Tag Archives: vintage

EAA Trimotor at San Carlos

EAA take their Ford Trimotor on tour around the country giving pleasure flights to people at many stops en route. I have seen the plane quite a few times including at Oshkosh and Clow. When Hayman told me it was stopping at San Carlos, it seemed like a good idea to take a trip along to see. It was operating from the ramp at the Hiller Aviation Museum so that is where I started out. Actually, breakfast at the great airport café is where we started!

The early weather was a bit overcast. Gray skies and flat light are not ideal for a metal finish aircraft but we could still enjoy the flying and the start up and shut down as they turned the plane around. It gets off the ground with a very short roll so, given the length of the field and the runway in use, it was well up by the time it came past us. We did experiment shooting down the runway head on. This coincided with the sun coming out so the heat haze suddenly became an issue. Win some, lose some!

After a while, Hayman and I decided we were done for a while. He had other things to do and I wanted to try a couple of other things. However, it did decide to come back later on to get some shots from a different location as the plane was landing which also had the nicest light of the day. Good job to EAA for a great program that was very popular. They had a lot of customers, all of whom seemed to have had a good time.

Curtiss P-36

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Vintage aircraft are not my specialty. I know my P-51 from my P-47 but I am not too knowledgeable of the different types of the more famous aircraft and I am certainly on shaky ground when it comes to the less numerous types. Consequently, when I was preparing to go to Chino for the Planes of Fame airshow, the GAR team told me to get shots of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk that was going to be on display for the first time. I agreed while secretly wondering what a P-36 was. Fortunately, the internet is a wonderful source of information and I was able to get an idea of what it was I was looking for before it got there!

This P-36 has been restored at Chino and will shortly be heading to the UK to join a collection there. Not only was it on display in the static area but it also participated in the flying program. Therefore, I got many opportunities to get some shots of it for the GAR piece. It is an interesting looking aircraft, even if it didn’t end up being a huge seller. It looked great coming from restoration and was flown together with the AT-12 (which is apparently a two seat P-35 – so I am told). On a sunny spring day in California they looked very nice together. I hope everyone in the UK enjoys them when they arrive.

Anyone See Any Mustangs?

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Half Moon Bay might not have been an air show in the strict sense but it did bring in a nice mix of warbirds. A good selection of P-51 Mustangs launched together to carry out some flypasts. We ended up being well placed for them taxiing out. Having a group of Mustangs rumbling past you is pretty cool. Having them lined up on the taxiway for their power checks before taking off was even better. What a great looking group of aircraft.

DC-3 Gathering

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I have occasionally stumbled on to events that I really should have known about. One such time was a gathering of DC-3s that took place at Rock Falls in Illinois. About 90 minutes from Chicago, this was something I should have known about but didn’t. My friend Paul Filmer apparently knew because he was there. I only found out about it when I heard he had arrived. I already had plans so figured I wouldn’t go. I had arranged to shoot some motorbike riders off-roading in an area not so far away. As it happened, one of the riders was also an autogyro pilot. When we wrapped up the bike shoot, he asked if I wanted to go for a flight. Guess what my answer was.

While we were airborne, we came across one of the DC-3s flying in the local area. He asked if we wanted to follow it so we did. We had talked about heading to Rock Falls before we got airborne anyway. I had texted Paul to watch out for me arriving in a gyro and he thought I was kidding. Once we arrived in the pattern, he realized it was for real.

I got a chance to get some shots of the arrayed Douglas planes as we made our approach. Then, once on the ground, we were able to wander through the ranks of planes. They were in varying conditions with some in pristine shape and others looking like they were after someone with some time and money to bring them back. A couple of the planes were for sale.

It was a fine collection of planes and, since Rock Falls is not terribly close to a major town, it wasn’t over crowded with visitors. There were plenty of people there but you were not fighting for space. I met up with Paul for a chat and took in all there was to see before my pilot decided it was a good time to head home. A pretty fortuitous turn of events since I had not thought I was going to see any of this when I got up that morning.

