Tag Archives: hawk

More Super High Frame Rates for the Red’s Syncro Pair

A bit of a theme for me recently has been playing with the super fast frame rates on my camera. Last year I tried this out with the Blue Angels and posted on here about that. It worked well but they were rather distant. At RIAT, I decided to try again but with the Red Arrows this time. The syncro pair will make many crosses during the course of the show so I had a few opportunities.

First, let’s talk about what didn’t go so well. When you select this mode, it will fire off a bunch of shots – I set it to the maximum at 50 – and, when it has taken them, the camera will be effectively locked up until they finish writing. It doesn’t take long, and it shouldn’t matter because not much is happening for a while. However, if you are a dope and forget you have selected it and then take a shot of a plane coming around the turn towards you, you will get a lot of shots you didn’t intend and you may still be writing them when the cross actually happens. I am speculating, of course. No way I would make such a mistake.

The other issue I had was one of choosing focal length. On some crosses I zoomed out quite wide and the jets ended up being further away than expected and quite small in the frame although it gave me multiple framing options. This had been an over correction after having been too tight on a previous cross. Basic stuff but, at least with a bunch of crosses, I had more chances to sort things out.

Then we come to the crux of it. Did I get stuff I liked? Absolutely. I was always tracking the plane coming from the right so my left eye could see enough of the opposite jet, so I did run the risk of having the background jet in focus, but it all worked out fine. The biggest issue is that you end up with a ton of shots to work through. Then again, that is my story of RIAT as a whole! I have included so of the stills here but also an animated GIF of a sequence so you can see how close the frames are to each other. Please forgive the crappy colour space of the GIF.

Return of the Reds

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One of my days at RIAT was spent down towards the threshold of the runway. This meant I was able to get shots of the approaching planes and, hopefully, their touchdown. I say hopefully because a couple of things were working against me. First, there were some distance to go boards that could be in just the wrong spot depending on where the plane touched down. Second, because I was close in and there was a lot of distracting stuff in the background, I was going with a lower shutter speed to give the sense of motion and blur out some of the distractions.

I didn’t have a high success rate with some of these shots which was expected. When going through them, I can be pretty aggressive at culling anything that is not super sharp (at least on a part of the airframe that will be the first point of interest for a viewer) but I do have to bear in mind that I am looking at a high resolution version of the image zoomed in to 100%. When it is a 1600 pixel image on a screen, it will forgive a lot of the detail problems.

Anyway, I got some shots of the jets on approach and then as they touched down. Some of them came out pretty well. I did also use the location for take off shots where, since the planes were just beginning their take off rolls, they weren’t going that fast and getting the blur required was a bit trickier. Some of those will, at some point, show up on here too.

A Hawk and a Rabbit – One Isn’t Happy

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While waiting for the arrival of some jets, we were treated to a little bit of wildlife spotting. A hawk had been hunting over the fields in our vicinity, but it started to head our way and I grabbed a bunch of shots as it came by out of habit. One of the group checked his pictures out while we continued to wait and noticed that the hawk was carrying its next meal. It appears a rabbit had been caught out in the open and was now no more. The nature of life in the wild, I guess.

Hawk and the Moon

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My El Centro wildlife encounters continued after the owls had been photographed. A hawk showed up on a utility pole close to us at one point and, since no jets were landing, I was happy to take its photo. Then I realized that the moon was rising not far away, and a short movement allowed me to bring the two into closer alignment. With the long lens, the focus depth was narrow, so I took shots of the bird and shots of the moon. When I got home, a little focus stacking allowed me to make both sharp to show how it looked to me at the time I was there.

A Little RIAT Reds Editing

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Why, when my last visit to RIAT was in 2019, am I still working my way through some shots from that show? There are many potential reasons but none of them reflect too well on me so we shall move past that topic and on to what I shot at that show. Specifically, let’s look at the Red Arrows. When we used to live in the UK, we would see the Reds on a regular basis and would sometimes get a bit blasé about them. When you live elsewhere, they become a bit more fun to see.

