Tag Archives: vintage

Hangar Three

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.

Tiger Moth Flying

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With so many things going on, I realized it had been a while since I made a trip up to Sonoma Skypark for the normal Saturday activities. I arrived and spent time with my friend Eric discussing many things aeronautical. While we talked, a Tiger Moth flew back into the pattern. We stopped to watch it for a moment and Eric assumed I had flown in one before – he couldn’t believe an aviation enthusiast from the UK could possibly not have done so. However, I hadn’t.

As it was, Eric got in discussion regarding an issue with the engine with Mike, the owner of the aircraft. Eric thought a short flight would be necessary to help diagnose the issue and thought I should provide ballast. I was not going to turn down this opportunity.

The flight was a short one as was required to check out the engine. We took off, climbed to a moderate height, flew a couple of turns and then returned to Skypark. It was a remarkably smooth aircraft and seemed to just glide through the air. Eric pointed out the guy with the stick might have something to do with that (for those of you who are photographers the assumption you must have a great camera will spring to mind) and, while I was certainly appreciative of Eric’s flying, I did like how the Tiger Moth flew.

Not sure when I will next get a chance to fly in the type but it was certainly great to experience and my thanks to Mike for letting me ride in his plane and to Eric for taking me up.

Deutsches Museum

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A friend of mine was discussing his imminent travel plans. Part of this is taking in Munich, a city we visited a few years ago when another friend was living there. The Deutsches Museum is on the itinerary for my friend’s current trip and it brought to mind the aircraft collection there. The museum is a marvelous place covering a wide variety of industrial, technological and scientific subjects. A day is required if you visit but you will still leave much unseen. The location of Messerschmitt and succeeding companies nearby means they have access to many great aircraft and the collection is outstanding.

On a previous visit in the early 90s, they had some other aircraft, some of which were outside. Some of these have now moved to another location where a second museum facility has been established. I was unable to fit in a visit there but if I ever get back to Munich, it will be on my list.

RAFM Hendon

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A recent project a colleague was working on involved some shots from the RAF Museum at Hendon. I had made a visit to this museum when I was a student living in London and had taken some photos at that time. I took a look through the old films to see whether I had anything that they needed. As it turned out, I didn’t have a shot of what they were after. As is so common when going through film archives, I find that I took a ridiculously small number of shots of interesting things and I am disappointed by the lack of shots and the quality of some of them too.

However, it was kind of interesting to see what was there at the time. Having never been back since, I have no idea how it is currently laid out and what is there that wasn’t before and what has gone. However, I do know that the Blackburn Beverley that was outside when I was there was scrapped not too long after that as the airframe had deteriorated in the outdoor storage. These shots are just a couple from that visit.

Petaluma Cars

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The California climate is certainly good for preserving things. There is no shortage of old cars in the state and many of them are kept in great condition. The fact you can use them year round probably doesn’t discourage the effort to restore them. I suspect only being able to get them out for half of the year and having weather that rots them reduces the incentive for some would be restorers.

A day in Petaluma provided quite a selection of old “motors” to look at. Some were heavily modified vehicles that would have looked interesting whenever you would have seen them. Others were just nicely preserved versions of standard cars that would have gone unnoticed when they were relatively new. Now they all catch your eye and the owners seem to appreciate the cars being appreciated. Plenty of nods and waves were exchanged and raising the camera to my eye resulted in a positive response too.

Mustangs Day

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Another day out took me to Vacaville to visit Nut Tree Airport for their Mustangs Day. While I wasn’t planning this as a feature for Global Aviation Resource, I did end up putting together a BloGAR piece for the site about the day out. A slightly less formal write up which is more about my day than the event. If you want to check it out, the link is below.

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/11/14/bloggar-rob-edgcumbe-nut-tree-mustang-days-2014/

If you don’t check that out (please do though), here is a smaller sample of the aircraft that were around that day. I was getting a little silly playing with very slow shutter speeds so some things did not come out as planned but it was fun all the same.