Planes of Fame Review

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After a period of relative inactivity, I have been a bit busier recently on getting material together for GAR. After a piece on the tenth anniversary of the first flight of the A380 and a review of Dream Machines at Half Moon Bay, I had my first real show of the year. I took a trip down to Chino for the Planes of Fame show. This was the first time I had been to this show, despite the fact it is one of the highlights of the airshow calendar.

The piece went live on GAR recently and can be found at this link. http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2015/05/12/airshow-review…e-airshow-2015/. Meanwhile, here are a few shots that I liked from the event. I will say how much I enjoyed the access you had at this place and it was a very pleasant change not to be herded out as soon as the flying stopped. It was also a lot of fun to hang with Mark, Kev and Jim. Their company made a good weekend great and also meant I didn’t miss the sunset show! Cheers guys.

Submarines

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There weren’t just sailing ships along the harbor front. A couple of submarines were also there. One was an old Russian sub while the other was far smaller but was a research submarine. The Russian sub is a Foxtrot class diesel-electric sub and it is moored a further out on a pier away from the shore. The USS Dolphin was a test and research sub for the US Navy and was involved in much deep diving research and test programs to support the fleet subs. She has a very simple hull shape compared to operational subs. She was only retired in the last ten years and was the longest serving sub in the Navy.

Dream Machines Article

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While it isn’t actually an airshow, Dream Machines at Half Moon Bay was my first aircraft event of the year. Hayman and I headed over there to see what would show up. I was also planning on writing it up for GAR again this year. That piece has now gone live at http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/05/05/aviation-event-review-dream-machines-half-moon-bay/ so you can head over the GAR to see the finished version.

The piece focuses more on the aviation side of things than the cars since it is an aviation site. However, the cars were really cool. Here are a couple of cars along with a plane to give you a hint. I might add some more at a later stage!

Old Frigate

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Alongside the clipper on the waterfront in San Diego is an even old sailing ship. This had the look more of a frigate from the times of Nelson. The shape of the hull is broad to provide a platform for the men and weapons and the gun ports on the side allowed the cannons to fire at any enemy. The boat looked exactly as you would expect for that vintage and, in keeping with the fashion of the day, an intricately carved figurehead was mounted on the bow.

Having grown up on the south coast of the UK, ships of this type were not unknown. HMS Victory was a ship I visited on a number of occasions and it was a big ship compared to this one but the lines are unmistakably similar. The idea of traveling around the world in something like this is fascinating (and terrifying) to me. Doing that and then getting shot at by some pretty unpleasant weaponry with access to minimal medical help if you got hurt is even more scary!

DH Dove

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A few years ago, my friend, Richard, had arranged a visit for a number of us to Mojave Airport. This airport does not have a reputation for being photographer friendly but Richard had made the necessary contacts to get us some time out on the field near the taxiways and runways. One of the operators at Mojave is the National Test Pilot School. NTPS operate a wide variety of types on various flight test training activities and some of them were up and about early on this particular morning.

One type that really caught our eye was the deHavilland Dove. An old piston small transport type, the Dove is not something you see around very often these days. This one is kept in excellent condition and appears to have some modifications for flight test purposes and to assist the training of test pilots and flight test engineers. It took off on a runway that brought it towards us nicely. When it returned, it used another runway so we got to see it from several angles.

Clipper

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A long weekend away was on the cards so we decided to head down the coast to San Diego. Just over an hour on the plane and you are there so it is a pretty easy trip for us to do. San Diego is a city with a lot of things to offer so you won’t be surprised to see a bunch of different posts showing up in the coming days that are from there. Far too much to put into one or even a couple of posts.

One afternoon we had a bit of spare time between things we had planned so we took a walk along the waterfront. This is an area designed to appeal to tourists (which, after all, we were) and it has a number of attractions playing on San Diego’s nautical heritage. One that caught Nancy’s attention was an old clipper style of ship. These were the speed demons of their age moving goods around the globe (at a pace that would now be considered impossibly slow). They were big square riggers and it was the rigging that was what impressed Nancy. The complexity of the ropes is quite something. In order to hold the high loads using the ropes of the era, they are multipled up on a pulley type of arrangement to provide the strength required. From a distance they look impossibly complex and even up close, they are still something to see.