Category Archives: CAF

November 24, 2018 · 23:13

Sweet Beech 18

Look what was sitting out on the ramp today!

This Beech 18 is in perfect condition, must be a real joy to fly.

Seats six comfortably plus the pilot and co-pilot and with a range of 1,200 miles at 160 mph, this was the pre-eminent “businessman special” following WWII.

You can pick up one in really nice condition like this for under $200K, and I’m sure the maintenance and upkeep is far less than a LearJet!

Plus, this one you can fly yourself with just a taildragger endorsement and a multi-engine rating. I would assume you would also want an IFR rating and probably some unusual attitude training for safety purposes, but that’s still a hell of a lot less money than a type rating in a LearJet or a Citation X.

A boy can dream…

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Filed under CAF, Flying, Photography

September 17, 2018 · 23:55

So Many Buttons & Levers

So many buttons & levers & instruments (and they’re all in different places!) and struts and new things!

(click to enbiggenate)

A small panorama from the back seat of the SNJ.

A lever and at least one gauge that I’ve never used before, since I’ve never flown a plane with a constant speed prop.

On the left side of the seat (you can’t see it in this view) is a big lever with a yellow knob, and at the bottom center of the panel are two green lights. The green lights are good because we were on the ground and the landing gear was down. Another new thing for me.

Also the first time with a stick instead of a “control yoke” – known to you and I as a steering wheel.

I have my pilot’s license. We need pilots at the CAF, particularly on the lower end aircraft like this one. (Everyone wants to fly the fighters or the bombers, the trainers are the poor sisters of the group.) If I could ever catch a break on my time demands (or make one) and could get current again in a “normal” aircraft (a Cessna 172 or 150 usually) then I could start training in the PT-19 and in a year or two…

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Filed under CAF, Panorama, Photography

September 1, 2018 · 22:25

Something Familiar Here…

At the CAF SoCal hangar we have a gazillion pieces of a P-47 that we’re starting to restore.

Two of those pieces caught my eye today. To me they look surprisingly like a certain Gungan Senator from Naboo who’s universally despised…

Is that sort of like reverse anthropomorphism? Or xenopomorphism?

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Filed under CAF, Photography, Science Fiction

August 23, 2018 · 22:18

Best Comment From The Airshow

(Oops, looks like I forgot to post yesterday! I remember researching something, apparently never wrote or pushed the “publish” button. That’s what? Four times? Five times? In over five years? “That will do, pig. That will do.”)

An ongoing repair in one of the CAF SoCal hangars led to the best line of the weekend.

Imagine the following, in an incredibly thick Scottish brogue which I won’t even attempt to reproduce in writing:

“Jesus Christ, you’ve got to have the fucking stupidest pilots in the world here! How many of them actually tried to piss in the thing before someone put up the sign??!!”

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Filed under CAF, Farce, Photography

August 18, 2018 · 23:37

Wings Over Camarillo Saturday 2018

It’s been a long, long day. A pretty good day, a good airshow – but a long day, with another to start early tomorrow.

Here are a few quick pictures from today.

(click to get the full sized image that you can scan through in detail to your heart’s content)

Right outside my “office” there was a Warthog and a Hornet – and a bunch of our planes – and a P-38 Lightning and a P-40 and a Corsair (yes, it was in “Black Sheep Squadron”) and…

When I’m busy doing the work, it’s important to stop for a minute every now and then and remember, ‘WOW!!“

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Filed under CAF, Flying, Panorama, Photography

August 17, 2018 · 23:20

Wings Over Camarillo Preview

The air show is tomorrow and Sunday. I was out at the hangar tonight getting my financial ducks in a row (I am the Finance Officer for the CAF SoCal Wing, need to get cash boxes and paperwork ready for our various revenue points such as our PX booth [T-shirts, hats, toys, etc], our Beer Garden [margaritas, sodas, water, and snacks as well], our membership booth, and our ride sales) and took the time (I could I not!) to watch a few of the planes coming in and doing their practice routines.

Allow me to share!

(Click on image to enlarge to full size)

Our ramp has some sweet aircraft on it! Not only are our warbirds there, but there’s a P-38 Lightning, a Corsair, and a Warthog!!

Then the F-18’s started coming in and practicing. (Having two F-18s taking off in formation on full afterburners is an ASTONISHING thing to experience, even if it does leave you saying “What??!!” a lot for the next couple of hours!)

That sunset!! And then our Zero taxied in.

It would have been sweet to have the good camera (I didn’t, I went to the hangar straight from work) but this doesn’t suck!

I hope to see some of you this weekend out in Camarillo. For the rest of you, watch for pictures here and on my other social media.

For the really, really good photos (to be taken by pros who aren’t simultaneously running around like lunatics trying to be the finance guy) you can follow the CAF SoCal feeds on FaceBook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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Filed under CAF, Flying, Panorama, Photography, Video

August 16, 2018 · 23:35

Wings Over Camarillo This Weekend

So last night I got sort of unexpectedly dark and pissy about missing Worldcon this year (AGAIN!!!) and while I feel fully justified in being pissed off about that, the reason we’re missing it is not without a bit of upside.

I’ve written and shown lots of pictures about previous years‘ Wings Over Camarillo airshow – it’s a nice, mid-sized show with lots of neat stuff to see, including all of the CAF SoCal planes we can get into the air. (For those of you who might just be joining me here, in addition to my day job I’m in my fifth (?) year as the Finance Officer of the CAF SoCal Wing.)