Consequently, I did make the effort to get a few good shots of their displays. It would have been nice to have some slightly better light to shoot them in, but that show was not the best for weather. Take off is always nice since you are close to the formations, and they are potentially tightly grouped in the frame. There are always the crossing shots to go for and then the bigger formation breaks will be a target. All of these were part of my efforts that year. When I was young, the rollbacks were a favorite of mine. They do a variation on this now, but I am not quite so keen. It is a tough one to shoot anyway since you really want to be on the display axis to get the best effect. Even so, I was still pretty happy with what I got overall.

The Hawk 115 and I Are Aging Together

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Not a great shot, in this case, but one that means something to me. When I went to the Abbotsford Air Show, there was a Hawk 115 in the static display. It was in an interesting color scheme but the lighting was a bit tough and it was surrounded be people. The reason I liked it was that I was involved in the Hawk 115 program when it was first underway. I left the company before the first jets were completed so I never actually saw one. This might actually have been my first encounter with one. Since they have been in service for nearly 25 years, they are probably nearing the end of their time so I did leave it a little late. It looks in better shape than me!

Boscombe Down Aviation Collection

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Middle Wallop was my first aviation museum of our vacation but there was a second. I didn’t have a lot of time but, with a small gap in the schedule and a very accommodating wife, we headed to Old Sarum, home of the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection. For those not familiar with UK military aviation, Boscombe Down is the center of military test in the UK and has a variety of unusual aircraft that are used for test duties and test pilot training.

The weather was dismal but the vintage hangars meant I could stay dry (although there were a couple of exhibits outside including a Hunter and the nose of a Comet). The collection is full of interesting items. There are whole airframes and cockpit sections from others. The cockpits are all accessible and, if I had been there longer, I would probably have got in to some of them. However, time was tight and hopping in wasn’t that important to me. There were a variety of Canberra front fuselages and a Sea Vixen. Some of the exhibits are special enough to justify their own posts so those will come in due course. The stories of restoration of the airframes were pretty interesting too and a lot of good work had been done to preserve them. (As an aside, the one thing I was a little disappointed in was the painting of the aircraft. The colors and markings seemed inaccurate which seemed at odds with the great efforts made in to earth respects.)

A Sea Harrier was on display as was a Jaguar. One of the highlights for me was Hawk XX154. This is the first Hawk built and one that had a full career in test duties ending up at Boscombe. It was moved to Old Sarum by the RAF with a Chinook lifting it across as a training exercise. It is displayed in its final gloss black finish but I will always think of it in red and white. There is also a front fuselage from one of the ETPS Hawks that was written off in an accident.

So much variety of exhibits and definitely a top place to visit if you like military aviation. The nice thing is that the airframes are unusual in their configuration and history. They tend not to be regular squadron jets so give extra to learn about. I would love to go back again some time.

The Arrows’ Display Itself

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I have posted a few times about the Red Arrows at RIAT covering their prep for display and post display. I haven’t actually shared any good shots from the display itself. Here are a few that I got over the course of the show. Some were taken close to show center and others were taken from the end of the display line to give a different perspective on the same maneuvers. They put on a great show and it is funny that, when you see them regularly, you get blasé but, when you haven’t seen them for a while, you come to appreciate the display a lot more.

Red Arrows Launch and Recover

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The Red Arrows operated from ramp space at the eastern end of the show grounds at RIAT. I spent some time down there on one of the days. It provided a chance to watch them brief, crew up, start and then recover after the display. Here area. Few shots of the team in action.

Welcome to Seattle Red Arrows

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The Red Arrows have conducted a North American tour this year. It commenced just after RIAT so, while I saw them there, I hoped to catch them at some point during the tour. Their closest displays were in Oregon and Vancouver and I wasn’t able to go to either sadly. They did stage through Seattle, though, so I figured I would go and see them arrive. The twelve jets showed up on a heavily overcast day. They did some flybys over the city and then a run in across Boeing Field. A pair of jets landed directly while the remaining ten flew around a little more – nine ships in formation and one getting some photos. Then it was run and and break to landing before taxiing off to parking.