Category Archives: aircraft

Vectren Airshow

I was looking at some museum images for a piece and realized that one of my visits to the National Museum of the USAF was tied to a visit to the Vectren Airshow at Dayton. I had forgotten about this show a few years ago. It had not had the best of weather but it did include an interesting mix of participants with strong military participation.

I decided to go back through the shots and take a look at what was there. I also could run through the shots to see whether updating the raw conversion and taking a crack at my latest approach to processing would make something more interesting of some of them. Neither of the bodies I was shooting with that day are currently part of what I use so I didn’t know whether the same processing techniques would work for them. There were some differences in their response characteristics but they seemed to work reasonably well.

The different types on show included a B-2, a B-52 and a C-5 in the flying display. These are not regulars at most shows so provide a nice change. Sadly, a cloudy sky is not ideal for aircraft that are the color that those are. However, you go with what you have. Some of the more regular performers were also there and the Thunderbirds were the show finale. One overseas display team was there but they are worthy of a post of their own so keep an eye out for that.

JSOH Andrews 1994

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Another trip through the archives. While still living in DC in 1994, I took Nancy to an airshow at Andrews AFB for the Joint Services Open House. I found myself looking for something in my old negatives and the show had a few interesting things. 20 years means a lot of old aircraft have disappeared from service. Seeing them still active is a nice bit of nostalgia.

The shots aren’t great – few of my shots from those days are – and the negatives don’t always scan that well. All in all, not too much to boast about. However, I think they are interesting to see and maybe you will too.

Hangar Three

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While I was at Moffett Federal Field to cover the Soaring Angel exercise, we were shown around Hangar Three. It is used by the base units to store material as well as to stage equipment ahead of shipping. However, it is more interesting because it is one of the huge airship hangars on the airfield. I have previously posted some shots of Hangar One here. Hangar Three is on the other side of the field and one of two hangars of a different design to Hangar One. However, it is still a cool structure.

The structure is very dense. Being a wooden frame, it is very complex series of beams and joists to hold up such a large structure. It is both cool to see and hard to photograph when trying to convey the size of the thing. Added to that is that it is very dark in there. Compared to the brightness outside, there is a huge range of light from the ramp to the interior.

One other nice thing about the hangar is that it is currently the home to the P-2 Neptune for the museum across the airfield. It will move across to join the collection on display before too long. The QSRA research aircraft has already moved over and hopefully it will too. In the meantime, it is waiting in the dark. I don’t know whether any work is underway on it but it looks in pretty good shape. It will make a nice addition to the P-3 to show the history of maritime patrol aircraft at Moffett.

MetLife Blimp

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We have had the MetLife blimp flying around our area a lot recently. I don’t know what brought it to us. It may have been tied to some sports events or perhaps it is just a campaign for brand awareness. The blimp has been based out of Livermore Airport near us. Nancy had seen it at night over there lit up when she drove past.

Then we had it flying one evening. I had seen it previously just before sunset but I wasn’t ready to get a shot and by the time I was, it had gone. Shame because the light was great. Then it showed up at night. It was pretty dark so I had to really take the ISO up. My camera has pretty good high ISO capability but nothing like the current generation of bodies. However, it did a reasonable job.

Next time I came across the blimp I was up at Sonoma. I heard an odd noise and thought it might be a helicopter. However, Skypark does not allow rotorcraft. Instead it was the blimp shooting a low approach. They weren’t on the banned list so I guess it was okay! The climb out was quite dramatic!

Tiger Moth Flying

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With so many things going on, I realized it had been a while since I made a trip up to Sonoma Skypark for the normal Saturday activities. I arrived and spent time with my friend Eric discussing many things aeronautical. While we talked, a Tiger Moth flew back into the pattern. We stopped to watch it for a moment and Eric assumed I had flown in one before – he couldn’t believe an aviation enthusiast from the UK could possibly not have done so. However, I hadn’t.

As it was, Eric got in discussion regarding an issue with the engine with Mike, the owner of the aircraft. Eric thought a short flight would be necessary to help diagnose the issue and thought I should provide ballast. I was not going to turn down this opportunity.

