Tag Archives: military

What Aviation Can I Shoot From Home?

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The answer to that question is clearly “not much” but it isn’t zero.  We do get things flying overhead here on a regular basis.  We are on the approach to SeaTac for some arrivals and we do sometimes get Boeing Field traffic too.  It’s a rarity when there is something interesting and I am ready, though, so that doesn’t provide a lot.  However, I did recently have a T-38 from Boeing’s chase fleet come over the house.  It was a bit high but it was enough to get me out in the driveway!

We have also had helicopters fly over on occasion.  An Army Chinook came past one time while and Navy Seahawk was another transient.  In each case, I only heard them shortly before they arrived so grabbed the camera while at my desk and shot through the window.  That is not a good plan but it was all I had available at the time.  These can count as my lockdown at home aviation projects!

Edwards Storage Yard

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I had a recent post of some shots from the USAF museum at Edwards AFB.  It reminded me of my first visit to Edwards in 1990.  On that trip I saw both the USAF side of things and the NASA side.  The NASA hangars were great and there were lots of amazing types being used for testing purposes.  I didn’t see everything I was hoping for there but it was still fantastic.  One thing that really excited me was the storage lot.  There were some interesting airframes parked up there.  An F-8 Crusader that had been used for supercritical wing testing was there.  I think that has since been taken care of and is now restored.  The fly by wire testbed was also there.

There was also a weird hybrid airframe.  I think it was called RSRA which stood for rotor systems research aircraft.  This was a hybrid of rotor and fixed wing technologies.  One of them was modified for the X-Wing program which was canceled before it could fly.  Not sure which one I saw but I think it was the unmodified one.  These things could have A-10/S-3 engines fitted to them for higher speed research work.  Oh, to have seen one in action.  This lot would have been definitely worth some time looking around if it had been possible.

Fort Worth F-16s

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Ahead of an ISAP symposium many years ago, my friend Richard had arranged a visit to JRB Carswell at Fort Worth.  As well as being the home of the Lockheed Martin assembly plant, it also hosts the 301st FW of the USAF Reserve with their F-16s.  They were great hosts and we got to spend a bunch of time around the base.  On their ramp space, we had a lot of freedom to shoot them prepping for missions and heading out.

We also got to go to the EOR and see them come in after their missions and have the jets safed prior to taxiing back to the ramp.  Being close to the jets while they are doing real work is such a different experience to seeing them at an air show when things are all a bit more contrived.  This was a new experience for me at the time and so I was following the example of a few of the other guys when looking to see what sort of things to get shots of.  It was a great learning experience and a bunch of fun too!

The Edwards Museum

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Edwards AFB has been the home to an amazing range of interesting aircraft types.  Many of them have found their way to prominent museums around the country given the significance of what they achieved.  Others never found interest and got disposed of.  Some never lasted long enough to be preserved given the hazardous nature of what they did.  However, there was a storage program for the rest and Edwards has a museum of some of these preserved airframes.

I haven’t been to Edwards for a long time so I don’t know what the current situation is with the collection but I did get to check it out on a previous visit.  The collection was mainly front line types that had been used for testing purposes.  (This is the USAF side of things rather than the NASA collection.)  There are some types there that I didn’t see which I would like to have done like the YA-7F.  However, there was a test A-7D with an air data boom.  Here are some of the shots I got that day.  I also shot a couple of other jets that were away from the rest but these were only with my phone and phone quality in those days was not what it is now.

An Old RIAT Since This Year’s Is Scrubbed

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When I lived in the UK, a trip to RIAT was a regular thing for me.  After I started shooting digital, I was living in the US so RIAT was more than just a day trip.  My first visit with the digital camera was in 2006.  I had to be in the UK for work so I timed it to coincide with RIAT because, you know, it would have been rude not to.  With RIAT canceled this year due to the ongoing virus issues, I figured I would jump back to this show to provide some highlights.

