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.
Another opportunity that Richard organized for us while at Mojave was the chance to shoot Orbital Science’s Lockheed L-1011 TriStar. This is an airframe that was modified to provide the launch platform for their Pegasus orbital launch vehicle. The underside of the fuselage is modified to mount the Pegasus which is then taken to altitude and dropped before the booster ignites. The TriStar is a type that disappeared from service far faster than its rival, the DC-10, so seeing one in great condition was pretty cool.
One great advantage of social media is that you find out about something before it happens rather than after – well, at least some of the time. I saw a Facebook post about a talk being given by Brian Shul at the Hiller Aviation Museum. Brian is a retired Air Force pilot who flew a variety of aircraft types culminating in the SR-71 Blackbird. He has published a number of books and talks to various groups about aspects of his life and career.
After Brian had finished his talk, I managed to grab some time with him to conduct an interview. The piece that resulted is now live on the Global Aviation Resource website at the following link. http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2015/01/23/aviation-profile-brian-shul-sr-71-blackbird-pilot/
Brian’s life has had many interesting turns. I will leave the story to the feature and you can always buy his books if you have saved some pennies. I do want to point out that Brian is a very engaging person. I sat with him for a long time while he dealt with so many people that wanted to talk to him that day and he never once shied away from taking as much time as any of them wanted, young or old. He was even given directions to visitors looking for the museum’s restrooms without batting an eye. When we managed to get some time to talk, he freely and frankly talked about anything I asked and provided plenty of material for the article. Meeting interesting people is a great part of writing for GAR.
Lots of my retro posts come about because I was doing something else that led me to a shot I had forgotten about. Having a system like Lightroom is a great way of throwing up some interesting shots that appear when you run a keyword search. In this case, I was looking at an old air show which had featured the Blue Angels. As is usual for their shows, the first part of the demonstration was the USMC C-130 display, Fat Albert.
At the end of the display, they land the C-130 and throw the props into reverse aiming to stop as quickly as possible. (A little bit of bouncing is also apparent in the top shot!) On this occasion, I guess the ground alongside the runway was not too stable. The wash thrown forward by the props ripped the turf up ahead of the plane and threw it into the air. It made for a pretty dramatic view. Even through the viewfinder, I could see what was going on. The shots afterwards just confirmed how much material they threw around that day!
If you ever want to find a way to lose a lot of time (this assumes you are an aviation guy), spend time on the Lockheed Martin in-house magazine’s website, Code One. Edited by Eric Hehs (with contributions including some by Jeff Rhodes), the magazine is full of great stories about Lockheed Martin products past and present. I should say I have met Eric and Jeff through ISAP and both are great guys so I am biased. When I am supposed to be doing something, Code One is the worst thing for me to look at since I can get lost in story after story. Recently they were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the SR-71 and ran a piece about preserved Blackbirds. This got me wondering how many of them I have seen and photographed.
I will start by pointing out I saw them in service as well as preserved. Mildenhall was home of Detachment 4 of the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing for many years. Blackbirds made an appearance at the Air Fetes that were held at Mildenhall in those days. I also saw a couple from outside the fence during normal operations.
It turns out that, while there are a lot of them around, I have seen quite a few. Some I have seen but not photographed which is a little frustrating. However, most of the ones I have seen have made it in to the collection. Here are a selection of shots. (These also include A12 and YF-12 airframes so not all SR-71s but I doubt you care about that.)
While I was at Moffett Federal Field to cover the Soaring Angel exercise, we were shown around Hangar Three. It is used by the base units to store material as well as to stage equipment ahead of shipping. However, it is more interesting because it is one of the huge airship hangars on the airfield. I have previously posted some shots of Hangar One here. Hangar Three is on the other side of the field and one of two hangars of a different design to Hangar One. However, it is still a cool structure.
