Category Archives: military

Romanian LanceRs

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RIAT proved to be a lot of fun with such a variety of types to see.  The shooting conditions were less than ideal but that shouldn’t take away from what was there and the effort that went in to organizing it all – I’m looking at you Tom if you are reading this.  Your team did a great job.  One of the stars of the show was actually a rather aged type.  Romania brought a pair of MiG-21 LanceR jets.  The last time I shot an active MiG-21 was at Rockford many years ago and that was privately owned.  These were very definitely active.

Their arrival on the Thursday certainly got everyone excited and the display itself was great.  The jet is from an era when the current levels of maneuverability had not been achieved but the jet can still put on quite a show.  The speed is something to behold, particularly on final approach when it fairly screams in to land.  I got to shoot it from a couple of locations including being at the departure end on the Sunday of the show and getting slightly closer to the jet as it taxied out.  I understand that they will disappear before too long to be replaced with something more generic – F-16s I think – so it was time to enjoy something old school for perhaps the last time.

Lots of Prop Vortices

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Departure day at RIAT was a bit overcast, much like the majority of the show.  The damp atmosphere did have the positive effect of meaning many of the more powerful prop aircraft were pulling vortices from the tips of their propellers.  This was most obvious earlier in their take off runs but you could get a  pretty good view of it even head on from where I was sitting in the FRIAT stand.  Here is one of the Hercs that was beating the air into submission.

Concorde Formations Flypast

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RIAT is known for putting together formations of different types to celebrate certain events.  The fiftieth anniversary of the first flight of Concorde resulted in two display teams getting together.  Concorde was an Anglo-French collaboration and so was the celebration in this case.  The Red Arrows and the Patrouille de France both fly formations to represent Concorde so, for this joint effort, both teams got airborne and flew their two Concorde formations in line astern.  They made passes in each direction with the national anthems of each country playing – one on the first pass and the other on the second.  It was a simple demonstration but an impressive one all the same.

M346 Sporty Departure

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A quick post from my visit to RIAT.  There are going to be plenty of things from my time at the show that will show up on the blog in the coming weeks but this is an intro even though it comes from the last day I was there.  Departure day included some more energetic maneuvers from some of the participants including this M346 heading back to Italy.  It waggled the wings to give us a nice top side view.  Thanks chaps.

Bf-109 Check Out for Stevo

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Some visits to an airport can be a total loss.  Nothing of interest happens and you come away with no shots worthy of note.  On other occasions, you get a surfeit of riches.  I had one such evening at Paine Field.  It included a sortie by FHCAM’s Bf-109.  I saw it taxiing out which looked good and then found myself being joined on the mound by Steve Hinton.  Steve’s son, Stevo, was being checked out in the 109 that evening.  He took of a flew a little general handling before returning for a few patterns.  The 109 is a great looking plane, particularly with the right engine installed.  Having someone like Steve alongside to discuss what was going on was icing on the cake.

Clippers Bashing the Circuit

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A visit from my buddy Paul was a good reason for a day off and a trip to Whidbey Island.  We had some ideas about what we wanted to see but anything was going to be good.  The weather was nice so we were in luck.  One thing we got a lot of that I was not expecting was C-40 Clipper traffic.  Two of the jets were out and about.  They weren’t just moving people around though.  They were clearly getting some training in as they flew pattern work for a long time.  We were able to get shots of them multiple times.

Movie Star Black Hawk

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When I got to Olympia for the Olympic Air Show, one of the first things I saw on the ramp was a very serious looking Black Hawk.  It was equipped with everything you could think off.  The ESSS system was mounted, there was a FLIR turret and a variety of weapons.  I was rather curious what unit owned it.  It turns out it is a civilian owned machine.  Northwest Helicopters is the operator and it is used for filming work.  That explains it looking so tooled up.  A civil registration is discretely on the tail and it says the machine is actually an EH-60.  I’ll have to watch out for it in any movies that are coming up.

Talk to Me Goose – Oh That’s Right, You Can’t

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Top Gun 2 is in production at the moment.  There has been much activity around the Super Hornets on the west coast and their involvement in the film with one jet getting photographed a bit in Pete Mitchell’s colors.  What I didn’t know was that the production has been on the road.  While up at Whidbey Island we saw a Super Bug launching towards us.  Based Growlers are of interest and Super Bugs less so but we still shot it.  As it got closer, it was clearly painted up differently and we realized we had Maverick’s plane in frame.  It flew a straight out departure and we didn’t see it return before we left but it was kind of a pleasant surprise to get it at all!

Lots of P-3s, or One P-3 Lots of Times

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Paul and I headed to Whidbey Island on the hunt.  We would be happy to shoot a variety of stuff but P-3s were the goal.  Whidbey still has them but they are disappearing fast so get what we can.  As it turned out, we got a ton of P-3 action but it was all with the same plane.  It flew a bunch of circuits after returning from a training sortie and then finally landed.  However, it wasn’t done.  A crew change and they were back up.  That plane got some use that day.  We could hear another engine running but it obviously wasn’t going flying.  Here are lots of shots of one specific P-3 instead!

Collings Foundation at BFI

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The Collings Foundation made its annual visit to the Seattle area recently including flights from Boeing Field.  The weather had been rather uninspiring but I figured I would head along and hope for some gaps in the clouds.  The Mustang and the P-40 didn’t fly while I was there.  The B-24 and the B-17 did though.  Sadly, the B-24 only flew once.  The discussion was whether Seattle being a Boeing town meant that everyone wanted to fly on the B-17, despite the rarity of the B-24.  The clouds had a habit of parting at just the wrong time and place with good light up the approach and down the runway but not where I wanted it to be.  Even so, it was still nice to see these vintage planes again.