Butterflies

Leave a Reply

This is another one of those posts that is about not having your camera with you.  We went out to the Botanic Gardens for a walk around since it was a nice day.  They have a temporary exhibit in the gardens that is showing butterflies.  It is one of those tent structures with double doors so that they can check you don’t have any unwanted guests on your clothing when you leave.

I didn’t have my camera with me but I did have the phone.  It would have to do.  The butterflies were gorgeous to see.  So many varieties and beautiful colors and shapes.  It would be even better if the visitors paid a small amount of attention to the rules such as not trying to pick them up but I guess some people are idiots and there is nothing you can do about that.

I want to head back before the display is finished.  Whether our schedule will allow that or not, I don’t know.  I do hope I can go back.  Watching a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis and inflate its wings was quite incredible!

Hello Again Marine One

Leave a Reply

It wasn’t long ago that I made a trip out to get some shots of the VH-3D helicopters that operate as presidential transports and are known as Marine One when the President is aboard.  You can read about that here.

It turns out I was going to get a second chance.  As I drove back up to DuPage airport after shooting Fifi on the approach, I noticed a selection of nice looking helicopters parked up between the hangars.  A presidential movement was planned and the aircraft were operating from DuPage.  With the TFR being published, we knew they would be heading out early in the afternoon.

Sure enough, in due course the helicopters came into view.  There were the two VH-3Ds along with three CH-46s in support – two of which were in the glossy green finish and one in standard gray.  They taxied out in line and lined up on the taxiway.  Then they lifted in unison and departed towards the city.  It was very cool to watch.

A while later I was off the field again shooting Fifi taking off when a couple of the CH-46s came back.  I was pretty disappointed to miss their arrival but I got the shot I was there for.  When I got back to the field, I was walking across the apron when I met one of the HMX-1 crew-members.  I told him how disappointed I was to have missed their return.  Not to worry.  He told me two more would be back in about ten minutes.  Sure enough, in they came.  What a great break to get them when I had no idea that they would be there.

Hello Fifi

Leave a Reply

As part of her tour of the country, Fifi, the B-29 operated by the Commemorative Air Force was coming to the Chicago region.  She was scheduled to appear at DuPage Airport, west of Chicago.  I had been in contact with the team about covering the visit for GAR.  This is something to be published soon so I won’t spoil everything just yet!  However, it is safe to say that I did head along and meet up with the team and see Fifi flying.

She was scheduled to fly three times during the day with the first trip being in the morning.  The layout of the main part of the airport meant that the light wold be bad in the morning but better later in the day.  I found an alternative spot to catch her as she took off and got myself ready.  Unfortunately, my brain was not totally in gear and I had one camera on the wrong settings.  I did get lucky though and did not end up with frozen props in the shots, even if they are a little less blurry than I would like!

I then headed around to the approach lights to get her heading back in.  It was very impressive to have a B-29 coming right over your head.  I got the shots but did peak out the side to enjoy the experience – something that is a little lost some times when focusing too much on getting the shots.  I was about to head back when I noticed a P-51 on approach too.  A nice bonus.  Then it was back to the airport to get the interview and some ground shots.  A great bunch of people and a very interesting day.

Baby Bison

Leave a Reply

Regular readers know that I am always keen to catch some photography opportunities with wildlife.  Baby wildlife is even cuter so that is something that will get me to visit a place.  One good wildlife spot but maybe one that is not so obvious unless you know the area is Fermilab.  This is a research facility located west of Chicago.  It does a lot of research in particle physics and it is home to the tevatron, a particle accelerator that was the most powerful in the world until the Large Hadron Collider was built at CERN.  The tevatron has now been shut down.

All of this leads to the fact the facility has a lot of land, most of which is not used for research.  This makes it quite a haven for wildlife and visiting to take a look around is very easy – as long as you stay in the public access areas of course.  Plenty of creatures make their home in the facility.  One extra thing is a farm that raises bison.  I have no idea why this is part of what goes on there but it does.  Breeding season has come and the herd had a few new additions.  We popped along to see them.

Baby bison are very cute whether they are roaming Yellowstone or in a field in Illinois.  We found the herd quite close to the road and so we could get a good view of the youngsters roaming around.  Some were staying close to mum but others were exploring a bit more on their own.  They will be big very quickly so it was nice to catch them at this age.

Travis

Leave a Reply

This is a plug for the magazine.  For those averse to gratuitous advertising, look away now.  Global Aviation Resource’s digital magazine was running a feature on the Air Force Reserve.  Paul Dunn was leading the article but wanted some help on the piece so I joined him at Travis AFB located between the Bay Area and Sacramento in California.  This is an area I am spending a lot of time in at the moment but it was fun to do something a little different!

