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Bye Bye El Centro

You might have thought that we had covered El Centro enough. Nah! The day after the photocall, I was planning to head across to San Diego. However, I didn’t have to be there until lunchtime and it is only a couple of hours drive to get there. Since I was going to be up early, why not finish of the time at El Centro with one more visit to the base to shoot from outside.

I wasn’t going to be there too long but there was the probability of an early launch wave and they would recover before I was going to depart. I got there early enough for some of the first launches and was the first visitor. I was going to be joined by some of the friends from the photocall and there was a second visit scheduled by another group for that day so the attendees for that were likely to show up before too long.

We did get a similar bunch of traffic to the previous day with waves of T-45s heading out as well as some F/A-18s doing their thing. I got to cover the first wave without any trouble and then quietened down around the time I was planning on leaving. However, leaving proved to be a bit more troublesome than I would have expected.

Some of the people that arrived for that day either hadn’t been before to the location and/or were not very thoughtful when it comes to accommodating those around them. The location is alongside a drainage ditch with a drop off to a lower level which then has another ditch beside it. There is space to park along the ridge and leave space for other vehicles to get past.

Sadly, some of the new arrivals hadn’t bothered with that concept. When it came time for me to leave, the easier was out – since there were poorly parked vehicles both ahead and behind – was actually backwards. Reversing around the parked cars on the top of the ridge was hardly fun and then reversing the remaining length of the ridge was also less than enjoyable. It wasn’t difficult but the presence of water on one side and a drop on the other tends to increase the level of concentration.

Anyway, despite the thoughtlessness of a few, I did make it out and got a good start to the day. Sadly, I should probably have hung around a bit longer since my next stop didn’t go quite according to plan – but that can wait for another post.

Looking forward to El Centro

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One of the benefits of the blog being relatively new is that I have the opportunity to dig up stuff from the past and turn it into a post. I will shortly be heading to El Centro in California for a shoot at the Navy base there. Last year I made a similar trip and I thought I would remind myself and prime you for some of what might be there.

What will show up on a given day is hard to predict. Last time we had some T-45s that had made the trip across from Meridian TX. Whether there will be any this time, we shall see. Hornets may drop in from other bases to use the facilities and last time some Canadian Hornets were in to use the ranges.

It is the luck of the draw what you get but one thing you can, hopefully, rely on is the weather. El Centro has sun most days of the year. I have had bad luck at some locations with weather but I am hoping this one will behave.

What might I try differently this time? Last time I used a variety of lenses and positions. The heat haze is a big issue so looking to far back up the approach is problematic. Getting ahead of, beside and behind the touchdown location mixes things up a bit. Getting the aircraft and the hold is also worthwhile and I may spend more time there. I am also going to try and mix in more video this time too.

We shall see how it goes and what I can get off base before and after as well. Wait to see what we get!

Tracking Unusual Aircraft??

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Okay, I will admit it right up front, this is a silly post. However, it is something that amused me. If dumb stuff is not your thing, look away now!

I was shopping recently in Harry and David getting some of their good tasting but probably not too good for the waistline snacks. They had some gummy candy called Jetfighter Gummies. What could be better for someone like me. Bought a pack and took them home.

When I opened them up, not only where they gummy jets, there was a selection of different aircraft, all reproduced with a surprising amount of detail! I checked through and they had a B-2, an F-117, an F/A-18, and SR-71, an F-15 and an F-22. Each was reproduced in some detail including panel lines. I was amazed. After eating a bunch of them, I thought I ought to reproduce them to prove I wasn’t making this all up.

The accompanying shots are the fleet as it was left by the time I got around to taking the shots. Some of the remainders were not the best of their type and all of the F-15s had been eaten by then – or withdrawn due to fuselage cracking, who can be sure? There were still F-22s on the ground so nothing inaccurate about that!

Might have to pop back at some point and get some more. I will have a bigger air force than the UK if I buy a couple more packs!

Unusual Thunderbirds

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I have been running through a bunch of older pictures while trying to clear out a bit of space on the hard drives. I came across some shots of the USAF Thunderbirds from a few years ago when they were performing here in Chicago for the Air and Water Show. Friday before the show is a day when they carry out a nearly full practice for the show. This is a day that I am often going to be down there as there are less people and, for some reason, the weather often seems better.

What I had completely forgotten was that, during the Friday practice that year, the Thunderbirds were undertaking some photography work of their own. Aside from the six display aircraft, a seventh F-16 was taking part. it was flying along and around the formations photographing them at various points in the display. I have a bunch of shots of the formations being shadowed by this aircraft.

There is nothing much else to say about this but I found it interesting so thought I would put up a small gallery of some of these formations. Enjoy hopefully…

First Flight – for a while at least

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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.

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.