Wings Over Wine Country

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After a bit of a dry patch for GAR, I have been able to put together a number of pieces for them. Some are more interesting than others to me. I prefer to be able to tell a story about a person or operation that is not something people will normally see. However, I will have the odd report from an air show if I end up going to one – something that I do less than I used to.

One show I did get to was Wings Over Wine Country in Santa Rosa. The link will take you to the piece I wrote on the show. It was a good little show. It had a pretty reasonable selection of performers for its size. Some were of more interest to me than others. Photography was tricky since the lighting gets progressively worse as the day goes on. http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/10/06/airshow-review-wings-over-wine-country-2014/

I did enjoy shooting the finale of the show. A USMC V-22 Osprey wrapped up proceedings. It was not a very dynamic display but it did give me a chance to try a lot of shots of the tilt-rotor in flight. The slow turning rotors are a nightmare for photographers since they appear frozen at all but the lowest shutter speeds. I took the chance to see just how low I could go!

Night Star Trails

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My buddy Paul was in town and we had a day of shooting and exploring planned. However, we wanted to have a go at star trails in the evening as well. Consequently, we set up at Schellville as the sun went down to shoot the trails around the Douglas DST parked on the field. I set up two cameras at different angles and with different lenses to try and maximize what I got. The sun was still going down when I started so the exposure was varying a bit more than I was prepared for but a little tweaking in post got things back together. We also did some light painting on the airframe in a couple of frames to make the scene pop a bit more.

The biggest thing I learned during this was to start when it is darker and to take mosquito protection. I got badly bitten during the early part of the shoot and the bites reacted quite severely! Also, doing this in the winter so you don’t have to wait so late for it to get dark might also be a good plan. However, it went reasonably well and I have a few things I will know to do differently next time. I might also try a trail on one camera and a time lapse on the other.

Curtiss Jenny

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There are many vintage aircraft that I have had the chance to photograph over the years. However, I have not had many opportunities to photograph a genuine First World War era aircraft. That was something that I was recently able to address. Sonoma Valley in Schellville has a variety of interesting aircraft as I have mentioned in the past. One of these is Frank’s beautiful Jenny. It is in pristine condition. I had previously been around when it was due to fly but a fuel leak in a line had curtailed activities that day.

This time the plan was to fly a couple of people in the aircraft. Eric Presten was the pilot for these flights and he needed to run a quick air test before taking anyone up so three flights appeared to be on the cards. I arrived at Schellville in the morning to be ready. Unfortunately, the weather was not looking too cooperative. There was a little mist and the cloud base was pretty low with the surrounding hills having their tops obscured. We got the aircraft ready as we waited for the cloud to lift which it progressively did.

Eric was soon able to get up for the air test. While the conditions were better for flying, they still weren’t great for photography. However, while he was up, the cloud was burning off more and more. The result was, by the time the two flights for the guest took place, conditions were ideal. For the second ride, Eric put in an overflight of the field allowing me to get something other than ground running shots, tail end departures or head on landings. The latter two were subject to a lot of heat haze so it was great to get something a little closer in.

She truly is a lovely looking aircraft and an example of something very rare to see. I will enjoy seeing her flying again. What will be even better is getting a chance to shoot her air to air. If the opportunity for that should come up, I will be a very happy boy. In the mean time, I am very grateful to Frank and Eric for including me in this. Great guys and a great plane!

T-6s Doing Their Stuff

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A pair of locally based North American T-6 trainers were keeping busy while the Collings folks were in town. Shortly after I first arrived, they launched as a pair. The departure was very nice but was a little spoiled by a card error on my camera. (I had a card that had given me occasional trouble but this was the first time it really crapped out. It has now gone back to the manufacturer for a replacement.) The T-6s were not done and flew several times. This gave me a few more opportunities to get shots of them. Their returns to base would involve some nice breaks into the downwind which were well centered on our location. I will have to investigate these guys further since they flew very nicely.