wfooshee
O, Woe is me!!
Being fortunate enough to live just a couple of hours from their home base, I try to get over to see them once in a while. At least once a year. 3 or 4 times if I can manage it. Their practice sessions are open to the public, and my last set of pictures of them was from one of those.
This past Friday and Saturday was their end of season show at Pensacola NAS. The weather was iffy for Saturday, so I took off work and went on Friday, and I'm glad I did! Saturday was dark and overcast, and although the Blue Angels did fly, they moved it up from 2:00 PM to 11:30 AM, and cancelled nearly everything else. That change was made on Saturday morning, so lots of folks weren't even there yet, but had they waited they wouldn't have flown, as the weather apparently moved in.
Anyway, the show started late on Friday. It was mostly sunny but they had broken clouds below the minimum ceiling, so no flying until nearly noon. Once it cleared, though, it was great!
Friday was also the dusk/night show, which had a little extra excitement I'll describe later.
I shot way the #%@* too many images, and then had to go through them! Most of it was because I was bursting frames 3, 4, or 5 at a time. A lot of them were simply excessively redundant. How many exciting shots can you get of an Extra 300 doing hammerheads? The tumbling maneuvers they make are tremendously exciting to watch, but they make uninteresting still shots..... So lots of trash! Shot 1400 frames, kept 250, which is still rather redundant. Here's a few I really like, and a couple I'm quite pleased with for technical reasons, like sharpness with a slow shutter speed, or pulling usefulness out of darkness.
Full Flickr album here, if interested....
If the images are too big to fit on your screen, well, sorry about that. I've gotten a 1920x1080 monitor, and I'm working with 1280-pixel images, which is about as big as I want to post publicly. Smaller images look like thumbnails on my new display!
When I give the zoom used, keep in mind that the images are generally cropped. I try to shoot loose and then crop for framing. Sometimes the subject is far enough away that a 1280-pixel image is actually a 1-to-1 crop, and sometimes it's close enough I have to pull back to 100mm or so. Anyway, the zoom info does not imply the image is the full frame shot.
This is at 1/200 second, for prop blur. I almost never shoot props faster than 1/250, and I've got a lot of these at 1/160. (For some reason 1/125 seems to be unobtainable somehow....) I lower ISO to 100 for shooting with the slow-speed shutter. Zoomed at 300mm.
If you use a camera, please be mindful of how impressed you should be at the sharpness of the airplane with such a slow shutter speed and long lens.
Kevin Coleman
1.
Red Line, flying a pait of RV-8 homebuilts flown by Ken Rieder and John Thocker
1/160 second, 300mm
2.
The Screaming Sasquatch, a WACO biplane with a very powerful radial engine, which ought to be enough, but they've strengthened the airframe and strapped a jet engine underneath it. At one point in his show, he hovers the plane vertically for a few seconds, then adds jet power and climbs straight up to 8,000 feet!
Jeff Boerboon
1/200 second 280mm
3.
Team Aerodynamix
Homebuilt RV-8 aircraft.
I must say I was bored by their show. Last year they separated into two groups and part of the show was alternating passes by each smaller group, including some intercepts and opposing passes. This year's show had a section with just four ships, then the other four eventually joined. The eight-ship did NOTHING but fly circles in front of the crowd, with each pass a variation in the formation. ****Yawn****
Again, 1/200 shutter and pulled back to 125mm
4.
Gene Soucy is the pilot, Theresa Stokes is the wingwalker. She does not wear a parachute, and for a good part of the act she is not belted in. That's her in the wing wires, and the image is upright!
1/200 second, 300mm
5.
We were visited by a pair of Navy F-35s. They are based at Eglin AFB, which I passed on the way to the show from my house. All three branches using the F-35 are developing it and training for it at Eglin, so they have Navy and Marine pilots hanging around over there.
They did this last year, but it was just a couple of almost touch-and-goes, flying an approach and pulling up without landing. This time they actually did one afterburner climb for the circle around to the next approach. Certainly not a demo, but we got to hear it get loud!
Jet, so 1/1000, ISO 400.
6.
Geico Skytypers opposing cross by their solo pilots.
I love the sound of those Texans!!!!!
1/160, back to ISO 100 and 300mm
7.
It was a bit of a muggy day, mid-80s temps and very humid. Enough so that even the photo passes, which are not hard turns at all, got some vapor, and the props on Fat Albert showed spirals in the air!
8.
9.
Blue Angels solos
1/1000, ISO 400, 220mm
10.
Afterburner turn, looking through the jet wash.
11.
Did I mention that it was humid? This is a photo pass, not a hard turn-and-burn!
12.
#5 sneak from the left
13.
Immediately followed by #6 from behind
14.
A couple of opposing passes....
15.
16.
And some vapor. Because Florida!
17.
18.
19.
The jet casts its own shadow into its vapor! (This one was way down the show line, and is one of those 1-to-1 crops.)
