In a previous post, I shared images of Hawaii Mars as it was moored up on Sproat Lake on Vancouver Island. Our plan had been to get it while it was taxiing out and taking off. Our understanding of previous flights was that they had gone a long way up the lake before turning around and taking off back towards their starting point. We had limitations on how far we were allowed to take the boat and also the time we had to get back to our drop off point.
The understanding was that they would fire up just after 5pm and be airborne at 5:30. With our rental ending at 6:00, this gave us a bit of a narrow margin for racing back. However, it should be able to work. However, that relied on them hitting those times. That wasn’t happening. We got a message that they were going to start just after 6:00. Now what to do. With no sign of movement, we headed back to the drop off to see if anyone else was renting the boat after us. No, they were shutting down for the day. We begged with the guy who told us he was due to end shift. However, he had a couple of things to close out so told us we could have half an hour tops.
We thanked him profusely and headed back out. We wouldn’t have the time for the original plan so, instead, we headed down towards the narrows that we anticipated they would have to come through and waited. We finally saw engines start cranking. With all running, they taxied away from us to the end of the lake. Then they turned and started back our way. As we watched, the spray on the fuselage grew larger and it became apparent that they weren’t going to be taxing past us but were actually taking off.
As they motored towards us and got larger and larger in the viewfinder, the question was how low a shutter speed was acceptable when shooting a moving plane from a boat bobbing around on a lake. Caution was appropriate plus a high frame rate. They roared past with gorgeous light on the airframe. A helicopter was filming them and also came in to frame which was a nice addition. A little beyond our location and they were airborne. What a result. We then high tailed it back to the dock where our excellent person was waiting for us. It could hardly have gone better.
Two quite different versions of the same thing here. The Comox Air Show this year included demonstrations are aerial refueling with the RCAF Hornet. The first of these was perfectly sensible because it was the Hornet formating on the C-130 Hercules fitted with refueling pods. The Hornet took up station behind the drogue units to demonstrate how refueling would be done.
Later in the show, there was a slightly odder version of things. A USAF KC-135R Stratotanker (which was carrying Kadena tailcodes which might be a first for me) was airborne and the Hornet formated on this too. Some KC-135s do carry hose drogue units on the wings or a drogue adaptor on the end of the boom but this was not one of them. Instead, they simulated the boom refueling. The Hornet can’t refuel from the boom but, since it was just an airshow, I doubt too many people were bothered by this.