Since the magazine will be the outlet for a lot of the work from the day, I can’t put too much in here at the moment.  The Reserve article is live in the current issue but there will be some follow up material in later issues.  However, here are a couple of shots from the day.  The team at Travis were as helpful as you could possibly want and many thanks to everyone there for taking such good care of us.  My only complaint is that Paul broke the sim but that is another story…

Waukegan Part 2 – The Military Stuff

1 Reply

As mentioned in the previous post, the Collings Foundation were at Waukegan with  their B-17, B-24 and P-51.  Pete and I had headed up there to take a look at what was going on.  This was the last day of the tour at Waukegan before they moved on to Palwauckee.  They were supposed to be flying during the day and then departing in the early afternoon.  Things were looking promising with the B-24 taking off while we were over at the Warbird Heritage Foundation hangar.

The P-51 was apparently being a little troublesome but was also scheduled to take someone on a ride while we were there.  A friend of mine, Chris, volunteers for Collings and he was working with them that day so i took the chance to catch up with him.  I give him regular abuse as he got a ride in P-51 Baby Duck once before when I was shooting it.  I must be a lucky omen for him!

We needed to head back to Chicago for Pete to be ready for the return flight but the warbirds hadn’t yet departed.  We decided to give them a few extra minutes.  The B-17 had headed out first but the B-24 was obviously waiting to make sure the P-51 was away.  Unfortunately, the engine was not looking too willing when it came to starting.  Fortunately, a bit of ground power did the trick and they were away.  As it turned out, Chris had made it in to the back of the P-51 so I got him in another one.  I hope he recognizes my role in all of this!

Civil Day Out at Waukegan

Leave a Reply

Having a visitor is always a great reason to do something that would be fun anyway.  My relative Pete was visiting Chicago for a day.  He flies 747s for a large airline and Chicago was his destination for a change.  Normally he is on longer sectors so we don’t get to see him as often as we might so this was a nice opportunity.  Pete has appeared on this blog before when we went flying together in southern California a while back as recounted here.

Pete likes any aviation outings so wanted to know what I could show him while he was here.  With Oshkosh still underway, a few of the interesting things that we might have tried were not going on.  However, the Collings Foundation were bringing their tour through the area and were stopping at Waukegan so I thought that would be a good base for taking a look around.

We headed up to Waukegan to see what was going on.  We actually started out by dropping in at the Warbird Heritage Foundation to see if anyone was around.  I thought everyone would be up at Oshkosh but Herwig was there getting ready to take the T-2 up to AirVenture.  Pete got a look at some of the aircraft and then Herwig departed in the Buckeye and we headed to the other side of the field.

The Collings aircraft were laid out and I shall tell more about them in another post.  However, the airfield was not short of operations of a more civil nature.  Plenty of business jet activity was underway so we had a lot to watch.  Gulfstreams, Falcons, Challengers and a BBJ all made their way past us.  With the sun shining plus warbirds ahead of us too, not a bad way to kill some hours.

Cubs

Leave a Reply

You can’t cover Oshkosh this year without mentioning the Piper Cub.  This year was the 75th anniversary of the Piper Cub and they came to the fly-in en masse.  There was a mass arrival the weekend before the show started but I didn’t get there in time to witness that.  However, the parking had been set up to give the aircraft prominence.  They also made an effort to give those aircraft painted in the original Piper yellow parking together to emphasize the effect.

I wandered down to the Cub parking in the evening.  I had been hoping that the late evening light would pop out nicely and illuminate the ranks with a warm glow.  Sadly,m the light never really cooperated.  It always lurked just behind a cloud.  However, the lines of Cubs were certainly something to see.  It was tricky finding an angle that really showed just how many there were.  Just trust me.  There were lots of them!

Seaplane Base

Leave a Reply

If you are at Oshkosh for a few days and the huge numbers of people and the hot temperatures are getting to you, it is time to take a break.  There is no better place to do this than the seaplane base.  A short bus ride from the main bus location will take you down to the lake-shore.  Here the place of things is a little bit more relaxed.  There are plenty of people around still.  however, you can sit by the water and allow the pace to slow down quite a bit.

There are many planes already moored up but the traffic in and out always seems to be enough to keep you amused.  When the aircraft arrive they will head to the dock and then will be towed out to a mooring location.  When they head out it is anyone’s guess what they will consider to be the best departure route so they might power up close in and take off or taxi out a long way before aligning themselves for departure.

We did have a little extra interest with a Beaver that had a hard time getting airborne.  A very pretty looking aircraft, it taxied out and made its first effort at getting airborne without success.  it then tried several more times in differing directions but I never saw it actually get on to the step.  Eventually they taxied back in.  No idea what the problem was and how they fixed it but hopefully they did.