Official Aviation Thread...

[BlackbirdM3]

Jeez, don't stop now.... I really am enjoying your pictures.

I'm processing them as fast as I can. Its slow going. Too much stuff going on.

Will

[BlackbirdM3]

Wednesday night really did produce some epic shots. The light Thursday morning was pretty nice as well

Will

[george graves]

I've been watching this guy on youtube that makes recreations of near air misses. Holy crap!

[BlackbirdM3]

A couple shots of the International Formula 1 planes. These things are pretty cool. They all run a normally aspirated 200ci engine and the fast ones are going over 200 mph. They are great to watch race, and everyone in the class is cool.




Will

[jpod999]

How much is it to get into a plane like that? $200-300k?

[flyboyx]

Personally, I wouldn't begin to know. I assume that airplane would cost every bit of 300k and perhaps a lot more. I bet the expenses for a race week alone are around a 100+ grand?

I remember reading that it cost about 300k to take an unlimited warbird there to race.

[BlackbirdM3]

How much is it to get into a plane like that? $200-300k?

The formula 1s aren't that bad. You can pick up a fairly stock Cassult for $20K or so. The gold heat ones like the planes I posted, yeah, those will get crazy expensive. Still, even old designs can be fast. A friend of mine races a Shoestring that has been reskinned with carbon fiber (he and his brother did it themselves) and had he not had more gremlins than the movie, likely would have been a contender. The Shoestring design dates back to the '40s.

A few more shots from Thursday.

Making a Wildcat look like its doing 500mph... (I really pushed my limits as a photographer for this. I shot this handheld at 410mm, F18 at 1/60 sec shutter speed)


Not quite as slow, but still 1/80 sec 410mm.


Shanty Irish at 1/100th sec 400mm


1/80 at 400mm



Shanty Irish on the ramp Friday night.



I got some good stuff of the Sport class as well.
460mm, 1/125 shutter speed.

480mm at 1/80


another at 480 1/80





Will

[BlackbirdM3]

A single 1/60 shot is one thing, how about another?


Jeff Rose Friday morning.


Relentless Pursuit (of non fouled fuel filters...) He landed dead stick just about every time he flew this year. Somewhere he filled up with very contaminated fuel and it plagued him all week long.


What it looks like when you are over 100 mph slower than the front runner.






Will

[LateFan]

We had P2Vs from Neptune Aviation flying around the valley all day - such good noise. Do those auxiliary engines kick in whenever they need more thrust, or are they just for take-off? One of them made a really steep bank right over our yard, and suddenly got really loud, with jet roar. Then it just quit, back to radial hum. Just curious how that works. Can the guy flip a switch?

At one point there was a formation of 4 of them, roaring over the house several times. Laps of the valley. Pretty great. (We're up against a mountain, so they pretty much have to turn here) Then they all peeled off in different directions and randomly flew around. Some went clockwise, some anti-, all at the same (very low) altitude. I could see the numbers on the bottom.

One of them I'm pretty sure didn't have the auxiliary engines hanging off the wings - it was just clean wing and the two radials. He went ripping around at full throttle (at what, 2500, 3000 rpm?) and was really moving. There was a really loud, small, single-engine chase plane with him, taking pics I assume. It was the retirement party of the P2V from service as a retardant bomber. Sad they're going, glad I got to see them.

[varg]

I'm guessing they keep the turbojets at flight idle during operations where they will be required and throttle up when needed. You probably wouldn't be able to hear the jets idling over the radial engines at a high power setting, jet engines of all types take a lot longer to start and shut down than piston engines so they aren't just switching them off and on.

[flyboyx]

i don't know the answer, but there is a guy i fly with that used to fly pv2's. i'll try to remember to ask the next time i see him.

Will, i was noticing that you seem to be getting much better telephoto results than last year. are you still using the same lens? what do your attribute your success?

