Kitty Hawk

Leave a Reply

There is not a shortage of aviation themed stuff on this blog. I realized that one thing I had never covered was the First Flight. Obviously I didn’t cover it live given my obvious youth! However, on a vacation to the Outer Banks a few years ago, my buddies Steve and Rich joined me on a trip to Kitty Hawk to see where the Wright Brothers had made the first powered flight. For some reason, none of the three wives wanted to make this trip and they did something else. No idea why…

The layout of the place is pretty simple. There is a monument to the event up on a hill overlooking the site. It is a pretty impressive structure and very much more substantial than anything else there. You have the workshop they operated out of (which I now can’t remember whether it is original or a recreation) and the markers on the ground to show the location of the first four flights they undertook on that day. There is also a museum off to one side and an airstrip located a short distance away. It is a big, wide open area so, even if there are lots of visitors, it is not crowded.

There was a steady breeze while we were there so you could see why it appealed to someone trying to get airborne. Since the whole thing is on a sand dune and the mapping of things has probably improved a bit in the last hundred years, I suspect there is some uncertainty about where exactly everything was. However, that hardly matters. This was the place where the first powered flights took place and the step to regular manned flight was made. Interestingly, once they had achieved this goal, they headed back to Dayton and their further development took place there. Kitty Hawk will always be the first though. If you look at Ohio and North Carolina license plates, you will gather that they still argue over this. Not a fight I need to join though.

Egret in Balboa

Leave a Reply

Some animals seem to like attention. Even when they are supposed to be afraid of humans, they end up being the center of attention. Such was the case with an egret that was standing in the water in Balboa Park. At first I thought it was a plastic model but, once it started moving, it was clearly real. Everyone was distracted by it. Some kids were keen to get their hands on it but the parents seemed to do just enough to stop it getting spooked which was quite surprising.

I assume it was attracted to the fish living in the water feature. However, they seemed to be wise enough to stay away. Whether it got any food or not, I don’t know. It stayed around for quite a while and I left first. When I came back, it was gone. Whether it was bored or knew of a better lunch spot, I shall never know.

Hotel Del Coronado

Leave a Reply

When choosing where to stay on Coronado, we had some options. One of them was the Hotel Del Coronado. A historic hotel that has appeared in TV and movies and has a reputation for providing a luxurious stay, we could have gone there. The exorbitant room rate was not what put us off of course. We just wanted to be in a different location. However, we did take a walk along the shore on that side of the island and I had to get a shot with the phone while we were there!

F-22 Over Chino

Leave a Reply

The USAF F-22 Raptor is a popular air show performer but, with a relatively small fleet, they only have one display team and they have a limited number of engagements around the US each year. Chino was one of the shows that had them booked so it was probably the only time I was going to see the Raptor display this year as opposed to flying operationally. It flew twice while I was there. The first flight was a sunset display and the second was to wrap up the main display on the Saturday including the Heritage Flight performance.

I got a lot of chances to get good shots of the plane. The sunset display had great light but both displays included some tight elements that brought the plane well into view. However, I am now going to tread on dangerous ground and say that I don’t think the display is that good. The flight control system design of the Raptor allows it to undertake some unusual maneuvers which the display makes a lot of. While they are certainly not the norm, I don’t think they should focus on them so much. Certainly show off some of the special features of the jet. Just don’t pretend they are tactically useful and spend more time showing people what they like about jet displays. Being low and slow is not a great place to be.

A crowd of people might be mildly amused by a jet coming down flat while gently rotating about its axis. However, turn up the noise and blast into some fast passes, tight turns and some more aggressive vertical maneuvers and your get a lot of crowd reaction. I once watched a Typhoon display being flown by a test pilot. It carried out a lot of high alpha rolls around the velocity vector. A few pilots around me appreciated the technical skill but everyone thought the display was boring.

Maybe, as the aircraft has been on the display circuit longer, they will evolve into a better combination. A little of the unusual stuff but more dynamic performances that show off the bits the public like.

Aerodynamic Specialties

Leave a Reply

These days you will struggle to come across a car that has not undergone extensive aerodynamic optimization. Even those cars that look like they have deliberately avoided an aerodynamically efficient shape will actually have undergone considerable testing to make sure that they are not just relatively low in drag but that they are also stable at speed. The widespread appreciation of aerodynamic performance became apparent in the 80s with the introduction of various cars that had noticeably lower drag than their competitors and associated improvements in fuel consumption.