The flight was a short one as was required to check out the engine. We took off, climbed to a moderate height, flew a couple of turns and then returned to Skypark. It was a remarkably smooth aircraft and seemed to just glide through the air. Eric pointed out the guy with the stick might have something to do with that (for those of you who are photographers the assumption you must have a great camera will spring to mind) and, while I was certainly appreciative of Eric’s flying, I did like how the Tiger Moth flew.

Not sure when I will next get a chance to fly in the type but it was certainly great to experience and my thanks to Mike for letting me ride in his plane and to Eric for taking me up.

Deutsches Museum

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A friend of mine was discussing his imminent travel plans. Part of this is taking in Munich, a city we visited a few years ago when another friend was living there. The Deutsches Museum is on the itinerary for my friend’s current trip and it brought to mind the aircraft collection there. The museum is a marvelous place covering a wide variety of industrial, technological and scientific subjects. A day is required if you visit but you will still leave much unseen. The location of Messerschmitt and succeeding companies nearby means they have access to many great aircraft and the collection is outstanding.

On a previous visit in the early 90s, they had some other aircraft, some of which were outside. Some of these have now moved to another location where a second museum facility has been established. I was unable to fit in a visit there but if I ever get back to Munich, it will be on my list.

RAFM Hendon

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A recent project a colleague was working on involved some shots from the RAF Museum at Hendon. I had made a visit to this museum when I was a student living in London and had taken some photos at that time. I took a look through the old films to see whether I had anything that they needed. As it turned out, I didn’t have a shot of what they were after. As is so common when going through film archives, I find that I took a ridiculously small number of shots of interesting things and I am disappointed by the lack of shots and the quality of some of them too.

However, it was kind of interesting to see what was there at the time. Having never been back since, I have no idea how it is currently laid out and what is there that wasn’t before and what has gone. However, I do know that the Blackburn Beverley that was outside when I was there was scrapped not too long after that as the airframe had deteriorated in the outdoor storage. These shots are just a couple from that visit.

Fleet Week

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Fleet Week in San Francisco was something I had been looking forward to since moving here. The air display over the bay had looked great in shots I had seen from previous years and that combined with the parade of naval ships sounded good. Sadly, things didn’t quite go to plan. The parade of ships happened but there weren’t very many of them so it was not a huge parade. Then the flying started but, with cloud cover coming in from the Golden Gate, the flying tended to be pushed farther into the bay and away from us.

We did get a couple of V-22s doing a tour of the bay before the real flying display kicked off and the weather improved for Fat Albert’s part of the Blue Angels’ performance. However, the cloud came right back and the Blues did a few orbits above the clouds over us and then gave up. Apparently the weather was better on the following days but I could not be there for that so I missed out. However, I got to spend the day with a couple of friends so it was still better than being at work!

Mustangs Day

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Another day out took me to Vacaville to visit Nut Tree Airport for their Mustangs Day. While I wasn’t planning this as a feature for Global Aviation Resource, I did end up putting together a BloGAR piece for the site about the day out. A slightly less formal write up which is more about my day than the event. If you want to check it out, the link is below.

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/11/14/bloggar-rob-edgcumbe-nut-tree-mustang-days-2014/

If you don’t check that out (please do though), here is a smaller sample of the aircraft that were around that day. I was getting a little silly playing with very slow shutter speeds so some things did not come out as planned but it was fun all the same.

Red Bull Air Race

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The Red Bull Air Race series was restarted for 2014 after a three year break. I have to admit I thought it wouldn’t come back when they stopped previously but I was wrong and this year seems to have been a successful one for them. The neutralized engine approach has certainly made the competition a lot closer. I was covering the event for Global Aviation Resource and the link below will take you to the article I wrote.

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/wp-admin/post.php?post=40015&action=edit

The Red Bull team provided a great facility for the media. We had three rooms with power and internet connectivity and food was provided throughout the day. Needless to say, if you wanted something to drink, there was plenty of Red Bull available! It had been a while since I had drunk it (and previously it might have been close to some vodka) but it was actually pretty good stuff. Doubt it shall be a regular feature for me though. These shots are some of the racers combined with a few of the other parts of the event that didn’t get so much attention in the feature.