The structure is very dense. Being a wooden frame, it is very complex series of beams and joists to hold up such a large structure. It is both cool to see and hard to photograph when trying to convey the size of the thing. Added to that is that it is very dark in there. Compared to the brightness outside, there is a huge range of light from the ramp to the interior.
One other nice thing about the hangar is that it is currently the home to the P-2 Neptune for the museum across the airfield. It will move across to join the collection on display before too long. The QSRA research aircraft has already moved over and hopefully it will too. In the meantime, it is waiting in the dark. I don’t know whether any work is underway on it but it looks in pretty good shape. It will make a nice addition to the P-3 to show the history of maritime patrol aircraft at Moffett.
Davis Monthan was not just a hive of A-10 activity. We also got a couple of Hercules while we were there. The first to show up was the one I was particularly pleased with. It was a Japanese forces aircraft and looked very nice in its pale blue colors. The other was a based aircraft which was an EC-130. We actually got to see it twice. Once it was flying around DM itself but it also flew an approach while we were at Tucson shooting the F-16s. A nice addition to the trip!
Paul’s visit also included a trip to Moffett Field. Neither of us had visited the museum there so we were both interested in having a look. To be honest, we had assumed it would be a relatively quick visit but the place was very interesting and a docent ended up chatting to us about lots of features in the museum and he was a great guy to talk to. He also took us outside to look at some of their more interesting aircraft.
There are a few preserved aircraft at Moffett. Some restoration work continues and their P-2 Neptune is currently across the field being worked on. A P-3 is a short walk away from the museum but they have a fenced off area with a few other exhibits. These include an F-104G Starfighter that NASA used to operate, an AH-1 Cobra from the US Army, a research wind tunnel model (Moffett has an interesting selection of wind tunnels even after the demolition of the biggest one a few years ago) and their centerpiece, a Lockheed U-2. It is currently awaiting reassembly so the wings are on supports alongside the aircraft awaiting reattachment. They have worked hard on restoring it and it looks really cool. The camera installation is inside the museum as well.
Moffett Field’s history as an airfield is an interesting one and they cover it well. Whether it is the early airship work and the huge hangars that are still on the field or the long presence the US Navy had, the current ANG rescue operations or the NASA research activity, they have it covered. Do pay them a visit and support the work that they are doing. They have a few cool aircraft that are on the other side of the field which are currently out of bounds to the public so I shall have to see if there is a way to get to see them at some point.
My Boeing Field visit also included a very nice surprise. The evening was drawing in quite quickly but a view off to the south showed a lot of smoke coming from something on the approach. At first I had no idea what it was but soon the familiar shape of a Hercules came into view. This was a civilian model, the L-100. It was operated by Lynden Air Cargo delivering something large!
They were heading for a ramp close to the threshold so the crew were not shy about thumping the aircraft down right on the numbers. A decent cloud of tire smoke let you know they were down and then they put the props into reverse and were soon off the runway and taxiing back to the stand. An interesting aircraft and a lucky break.
If you go back a long time in this blog, you will see my tales to chasing a classic business jet, the Lockheed JetStar. Since leaving Chicago I have been frustrated to see a large number of movements of this fantastic looking machine showing up at Midway and Chicago Executive airports. They must have known I was gone and come out of the woodwork.
Fortunately, there is a local example. Hayward Executive is a short distance from me and I recently spotted that it was due to make an early departure for Mexico. With nothing to conflict with this, I headed across. Wanting a specific movement is often a frustrating thing since, while a flight plan will be filed for a given time, they often go at another time since it is all about when the person is ready to leave. You don’t have to stick to a schedule when you have your own jet!
In this case, I was lucky. They filed for an 8:42 departure and actually got airborne at 8:49. Not bad. The weather was overcast and not the greatest but, with the angle of the departure, more sun much actually have been a problem at this time of year. Anyway, I got a good view of the take off run and the turnout was towards me so a few quick shots to add to my JetStar collection and I was done. Back home for breakfast!
