her up and taxied off for departure. I headed to a spot up the field to be ready for the first wheels up moment. While it was a lovely day, it was warm and sunny so heat haze was a big deal. However, you don’t get to choose when these things are happening so you go with it and get what you can.

The first flight went very well. Vlado took her up to altitude, cycled the systems, undertook some handling checks and basically made sure things were good. Then he brought her back for a flyby – a good sign that he was pleased with the aircraft. There then followed a debrief about e issues that he had found. The Tap-Air guys then took the opportunity to try and fix a few of the issues that could be dealt with immediately while we had a bite to eat before Vlado took her up again.

This time he had a longer sortie and pushed her a little harder with some basic aeros. All went well and again he showed his comfort with everything with another flyby. After landing, another debrief with the guys and a list of tasks to be worked on. There is still some work to do but, hopefully she should be making her way to her new home pretty soon. Probably not soon enough to make it to Oshkosh this year but there is always another year!

As a finish, I animated some of the shots together to make a pseudo-video. Here is the result.