So if you’re in the greater Southern California area this weekend and you’re looking for something to do, swing on by! Aside from all of the other things there are to do at the show, when you swing by the CAF hangers (we’re at the far western end of the part of the ramp that’s open to visitors, four huge hangers and all the warbirds you can eat) and say hello. Ask just about anyone in a CAF shirt where I am and they can track me down. I’ll be running around like a lunatic all weekend doing Finance Officer shit, but there’s always time to say hello, both for old friends who might come out to the show and for new friends who I just haven’t met yet.

Oh, yeah, there might be pictures this weekend. Plane pictures.

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Filed under CAF, Flying

August 15, 2018 · 23:38

No Worldcon For Us – Again

My calendar reminds me that right about now is when I was supposed to be finishing a long drive from LA to San Jose and checking into our hotel for this year’s World Science Fiction Convention (aka “Worldcon”).

That’s not happening. I’m not thrilled.

About six or seven weeks ago we cancelled our reservations and told friends that we weren’t going to be there. The Wings Over Camarillo airshow is this weekend and as the Finance Officer for the Wing it’s sort of critical that I be there. Last year I wasn’t (it was the total solar eclipse!) and for that I made the trip. And then had to work twice as hard for quite a while to get caught up. It was worth it (TOTAL FREAKIN’ SOLAR ECLIPSE!!) but as much as I love going to Worldcon, I have to do the responsible, “adulting” thing this year. There will be another one next year.

But as I saw the posts of friends from all over the country and even all over the world heading to San Jose, I got to thinking about how long it’s been since I’ve been to Worldcon. Then I got really depressed.

Nine years.

The last time we went was 2009 in Montreal. Which was great, because we had gotten to Denver in 2008. And the family got to LA in 2006. (I didn’t since I was doing my MBA program at Pepperdine and had class that entire weekend.) And we all went to Toronto in 2003 and San Jose in 2002! And from 1978 (my first con of any kind) in Phoenix through 1984 in Los Angeles I went for seven years in a row!

But since Montreal I’ve missed Melbourne, Reno, Chicago, San Antonio, London, Spokane, Kansas City, and Helsinki. Fine, London when I was unemployed for a while might have been a reasonable, responsible call. And Kansas City was fairly soon after I started my current job and I probably didn’t have any vacation time accrued yet. But what’s up with that Reno, Chicago, and San Antonio stretch? What was the excuse then?

I’m sure it was something along the lines of, “There will be another one next year.”

So next year it’s Dublin. And in 2020 it will be New Zealand. (Okay, the 2020 site selection voting is going on this weekend, but no one else has a bid, so…) And likely to be (only one current bid) Washington DC in 2021 , Chicago in 2022, and Minneapolis in 2073.

Too early to start planning my excuse/reason for missing it next year?

I’ll watch the Hugo awards and masquerade online… Wait, it just hit me. No, I won’t. They’ll be on at times when I’m tied up with my job at the air show.

Y’all have fun in San Jose. Say hello to fandom for me. I’ll be over here being adult, boring, mundane, and contemplating the similarities between a rut and a grave.

(Wow, THAT escalated quickly!)

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Filed under CAF, Fandom, Paul

August 11, 2018 · 23:17

Bearcat Closeups

When you get up close and personal with an F8-F Bearcat, it’s all nut, bolts, wires, metal, grease, and rivets – designed to tear through the sky like a bat out of Hell! It’s a beautiful thing.

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Filed under CAF, Flying, Photography

July 28, 2018 · 20:46

A Packed Ramp Pano

With three hangers in use for parties today (it’s one of our key revenue sources, a GREAT place for a wedding, birthday party, bar/bat mitzvah, quinceanera, retirement party, movie shoot – seriously, it’s the biggest venue in Ventura County) a lot of the planes were parked out on the ramp. It was a good time to go stand out among them and take a nice, wide panoramic view:

(Click to blow it up to full size)

Most are CAF aircraft, some are owned by CAF SoCal members, some are AAF aircraft.

From left to right (more or less):

  • T-34 Mentor (orange, black, and white)
  • PT-19 Stearman (blue, yellow, red & white rudder, over by the corner of the hangar)
  • PBJ (grey, the big bomber)
  • A-2 Alon (white & red, in the foreground)
  • L-29C (silver jet)
  • A6M3 Zero (dark green with red dot, way off behind the L-29C)
  • Spitfire (dark brown, behind the tail of the L-29C)
  • C-46 Commando (Silver, huge cargo plane in the background)
  • P-51 Mustang (silver, red nose)
  • F-6F Hellcat (dark blue, big white star, in between the C-46 and P-51)
  • UH-1 Iroquois (dark green helicopter with a red cross on the side)
  • B-25 (dark green bomber facing away from us, a cousin to our PBJ)
  • L-17 Navion (silver, in foreground)
  • T-6 Texan (yellow, behind the Navion)
  • C-47 Dakota (brown & khaki camouflage, behind the SNJ)

The majority of these aircraft are flying. The C-47 is being restored by the AAF, our C-46 hasn’t flown in a few years and would need some work to be airworthy again, and the UH-1 helicopter has actually been converted into to a fancy & stylish promotional beer wagon. The other twelve? All have flown recently, and at least four of these aircraft were flying today.

If you’re in the Southern California area, you should come out and visit us some time. Visit on a Saturday and I’ll probably be there, I would be glad to show you around.

Better yet, come out in three weeks for the Wings Over Camarillo airshow. Not only can you see all of these aircraft, you’ll see a ton more, with many of them (including just about anything we can put into the air) flying and performing aerobatics. Bring sunscreen, we’ll sell you the beer, soda, margaritas, other folks will sell you the food, it will be a great time!

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Filed under CAF, Panorama, Photography