Seeing pictures and hearing stories from friends in New England has me a bit melancholy, wishing that Southern California had a bit more in the way of actual seasons. Especially when the leaves turn.
These pictures were taken just after takeoff from Burlington International, on the shores of Lake Champlain, about forty miles south of the Canadian border.
Shortly after takeoff on Runway 15, off the left side you’ll see the University of Vermont. When I was in high school we referred to it as “Groovy UV,” but I’m not sure anyone does any more. I’m not sure anyone refers to anything as “groovy” any more, at least not unless they’re mocking something or someone.
Lake Champlain should be the sixth Great Lake – but it’s not. That’s upstate New York over on the far side. No sign of Champ, the legendary cousin of the Loch Ness Monster that some people believe lives in the area.
Many islands and a lot of waterfront. It’s lovely in the spring and summer, unbelievably gorgeous in the fall, and very cold and icy in the winter. Three out of four ain’t bad, I guess. And if you like winter sports and the cold, you’re golden!
Filed under Flying, Photography, Travel
“Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.” Attributed often to Groucho Marx, but actually comes from an early AI computer experiment in the 1960’s. As with so many things, the urban myth is so much better than the truth.
Regardless, today time has flown like an arrow. I got wrapped up in surfing job postings and submitting online applications, and all of a sudden noticed that it’s way past my bedtime — with no pearls of wisdom flung out yet today into the blogosphere. (Yeah, it’s a stupid term, but it’s mostly harmless. Given some of the incredibly stupid things going on that are actually killing folks, I can give a pass to ‘blogosphere.’ Sorry, really tired, rambling aimlessly. Will stop now. Really. Now.)
So here are a couple of pictures that I found that look like they’re from an air show, but they’re not. As much as I love going to air shows, these were actually taken in our back yard. A P-51 flew over our house unexpectedly one afternoon many moons ago while I was out taking pictures of the dogs. I don’t recognize the plane (it’s certainly not ours, as in, the one the SoCal CAF flies) but there aren’t a lot of them around to begin with, so it shouldn’t be hard to track down if I really wanted to.
Filed under Airshows, CAF, Flying, Photography
As I mentioned about eight days ago, the Camarillo Airport, Southern California CAF, the local EAA chapter, and a bunch of other folks put on the annual “Wings Over Camarillo” airshow last weekend. It was my first experience working to help put on the airshow after many, many, MANY happy days as a spectator at one.
It was fantastic!
I took my video camera on Sunday (we’ll see what I can pull together from that, haven’t played much with video editing but this sounds like a really good excuse to do so, am I right or am I right?) but on Saturday had the DSLRs. I missed a few planes while they were in the air (such as the famous Flying Wing owned by the Planes of Fame, seen in our hanger here), but got to see most of it while running around taking care of my CAF thing.
Note: I did not get pictures of every plane flying and for the sake of making this post slightly less unwieldy and lengthy, I haven’t posted pictures of every plane I did catch in the air. Rest assured, there were plenty more. My apologies to those who aren’t show here.
A tiny two-seater.
Ultralights
To start the show, parachutists brought in a giant US flag, with three of them in wingsuits.
Judy Phelps, out of Santa Paula, performed a wonderful aerobatic routine in her Pitts.
One of the local bizjets showed off with a low pass or two.
The Wolf-190 (I think, about 99% sure).
Dr. D (Dr. Frank Donnelly) does old fashioned, slow & simple aerobatics in his 1946 Taylorcraft. It’s really hard to “show” aerobatics in a still shot, but this wasn’t too bad.
Three PT-22s, the older brother of the PT-19 flown by the Southern California Wing of the CAF. I don’t know who owns #596 and #146, but #269 is another CAF aircraft, from the 3rd Pursuit Squadron.
The Antonov An-2 “Big Panda” is flown by the CAF’s 3rd Pursuit Squadron out of Cable Airport in Upland, CA. It’s a Russian cargo plane of a similar era and design specification to the US’s DC-3. Low, slow, built like a tank, can carry a ton, and can (literally) land and take off from a football field.
Clay Lacy’s Pilatus PC-6 is another great “bush” STOL plane. (Short Take Off & Landing)
Flying in formation we have the B-25J “Executive Sweet” (based at Camarillo) along with five CJ-7s.
P-47 Thunderbolt
British Spitfire, the plane that won the Battle of Britain. (This one is a SoCal CAF aircraft, one of only a handful still flying.)
A P-39 Airacobra, “Pretty Polly.”
The B-25J “Executive Sweet” up close on a low, high-speed pass.
The CJ-7s pass in review.
A Grumman Albatross, originally designed for air-sea rescue missions.
A group of Navions doing their right break.
Two of the Condor Squadron’s AT-6s, based out of Van Nuys. These two are painted with German markings.
C-53 Skytrooper, another CAF aircraft, this one operated by the Inland Empire Wing out of Riverside, CA. Note the guy in the door near the rear – he had just dropped a test marker to see where the wind would blow his paratroopers when they jumped out on the next pass.
Another Condor Squadron AT-6, this time painted in US markings.
And yet another.
The D-Day re-enactment was done with the old style round parachutes, the kind that were used in World War II.
Not nearly as maneuverable as the newer wing-shaped parachutes. (See the one used to bring in the US Flag, above.)
Vicki Benzing does amazing things with her high-performance aerobatic aircraft. Again, tough to show in a still picture, but follow the smoke. She was spinning up to there, then did a sharp bank up towards there, where she did a hammerhead or some kind of stall or loop way up there, then came spiraling down that way, headed straight toward the ground. Yeah, things that shouldn’t be possible with an airplane, but she does them anyway.
To finish the show, a group of naval fighters from the Pacific theater in World War II took to the air. This is the SoCal CAF’s F6-F Hellcat.
This is a SBD Dauntless dive bomber.
One of the very, very few Japanese Zeros being flown still — again, a SoCal CAF aircraft.
The SoCal CAF’s F8-F Bearcat.
The SoCal CAF’s P-51D Mustang, “Man O’ War.” I can assure you, based on personal experience, this is one hell of a ride!
A Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, with the obligatory shark mouth paint scheme.
Our Bearcat and Hellcat passing by in formation.
Our P-51D comes in for a landing at the end of a very long, and very enjoyable, day.
I’ve heard rumors that some people can go to an airshow and not have a good time and come home with a huge grin on their (sunburned) face. I’m afraid that’s a concept that’s just alien to me.
Today was yet another wonderful day at the annual Wings Over Camarillo airshow. Perfect weather, “clear and a million,” low 70’s, a little breeze — you couldn’t possibly ask for anything better.
As was the case yesterday, ’twas busy, busy, busy. My feet and knees are sore, my neck, face, and arms are a bit pink, and I’m probably a bit dehydrated (never a good thing when one has a history of kidney stones), but the show went off really well, as did our part in it. It’s with a great deal of satisfaction in both my organization and in my own efforts that I’ll sleep well, preferably for about eighteen hours, but more likely for six or seven. (Sometimes being a grown-up sucks.)
This panoramic picture was taken from atop a set of rolling stairs on the CAF site, about twenty minutes before the gates opened up to the public yesterday. (Click to enlarge.) Seeing as how I had a nice, high spot to shoot from, it’s a 360° panorama, starting and ending with the control tower.
This picture combines seventy-two images of 2304 x 3456 pixels (7.9 megapixels) taken with a Canon Rebel XT DSLR into an image of 76534 x 3448 pixels (263 megapixels). Because JPEG images cannot be any wider than 65,550 pixels, the final JPEG image was reduced down to 65500 x 2950 pixels (193 megapixels).
With great detail comes a need for great computing power — this panorama took fifty minutes to process and create.
A few comments about the image, if I may, moving from left to right:
Questions? Comments? Were you there?
Filed under Airshows, CAF, Flying, Panorama, Photography
So much airshow today. (Come out tomorrow if you’re in the area and missed it today!) So much fun. So much work! So much running around. So many miles walked. So much work still to do tonight for tomorrow (and it’s already 23:40 and I have to be there at 08:00 tomorrow morning).
So, so, so many pictures taken. (DUH!)
Things to do, sleep to lose, bridges to burn. In the meantime, know that I’m thinking of each and every one of you personally tonight. Yes, you. Yes, even the bot accounts. So when you go to Burlington, Vermont, as you should, here’s what will greet you as you exit the plane and head toward your rental car or the luggage carousels.
How can you not love a place that has rocking chairs set up where you can relax and watch the mountains, the clouds, and the airport traffic?
Welcome to BTV!
Filed under Airshows, Flying, Photography, Travel
If any of you are in the Los Angeles or Ventura County areas this weekend, I would note for your attention that the annual Wings Over Camarillo airshow will be held tomorrow and Sunday. Gates open at 9:00 with plenty of static displays of big planes, little planes, helicopters, ultralights, private planes, private jets, warbirds — including those at the SoCal Commemorative Air Force museum where I’ll be working all weekend.
Yesterday we were staging planes all over the place.
Our P-51, with our PT-19 trainer behind it.
Our Hellcat.
One of our SNJ trainers, with our C-46 transport “China Doll” behind it.
Our PBJ (Marine Corps variant of the B-25) which should be flying for next year’s airshow. It’s been in the process of being restored from the ground up for a couple of years now, but is getting close to being ready to fly again.
Flying will run from noon through 4:30 each afternoon, and you’ll see several of our CAF planes being flown by my friends there. The weather’s looking great (77° on Saturday, 76° on Sunday, partly cloudy) so don’t forget your sunscreen. There will be plenty of places to get food and drink, including of course the Beer Garden (also serving margaritas) at the CAF hanger. (It’s a big annual fundraiser for us, as the finance officer, I would love to see you stop by for an adult beverage.) There will be plenty of souvenirs and other items to buy, including of course all of the T-shirts, hats, pins, toys, coffee mugs, decals, bumper stickers, key chains, and so on at the CAF PX. (Get a hat and a T-shirt to wear with style while drinking your adult beverage.) Rumor has it (it’s twue! it’s twue!) that at the CAF hanger you can also purchase rides in a PT-19 trainer, SNJ trainer, or even that P-51! (You can also purchase on online any time. Just sayin’.)
You get the picture. Even if you’re not in the area and can’t get to our airshow this weekend, there’s bound to be one near you this weekend or soon. Go, they’re a ton of fun.
If you get out to Camarillo, stop by and I hope I get to see you.
[Side note — no, your monitor isn’t fading, those pictures are overexposed just a tad. This is because some knucklehead forgot to check the settings on the camera and left it as it had been in manual mode while shooting pictures of the “supermoon” eleven days earlier. Stupid human. On the other hand, I found the effect sort of dreamy and mysterious as opposed to a major screwup. Lemons, meet lemonade!]
Filed under Airshows, CAF, Flying, Photography
I’ve always been interested in some of the more abstract and artistic things you can do with light, dark, and motion in photography. I think part of this comes from my first astronomy photographs as a teenager being star trails. (We haven’t done those yet, too much light pollution in the city, but it might be worth a field trip.) Photographs of fireworks also are related to this. It also goes to how ultra slow-motion photography and time-lapse photography can make you notice things that would otherwise go unseen.
In low light, trying to take pictures of pinpoint lights is a problem. To do it properly you need a tripod and a long exposure. Generally for this sort of thing you think of cityscapes or catching the moon rising or setting. For the most part, the subject of the photograph is static, motionless. As long as the camera’s also motionless (no wind jiggling the tripod, etc) then you can take a 30-second or longer photo and keep it in nice, sharp focus.
If you can’t keep the camera motionless, you’ve got problems. I’ve tried many times to take pictures of cities at night from 33,000 feet. There might be one or two that are at least kinda-sorta recognizable as the subject (Las Vegas is pretty good for that) but most of them are a blurred mess. A one or two second long photo of bright lights in the dark turns into a soup of blurred dots.
But what if you take that “problem” and take it to an extreme. Sometimes I’ve stumbled on things accidentally and later deliberately to try to reproduce and experiment with the technique. I find that it can give some beautiful and amazing results.
Here are a few pictures from a flight where I was landing at LAX at about 10:45 PM. All of the pictures in the series where I tried to actually capture the city lights as they looked, using 1/2 second and 1/4 second exposures? They’re garbage. But a few of them that accidentally got exposed for two or three seconds, combined with the motion and vibration of the plane, made something quite different.
(Remember, you can get full-sized images by clicking on these.)
I really like the way this one shows an obvious effect when you’re moving as quickly as you are in a jet on final approach. The lights nearest you (lower right) move a long way during that 2.5 seconds, while the lights in the distance move much less. And the full moon in the far upper right doesn’t move much at all. Regardless of the reason, it’s a great effect.
The most interesting thing about this one is how there are elements that are not moving in step with the others. Normally, all of the squiggly lines that are made by the motion are in lockstep (the lights are all still, you are moving and jiggling, the lights all take the same path) but there is the appearance here of some lights moving in radically different directions than the others. I think I know what caused it, but it’s still very odd.
Possibly Inglewood under a layer of thin clouds. It makes me think of the portrayal of Los Angeles in Richard Kadrey’s wonderful “Sandman Slim” books.
Each of them could all be used as the background of a John Harris or Richard Powers painting. But that could just be me.
Filed under Art, Flying, Photography, Science Fiction
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 