[FLYNAVY]

My dad was a long time P2V pilot while on active duty. I'll have to ask him the specifics, but one of his favorite stories was about when they lost one of the recips due to some sort of failure, they would fire up the turbojets to compensate, normally during cruise flight. One of the FARs talks about updating your true airspeed if it increases/decreases by 50 knots or more, when flying in a non-radar environment. Anyway, they would report that they had lost an engine, and that their TAS was increasing by 100 knots. Apparently that confused more than a few air traffic controllers :)

[BlackbirdM3]

We had P2Vs from Neptune Aviation flying around the valley all day - such good noise. Do those auxiliary engines kick in whenever they need more thrust, or are they just for take-off? One of them made a really steep bank right over our yard, and suddenly got really loud, with jet roar. Then it just quit, back to radial hum. Just curious how that works. Can the guy flip a switch?

At one point there was a formation of 4 of them, roaring over the house several times. Laps of the valley. Pretty great. (We're up against a mountain, so they pretty much have to turn here) Then they all peeled off in different directions and randomly flew around. Some went clockwise, some anti-, all at the same (very low) altitude. I could see the numbers on the bottom.

One of them I'm pretty sure didn't have the auxiliary engines hanging off the wings - it was just clean wing and the two radials. He went ripping around at full throttle (at what, 2500, 3000 rpm?) and was really moving. There was a really loud, small, single-engine chase plane with him, taking pics I assume. It was the retirement party of the P2V from service as a retardant bomber. Sad they're going, glad I got to see them.

Yesterday was Neptune Aviation's retirement ceremony for the the P2Vs. The Federal contracts ran out on them and will not be renewed so a few are going to museums, a couple will be on the airshow circuit, and the last ones I think will go into storage. I will miss hearing the unique sound of two engines turning and two burning. (To answer your question, the jets run at the same time as the R3350s. They are not takeoff only, but full time.)

Will, i was noticing that you seem to be getting much better telephoto results than last year. are you still using the same lens? what do your attribute your success?

I'm using the same lens and same camera body (Nikon D600) for some, was using a D810 for others. Its a combination of having a year to work with the lens and set the camera up, whereas last year I had only had the lens for less than a month. Still, the D810 was what I used for most of the pylon shots and since it was a loaner body, it wasn't set up perfectly, the lens wasn't fine tuned. There was more I could get out of the camera. Still, I had a good idea of how I needed to set things up to get good shots and for the most part, I got them. I still shot a lot of good stuff with the D600 last year, but it was a combo of learning the lens and learning how to shoot from the pylons that made shooting from the pylons easier this year. Don't get me wrong, I shot a ton of crap, and often it was when I'd push the shutter speed up to where most people shoot (like 1/320 or so. I pushed the jets up to 1/500 and a large percentage appear to be blurry. ) My solution oddly enough to shooting crap was to slow the shutter speed down and 3/4s of the time that got me shooting good stuff. As a friend put it, you don't need 1000 epic shots, but 20 will do, and I'm already over my twenty for the year. I mean seriously, shooting a mustang closing at 350 mph at 1/60 of a second seems like insanity, but I was able to make it happen. Not once, but also with the Wildcat (a little slower, but shooting anything at 1/60 handheld at 410+mm would seem like a blown shot waiting to happen.)

This year has really been a revelation in terms of photography for me. Getting two pics in the program was amazing, setting up the photoshoot with the A Model Mustang (All the well known photographers were trying to make it happen all week but they couldn't do it.) was pretty awesome, and then actually having people ask if they can buy some of my stuff has been a new experience. (PM me if anyone wants a copy of anything I post here. I've printed two shots out, one in 20x30 the other 16x20 and both are stunning) I think a lot of factors have played into my take at Reno this year. Hopefully next year I'll be able to one up this year.

Will

[BlackbirdM3]

A few more shots from Pylon 2, Sunday






These were reworked, I think I posted them before, but these look far better.




Will

[LateFan]

"Well, the front fell off....."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM