A bit more from the Raptor display today. As the jet flew away from the crowd, it pulled in to the vertical. From a view directly astern, we got a brief view of the vortices forming over the forebody. The jet was quite a way off so these shots are cropped quite a bit. I love the way the vortex sits away from the body. Chino was a pretty dry environment so not a lot of vapor to pull from the air but it still showed up nicely.
Previously I may have mentioned my recent efforts to go through images I took a long time ago. The evening show at Chino had a number of performers and one of them was the Canadian Hornet demo. When I go through my images, part of my process is to render all of them at 100% and then view the full size image on one screen and the zoomed in version on the other. This allows me to see whether the shot is sharp and also whether there is anything glaringly wrong with it like bits cut off or someone’s head in the way.
I was going through the shots of the Hornet which flew after the sun had gone below the horizon, I noticed that, as it flew over the top of a loop, I had a view into the cockpit. Normally, this would be dark as the brightness of the day overpowered the shade of the cockpit. However, since it was pretty dark, the glow of the multifunction displays on the panel is clearly visible. We aren’t going to be able to see the details of the displays themselves but they are very conspicuous which is not the norm.
It might be a long time ago that I did anything closely related to the engineering of fighters but there is still a part of me that is a stability and control type of guy. Watching the control inputs and responses of planes is cool as far as I am concerned. With the advent of fly by wire designs, there was considerable scope to play around with the use of the control surfaces to achieve different aims. With no direct linkages to the stick, the pilot can be totally unaware of the choices the system is making for control combinations.
The engineers may have chosen to program the trailing edges to have different deflections inboard and outboard to offload the outer portion of the wing for example. The F-22 makes use of a variety of interesting control inputs. For example, it doesn’t have a traditional speed brake. I assume this was removed for stealth reasons. Instead, the control surfaces move counter to each other. You may have inboard flaps going down and outboard flaps going up. The moments cancel out but all increase drag incrementally so the effect is like having a speed brake deployed.
Since the aircraft is also unstable, you may have tail deflections that seem at odds with the maneuver being flown. During the Chino show, the usual routine was flown (usual for an F-22 but not many other jets) and, as I look through a bunch of the shots, I see some quite unusual control inputs. If you are in to such things, these may appeal to you. Gary, are you reading this?
Unfortunately, I have a rather large backlog of images that I haven’t done much with. This is sometimes the result of having a number of events in a short space of time and other times it is the result of laziness! Last year I covered the Planes of Fame show at Chino for GAR. I got a lot of shots while I was there and I needed a selection to illustrate the piece so I dived in, found some good examples, worked on those and put them into the feature.
Unfortunately, I never got around to undertaking a proper run through of the shoot. I only realized this recently so I have started to go through the images when the time allows. One part of the show I really liked was the twilight show on the Friday. This included a display by the USAF F-22. In the last light of the day, the airframe looked really great.
Running through the shots I found a few of the jet that I really liked. (I found more than will work for this post and some that I like for various reasons but won’t really gel with most people.) As a result, here are a sample of the shots I have been finding. Now I am starting to think about air shows this year for the first time. I might have to go to this one again!
While I was walking around the display line of the Airshow of the Cascades during the evening show, the Erickson collection’s P-38 was carrying out its display. I was in amongst a lot of people when the announcer told everyone to be ready for a special pass. My location was not great but I got ready as the P-38 ran in for a topside pass expecting the detonation of some pyrotechnics behind it. Nothing happened. The P-38 flew by and no explosions.
A short while later, the announcer had a second crack at getting us ready for the pass. Obviously the first pass had not worked as planned. This time the P-38 was coming in from the opposite direction. I also had a few moments to try and reposition myself to get a better view. This shot was the result. Some of my friends were further up the display line and got a different angle on the shot which was cool. Even so, I am pretty happy with this.
I have seen a large number of displays by the Blue Angels over the years. Their display is a good one generally (although the ground portion is a little time consuming in my opinion). The sequence does not vary much from year to year but it works well enough so that is probably no big surprise. One of the fun parts is the sneak passes. The four ship head off in one direction to distract you and a solo jet streaks in from the left at low level and high speed. This catches a lot of people by surprise.
Just as everyone is getting over this, the other solo jet does something similar from crowd rear to make you all jump again. The displays that are held over water provide an added option for the first sneak pass. With no obstacles, the aircraft can end up very close to the water. This makes things look even more impressive. Also, the high speeds can result in some impressive vapor formations in the shock waves.
The Fleet Week display on the Friday had great weather conditions but, surprisingly for the Bay Area, the humidity levels were not terribly high. Consequently, while the sneak pass had its usual surprise impact, it did not result in any vapor on the jet. The upside of this was that the optical distortion caused by the shock waves was visible in some shots when a reasonable amount of background was included. Not what I was aiming for but not a bad alternative.
Time for another post on a specific military aircraft. This time it is one with an interesting history. The Israeli Air Force was a customer of Dassault’s Mirage aircraft and had good experience with it. However, Dassault/France declined to sell further aircraft to Israel. Instead, the Israelis decided to make their own version. A combination of covert acquisition of design drawings and the introduction of a new engine resulted in the creation of the Kfir.
During the 1980s, a number of Kfirs were supplied to the US Navy to be operated as aggressor aircraft under the F-21 designation. Their use in service was not terribly long but, once they were withdrawn, they were acquired by private companies to use in support roles for training. I have come across them a couple of times. One was at Pt Mugu in California when an example was shooting approaches. The other time was during a visit to NAS Fallon in Nevada where they were launching on training missions.
The Kfir is quite a mean looking aircraft. The original delta wing design has many good attributes but approach speed is not one of them and they really do seem to be motoring when they come down the approach. I imagine they will remain in service for a number of years to come so I hope to see more in due course.
Continuing through my theme of looking at individual types, I came across some old pictures of the MiG-29. I figured I could get a post out of them so here we are. I saw quite a few of the Fulcrums in the late 80s and early 90s when they started traveling further afield. My first encounter was when the Russian Air Force brought a pair to Farnborough. They showed up again in a later year and then examples from other eastern bloc air forces started coming to the UK once the wall came down.
The quality of my film shots from those days is not great but you can see a bit of what was on offer. The Ukrainian aircraft showed up in some really cool colors. The best shots I have are of the MiG-29OMT which was a demonstrator that came to the UK in 2006 and displayed at RIAT. It had thrust vectoring nozzles to enhance maneuverability and put in a pretty impressive display.
Lots of the operators today are starting to look at replacements. The age of some airframes along with the support issues are pushing them to renew while interoperability with NATO forces is another driver for change. I’m not sure how many more I will see flying although there are a good number in museums. There are a couple in private hands here in the states (one of which I saw being towed from across Paine Field) so they might be my best bet.
Is the Raptor a good looking jet or not? I still have yet to make up my mind on that one. From some angles it looks pretty cool and from others it looks awkward. Never look at it on the ground because the undercarriage is really not designed to make it look elegant! Either way, it is a striking jet. I have seen them a bunch of times at different venues and, while picking out some shots for a project, I also saw a bunch of F-22s and figured I might have a selection of some of them, hopefully looking at their best.
The USAF recently got rid of their squadron of Boeing F-15 Eagle aggressor aircraft. The aggressors have used a combination of F-15 and F-16 aircraft for a while but now they have gone to an all F-16 operation. The aircraft have been redistributed to the other units that operate the type and will gradually lose their aggressor colors as they get repainted.
I thought I would celebrate them with a selection of shots of the F-15s that I have got over time. I wonder whether we shall see them again. It is not unknown for things to change again so we can hope. However, I won’t be putting money on it.
