Category Archives: military

First Flight – for a while at least

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.

ISAP Field Trip – Part 2

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We all gathered outside the Air and Space Museum to get on the buses for the second part of the trip. A few people got on the opposite bus to the one that they had come on. This apparently was a problem from a security perspective since our next stop was to be the Marine Corps Air Station at Miramar. It would transpire that some would be glad they got back on their original bus before too long.

Miramar is a short drive north of San Diego. Now it a Marine Corps base, Miramar has operated under the control of a number of services through its life. It is probably most famous and the center of US Navy fighter operations in the 1980s when Top Gun was filmed there. Fightertown USA now is home to some marine F/A-18 Hornets as well as a lot of V-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft. These have now almost completely replaced the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter with the marines at Miramar.

We were to be hosted by one of thes tilt rotor squadrons. However, first we had to get there! As we headed up the freeway, the bus suddenly went rather quiet. We coasted to a halt, our driver/comic hopped out, disappeared around the back and before too long we were on our way again. This was not to last though. Very soon we repeated the process and this time we were sitting on the shoulder of the freeway.

One errant bolt apparently was killing the cooling fan and the engine, in full self preservation mode, was shutting down before any damage could be done. To add insult to injury, we were actually in sight of the base. While a rescue plan consisting of a mechanic to fix the bus and the other bus making a return trip to pick us up was put into effect, we got to stand on the side of the freeway and watch the Hornets bashing the pattern.

Eventually we were on our way and got to join the rest of the party in the Officers’ Club at Miramar. There was food left for us and fortunately nobody decided to try and do any Top Gun song routines in the club. With a little compression of the time at lunch, we were able to get back on schedule. Off we went to the squadron.

We were given access to the squadron hangar (at least most of us were until the security gate got over its concern about how many people were coming in and locked a bunch outside for a while). There were a couple of aircraft in the hangar we had access to shoot and the doors were open to the ramp although we couldn’t venture outside. Plenty of Ospreys were out on the ramp and there was some flying activity. A Super Stallion also came in and some Hornets and and Orion were also flying in the distance.

The sun was out and the vast expanse of concrete was throwing up a lot of heat haze. This frustrated any attempts to shot anything too far away but there was still plenty to look at. Unfortunately, as our time was running out, we gathered together for the group shot. Just at this point a bunch of aircraft returned. The security minders were most insistent that we stop shooting and head to the group photo which was a bit of a shame but never mind.

After the group shots it was back to the buses for the final part of the day’s fun. Another installment will be forthcoming soon…

Bye Bye ADVs

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In 1993 I was working at BAe’s plant in Warton when we had a special event. It was the last delivery of a Tornado to the RAF and the aircraft was AT051, a twin stick ADV (or F3 in RAF parlance). We all received a print of a painting of the aircraft to celebrate the event and trooped out to watch the aircraft depart. I don’t have pictures of that since cameras were not permitted inside the security perimeter at Warton.

It therefore feels slightly more personal to read all of the information online about the demise of the RAF’s ADV fleet. They have been on the way out for quite a while but the end has finally come. Since I made it across to RIAT last year, I did get some final shots of the remaining aircraft and I am glad that I did. My transition to digital shooting coincided with my move to the US so I don’t have many ADV shots that aren’t on film and I certainly didn’t shoot as many shots before going digital.

I only have a limited number of shots which amazes me given how often I saw ADVs over the years. I guess when they were common I didn’t make much effort to shoot them when film was something I treated as precious.

So here are a few mementos and good bye to a plane I liked working on.

Fun with warbirds

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Since it is the beginning of the year from an air show perspective, it is time to get the aircraft up and ready for the new season. The winter is a great time for maintenance to be undertaken and the great team at Warbird Heritage Foundation is no exception. A couple of their aircraft were recently up and about being wrung out after winter maintenance tasks and I was lucky enough to spend some time with them while they were undertaking some test flying.

The WHF team is always very welcoming but they are not alone. Jim’s team at Waukegan airport is also really helpful when trying to get in position to get some good shots of the aircraft as they are being tested. The two aircraft at work this time were the A-4 Skyhawk and the A-1 Skyraider. Two great looking aircraft. The weather is not always going to be cooperative at this time of year – not only from a photography point of view but also from a flying perspective. However, you make the best of the chances that come along.

What better way to spend a day than hanging out with a great team of people and photographing some unusual aircraft. What more can I want? Thanks Paul and team and also thanks to Jim at the airport.