Northwest Flying Photography Blog

King of the skys!

Last week I was given the opportunity to take a friend of the family’s young son on a flight around the San Juans. The EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) calls this a Young Eagles Flight, I call it a fun day flying.

There are few things more satisfying than sharing your passions with someone, it’s even better when that someone is interested, intelligent, and enthusiastic about the passion you are sharing. Young Mr. Larry proved to be a delightful passenger and a skilled co-pilot. Not only did he keep us straight and level while I was futzing with the camera, he managed to learn something in the process, which puts him one notch above me when I was his age.

It was a great day for flying, with just a few clouds. We took off from Harvey airfield (S43) and flew to Friday Harbor (KFHR). We did a landing at Friday Harbor after entering a very busy pattern, then took off again and flew to Bellingham (KBLI) for a touch and go. Again, Bellingham was very busy, I was following two aircraft going in and there were three coming in behind me. Once I was abeam the number for 16, the tower asked me for a short pattern and I was all too happy to oblige. I cut my throttle, pulled out the carb-heat and dumped all my flaps out and dived at the runway. Well, it wasn’t that dramatic, but I managed to get down and off the runway before the next guy was on base. Larry agreed that that was a fun pattern. On the way back to Harvey, I did a couple of zero G push-overs and that REALLY got a smile on Larry’s face.

The landing at Harvey was uneventful, and 1.8 hours were logged. Larry had a great time, and the Young Eagle paper work is winging it’s way to the EAA.

Who’s next?

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In a fine example of General Aviation serving America, we can now add “Crime Fighter” to the list of services the GA provides to the public. It seems that after getting his high priced boat stolen, Steve Boon chartered a plane to go look for it.

From the Seattle Times:

An hour and a half after Steve Boone rented an airplane and took off from Olympia Airport, he spotted the 34-foot boat, then followed it from above as it was towed along a highway until two people were stopped and arrested Thursday.

Although we can question his decision not to eliminate the middle man and just buy an airplane instead of a boat, I’m glad that GA was there in the end.

No one ever calls me to fight crime….

Small nitpicky note: The Times said he “rented” an airplane, I think they meant “chartered”, as there are distinct differences in the FARs.

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(writing this up a little late)

The last day of Oshkosh is bitter sweet, I’m glad I got to renew old acquaintances and I’m grateful that I got to meet new folks. I love getting to look at and shoot some great aircraft, old and new. The Show is great, the People are great, but it’s good to be home with The Lovely Wife and our child.

Sunday at Oshkosh is a great day for shooting the departures. A lot of aircraft are leaving and a lot of them are interesting or unusual. All told, I ended up taking just under 800 pictures on Sunday alone. Of course, most of these are several pictures of the same aircraft, and it helps when your camera will take 5 shots every second with automatic exposure bracketing. Out of the 800ish, I found about 70 worth keeping, which is on par with the rest of the trip. Of the 2,250ish pictures, round about 230 ended up on Flickr, and about 20% of those will end up in my gallery here when I have time. Hopefully in the next few days.

The bad thing about shooting the departures is that you don’t get to pick your angle, your lighting, or your aircraft. You have to take what you are given. As a result, all the shots come out looking the same. The same as all the others and the same as everybody else’s. I think this might be my last year shooting departures, unless the hue and cry of the masses (all 4 of you) wish it otherwise.

After shooting the departures, it was time for my last stint at the booth, then the breakdown. Booth duty was broken up by the arrival of the B-1s and the F-22 demonstration, followed by the heritage flight. Since I couldn’t get to the flight line, my shots of the raptor and the heritage flight are not as crisp as I’d like them to be. Fortunately it’s a big arse airplane, and close is relative.

From the Flight line:

From the Booth at Hanger B:

After the show, we went out to dinner (which Hal has chronicled Here) and then it was time to say good by. I had the first flight out so everybody was still sleeping when I caught my cab to the airport. One more Oshkosh under my belt. It was a blast. My thanks to my former coworkers at Microsoft for footing the bill again. See you (maybe) in Reno.

 More shots on Flickr

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