20.
Backlit vapor! If I tilted down I would be looking right at the sun. Earlier in the show I caught one of the jets like this with my eye, not the camera, so I spent the rest of the show watching for someone to head that way. This was after the LAST break of the show, the next thing was the pitch-up for landing pass, so I barely got it. But I got it!
21.
Starting the night show, just before sunset.
1/160, stayed at ISO 400 for the dimmer light. 300mm
22.
See? Sunset!
Geico Skytypers coming in. They were cut short when a thin cloud layer came over from the gulf, which of course dissipated the moment they landed.....
23.
Team Aerodynamix.
They were cut short by the incident I mentioned earlier, which suited me fine. Nothing different about their dusk show except lights on the aircraft....
1/160, and up to ISO 1600, yet still bumped just a bit in post.
24.
Here's the extra excitement. While Team Aerodynamix was doing their boring circles, a full complement of emergency vehicles took the field. The announcer came on and said we had an incoming aircraft that had declared an emergency, so they landed the Aerodynamix planes. The incoming was an EA-18 Growler (electronic warfare variant of the F/A-18F Super Hornet) that had a landing gear which did not retract. They didn't tell us where it was from, but Pensacola NAS has the equipment to set up for what they wanted to do, which was an arrested trap of the aircraft. They told us that although it was a declared emergency, there was no difficulty anticipated recovering the plane, and to not be alarmed with the sparks the tail hook would make. They even told us when to look for it as it approached.
It was DARK when this happened, a few minutes after sunset, and no significant lighting at the place they were set up. I cranked the camera up to max ISO (6400) and set the shutter to 1/125, which was the slowest I could hope to use with the 300mm lens.
Here's the Growler coming in.
25.
and the sparks...
26.
and stopped, with the cable hanging from the hook
27.
So the show was shut down about 10 minutes before the Growler arrived, and it took them about 20 minutes to safe it and tow it off the runway, then they resumed
Not an airplane, but uses aircraft engines.....
Shockwave Jet Truck lighting up the night!!!!
In 2005 this truck set a speed record for a jet dragster that still stands, 375 mph! It happened at an air show at Tyndall AFB that I attended!!!! (Yay, me!)
How to exceed your camera's dynamic range without really trying......
Neal Darnell
1/800, ISO 3200
28.
On the speed run, with afterburners thrusting rather than just dumping fire.
29.
Team Redline flew in the night
1/250, ISO 3200
30.
as did Gene Soucy, with pyro instead of a wingwalker
1/250, ISO 3200
31.
This past Friday and Saturday was their end of season show at Pensacola NAS. The weather was iffy for Saturday, so I took off work and went on Friday, and I'm glad I did! Saturday was dark and overcast, and although the Blue Angels did fly, they moved it up from 2:00 PM to 11:30 AM, and cancelled nearly everything else. That change was made on Saturday morning, so lots of folks weren't even there yet, but had they waited they wouldn't have flown, as the weather apparently moved in.
Anyway, the show started late on Friday. It was mostly sunny but they had broken clouds below the minimum ceiling, so no flying until nearly noon. Once it cleared, though, it was great!
Friday was also the dusk/night show, which had a little extra excitement I'll describe later.
I shot way the #%@* too many images, and then had to go through them! Most of it was because I was bursting frames 3, 4, or 5 at a time. A lot of them were simply excessively redundant. How many exciting shots can you get of an Extra 300 doing hammerheads? The tumbling maneuvers they make are tremendously exciting to watch, but they make uninteresting still shots..... So lots of trash! Shot 1400 frames, kept 250, which is still rather redundant. Here's a few I really like, and a couple I'm quite pleased with for technical reasons, like sharpness with a slow shutter speed, or pulling usefulness out of darkness.
Full Flickr album here, if interested....
If the images are too big to fit on your screen, well, sorry about that. I've gotten a 1920x1080 monitor, and I'm working with 1280-pixel images, which is about as big as I want to post publicly. Smaller images look like thumbnails on my new display!
When I give the zoom used, keep in mind that the images are generally cropped. I try to shoot loose and then crop for framing. Sometimes the subject is far enough away that a 1280-pixel image is actually a 1-to-1 crop, and sometimes it's close enough I have to pull back to 100mm or so. Anyway, the zoom info does not imply the image is the full frame shot.
This is at 1/200 second, for prop blur. I almost never shoot props faster than 1/250, and I've got a lot of these at 1/160. (For some reason 1/125 seems to be unobtainable somehow....) I lower ISO to 100 for shooting with the slow-speed shutter. Zoomed at 300mm.
If you use a camera, please be mindful of how impressed you should be at the sharpness of the airplane with such a slow shutter speed and long lens.
Kevin Coleman
1.
Red Line, flying a pait of RV-8 homebuilts flown by Ken Rieder and John Thocker
1/160 second, 300mm
2.