However, the 80s was not the first time that aerodynamics occupied car designers. Go back a long way and you will see some very interesting shapes on cars. Some of these were looking to emulate the space age looks that were popular at the time. Others were real attempts to reduce drag. Blackhawk has a collection of three Alfa Romeo models. These show the iteration of design to try and achieve very low drag. They don’t look anything like a modern car and have more of a Jetsons appearance. However, they are a fascinating look at how some car designers were thinking at the time.

Obviously modern cars don’t resemble these machines which suggests their approach was not the best way to go. They also look like they would have been expensive to manufacture. What they do show is the willingness to push the envelope. It is great that they are still around for us to check out and see what was seen as cutting edge at the time.

C-130 Launch

Leave a Reply

While I was not aiming to get any aviation photography done while I was in San Diego, I don’t think it is wrong to grab a few shots of passing aircraft if they happen to come my way. It’s not like I planned for it to happen. While we were up at Cabrillo, a C-130 launched out of NAS North Island. It was still a reasonably large distance away from us but I did manage to get a few shots of it as it climbed out in our general direction. At least it stopped me from getting withdrawal symptoms.

Alcazar Garden

Leave a Reply

While other parts of Balboa Park have a very ordered look to them, the Alcazar garden is an interesting contrast. The beds are laid out in a pattern for sure but the plants that grow have a far more natural feel to them. It doesn’t have the feel of a perfectly manicured garden but instead feels a bit more like what the natural plant growth would be if things had been left to their own devices. It makes the place feel more relaxed as a result.

While it was a nice place to relax for a while, it was a bit tricky to find a way to convey the relaxed nature of things photographically. The type of plants gets a little lost when you are looking at the wider view of the garden and the detail of the plants loses the feeling of the overall space. Perhaps you will just have to take my word for it!

Aston Martins

Leave a Reply

Aston Martin is not a company that has varied the styling of its cars significantly over the years. There are several shapes that have formed the basis of their designs but they have been quite effective at making the most of a concept. This is not a criticism in any way. There are few cars from the company that I haven’t liked although some have worked better for me than others. However, when compared to other marques that have had a wide variety of styles and designs in a given timeframe, Aston has been quite simple with its approach.

Consequently, it isn’t tricky to recognize the Astons on display at Blackhawk. The models on show are some older types but they are some good looking machines. One of them is a racing model which has a slightly more aggressive look to it. They had variations on the green that Aston is known for. I suspect a couple of my family members would like to have seen them!

Edwards AFB 2010

Leave a Reply

My first trip to Edwards AFB was in 1990 as I wrote about in this blog post. My next trip was quite a bit later. This was a visit arranged by my friend Richard ahead of an ISAP symposium. It also allowed a lot more opportunity to see the aircraft. The visit was broken in to two main elements. The first was a walk along the flightline and the second was heading to the other side of the runway to shoot arrivals and departures.

The diversity of types on the flightline has dwindled since 1990. Now there are an awful lot of F-16s and not so many other types. However, test jets look cool in their non-operational colors. Shooting under the sun shades is good for protection from the elements but it does make for some wide ranges of lighting conditions and some odd color casts.

Once on the other side of the runway, we had some great options for shooting the jets in action. Heat haze is always a problem, particularly somewhere as warm as Edwards can be, but you can still get some interesting aircraft. We were hoping to see some F-35s but were disappointed this time. However, we did get one of the F-35 test support F-16s from Denmark which was nice to see. We also had aircraft from the Test Pilot School out doing their thing.

A couple of more unusual aircraft showed up while we were there. One off the NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft was on a training sortie. With the program now curtailed, this was the last chance I had to see one of these 747s in the air although not with a shuttle mounted on it! NASA was also using one of their Global Hawks UAVs and it landed while we were there. An old Gulfstream also landed. It had unusual markings to simulate a missile for tracking systems. This used to be undertaken by a C-135 aircraft but it has been retired and replaced by the Gulfstream which, while not a new jet, is still probably a lot cheaper to operate.

We also got to see some of the museum aircraft including the twin seat A-10 I had shot in 1990! The trip was over far too soon but we had a great time and saw some cool stuff. Thanks to Richard for organizing. Now I need to get myself back there to see what the latest fleet is up to.

Car Restorations

Leave a Reply

The number of cars on display at Dream Machines was amazing. Vehicles of all sorts were there. Some were in immaculate condition and other looked like they probably hadn’t had any work done on them since they were built other than what was necessary to keep them running. The variety was what was cool. There were old police vehicles, sports cars, luxury cars, off roaders, heavily modified vehicles and even a jet powered truck. Vintage racing cars were alongside old Fiats and VW camper vans. They were all there it seemed. I am not going to pick out any special ones for mention. Instead, here are a load of pictures of what was there.