I spent two days there.  I made my first arrivals day visit and spent the day at the west end which was really nice.  Planes were arriving from that direction anyway so it worked out well.  The conditions were really nice on both days too so it was a fun and successful shoot.  Mikoyan-Gurevich brought there MiG-29OVT demonstrator with thrust vectoring and it flipped its way around the sky with abandon.  There was the usual selection of types from around the world which makes RIAT so fun.  There were also some older UK types making an appearance like the Canberra demonstration – the last RAF Canberra flights I saw – and the old Twin Pioneer.

A Czech Mil-24 Hind helicopter gunship in special tiger dquadron markings overflies RAF Fairford, UK.

Hopefully there is something in this selection that will be of interest from a great show.  There have been more RIAT visits since so maybe I shall dig out some stuff from those years if I continue to struggle for material for future posts!

C-32s

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The demise of a bunch of airline fleets of 757s at the moment is a shame as it is a type I was always fond of from the days of British Airways using them for shuttle services around the UK as well as being the first commercial jet I flew on heading to Lisbon from Heathrow.  The military has also made use of the jet of course.  The New Zealand 757 displays in the past have been pretty impressive and maybe that gives me an idea for a future post.  The USAF has a bunch of them, designated as C-32, and they are used for VIP transportation.

They are not a type that you often come across but I have seen them on a few occasions.  An Andrews AFB Open House provided one movement – they are based there so not such a surprise.  Another was at Nellis AFB when one launched just prior to a Red Flag launch when we were waiting between the runways for the action to kick off.  The VIP colors of the USAF jets are quite elegant and they suit the 757 nicely.

Marine Corps Herc

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The heat haze was a bit of a problem on this day so I was hoping that they would roll out a bit long to get into usable range.  They couldn’t have been more obliging.  It turned out to be a US Marine Corps KC-130J.  They didn’t exit early for the taxiway even though they could have done so with ease but instead rolled all the way to near me before exiting and taxiing back to the ramp in the other direction.  This was very kind of them.  I got them close enough in to have little in the way of heat haze and to get a decent look at them.

Drone F-4s at Mojave

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Before the F-16s became the drone target conversion of choice for the USAF, the F-4 was the jet. The contract for conversion was run by Tracor which ultimately ended up being part of BAE Systems at the time I saw these jets.  They did the conversion program at Mojave Airport in California.  We were a bit of a distance from the ramp where they were parked but it was early in the day and the heat haze was not yet a problem so a long shot was feasible.  Looking at these, I think they were both RF-4C jets that had either been converted or were about to be.

Edwards F-16s

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Another day, another retro post.  I am pleasantly surprised by what I find as I go through old shots since I am not able to get any new shots while we are all self-isolating.  In this case it was a visit to Edwards AFB that was a pre-symposium trip ahead of an ISAP meeting.  I think Richard was the one that organized it all.  Anyway, the Edwards test fleet includes a bunch of F-16s.  Some are from the test pilot school and some are test program assets or chase planes.  There was also a Danish jet that was supporting the F-35 program.

We got to hang out on the ramp as see the jets under the shelters as well as get up close and personal as they were heading out for a mission and recovering.  We later went out to shoot near the runway which was fun but not ideal from a shooting perspective because of heat haze.  Who would have thought the Mojave Desert would have heat haze!  Still better than a day at work of course.

Here are a bunch of shots from that day.  I haven’t been through most of these for ages so it is interesting to see what upgrading them to the latest editing algorithms of Lightroom can do for the processing results.  I have yet to find one that doesn’t look better with the new processes applied.

A Saudi F-15SA in the PNW

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A Boeing F-15SA development airframe has been in the PNW.  The F-15SA is a development of the Strike Eagle family specifically for the Royal Saudi Air Force.  They are buying new jets as well as updating the F-15S jets they bought years ago.  Production jets have been delivered for a while now but testing activities continue.  I had heard that a jet was at Boeing Field for a while and had even seen the tails parked on the ramp as I drove by but I hadn’t seen it moving.

Military jets don’t usually show up on the mainstream flight tracking apps (but this one had when it traveled cross country) so I didn’t know it was airborne.  However, I heard it call up on approach so stopped what I was doing and grabbed the camera.  Sure enough, it came zipping down the approach.  A few quick shots and then it was down.  Apparently I was rather lucky.  A couple of days later it headed back across country.