The Screaming Sasquatch, a WACO biplane with a very powerful radial engine, which ought to be enough, but they've strengthened the airframe and strapped a jet engine underneath it. At one point in his show, he hovers the plane vertically for a few seconds, then adds jet power and climbs straight up to 8,000 feet!
Jeff Boerboon
1/200 second 280mm
3.
Team Aerodynamix
Homebuilt RV-8 aircraft.
I must say I was bored by their show. Last year they separated into two groups and part of the show was alternating passes by each smaller group, including some intercepts and opposing passes. This year's show had a section with just four ships, then the other four eventually joined. The eight-ship did NOTHING but fly circles in front of the crowd, with each pass a variation in the formation. ****Yawn****
Again, 1/200 shutter and pulled back to 125mm
4.
Gene Soucy is the pilot, Theresa Stokes is the wingwalker. She does not wear a parachute, and for a good part of the act she is not belted in. That's her in the wing wires, and the image is upright!
1/200 second, 300mm
5.
We were visited by a pair of Navy F-35s. They are based at Eglin AFB, which I passed on the way to the show from my house. All three branches using the F-35 are developing it and training for it at Eglin, so they have Navy and Marine pilots hanging around over there.
They did this last year, but it was just a couple of almost touch-and-goes, flying an approach and pulling up without landing. This time they actually did one afterburner climb for the circle around to the next approach. Certainly not a demo, but we got to hear it get loud!
Jet, so 1/1000, ISO 400.
6.
Geico Skytypers opposing cross by their solo pilots.
I love the sound of those Texans!!!!!
1/160, back to ISO 100 and 300mm
7.
It was a bit of a muggy day, mid-80s temps and very humid. Enough so that even the photo passes, which are not hard turns at all, got some vapor, and the props on Fat Albert showed spirals in the air!
8.
9.
Blue Angels solos
1/1000, ISO 400, 220mm
10.
Afterburner turn, looking through the jet wash.
11.
Did I mention that it was humid? This is a photo pass, not a hard turn-and-burn!
12.
#5 sneak from the left
13.
Immediately followed by #6 from behind
14.
A couple of opposing passes....
15.
16.
And some vapor. Because Florida!
17.
18.
19.
The jet casts its own shadow into its vapor! (This one was way down the show line, and is one of those 1-to-1 crops.)
20.
Backlit vapor! If I tilted down I would be looking right at the sun. Earlier in the show I caught one of the jets like this with my eye, not the camera, so I spent the rest of the show watching for someone to head that way. This was after the LAST break of the show, the next thing was the pitch-up for landing pass, so I barely got it. But I got it!
21.
Starting the night show, just before sunset.
1/160, stayed at ISO 400 for the dimmer light. 300mm
22.
See? Sunset!
Geico Skytypers coming in. They were cut short when a thin cloud layer came over from the gulf, which of course dissipated the moment they landed.....
23.
Team Aerodynamix.
They were cut short by the incident I mentioned earlier, which suited me fine. Nothing different about their dusk show except lights on the aircraft....
1/160, and up to ISO 1600, yet still bumped just a bit in post.
24.
Here's the extra excitement. While Team Aerodynamix was doing their boring circles, a full complement of emergency vehicles took the field. The announcer came on and said we had an incoming aircraft that had declared an emergency, so they landed the Aerodynamix planes. The incoming was an EA-18 Growler (electronic warfare variant of the F/A-18F Super Hornet) that had a landing gear which did not retract. They didn't tell us where it was from, but Pensacola NAS has the equipment to set up for what they wanted to do, which was an arrested trap of the aircraft. They told us that although it was a declared emergency, there was no difficulty anticipated recovering the plane, and to not be alarmed with the sparks the tail hook would make. They even told us when to look for it as it approached.
It was DARK when this happened, a few minutes after sunset, and no significant lighting at the place they were set up. I cranked the camera up to max ISO (6400) and set the shutter to 1/125, which was the slowest I could hope to use with the 300mm lens.
Here's the Growler coming in.
25.
and the sparks...
26.
and stopped, with the cable hanging from the hook
27.
So the show was shut down about 10 minutes before the Growler arrived, and it took them about 20 minutes to safe it and tow it off the runway, then they resumed
Not an airplane, but uses aircraft engines.....
Shockwave Jet Truck lighting up the night!!!!
In 2005 this truck set a speed record for a jet dragster that still stands, 375 mph! It happened at an air show at Tyndall AFB that I attended!!!! (Yay, me!)
How to exceed your camera's dynamic range without really trying......
Neal Darnell
1/800, ISO 3200
28.
On the speed run, with afterburners thrusting rather than just dumping fire.
29.
Team Redline flew in the night
1/250, ISO 3200
30.
as did Gene Soucy, with pyro instead of a wingwalker
1/250, ISO 3200
31.
