Time to Think

The culmination of my Air2Air Photography class at the Historic Flight Foundation was flying in the HFF's B-25 Mitchell, taking air to air photographs of either their F7F Tigercat or their P-51B Mustang. The Tigercat flight takes place over the Puget Sound to mimic the South Pacific theater, and the Mustang flight over the Cascades to replicate the European Alps.  had registered for the P-51 flight as I thought there would be more dynamics to shooting the Mustang with mountains behind.

In the weeks before my flight, I was getting increasingly nervous about the entire event. Approaching this as a once-in-a-lifetime event, I was taking every precaution I could think of to ensure the best possible results from my 15-30 minutes of shooting in the air. I was actually losing sleep over it, having strange equipment failure anxiety dreams!

This Friday and Saturday I took part in the Historic Flight Foundations first 'Air 2 Air' photography class. The Air 2 Air class is designed to give aviation enthusiasts a chance to learn about techniques, equipment and skills needed to take part in air-to-air photography for fun and possibly profit. The course included instruction from air-to-air photographers as well as trade magazines. I had a blast in the class, but the high point of the experience takes place on June 4, when I get to fly in the HFF's B-25 bomber and shoot air-to-air photographs of their P-51 and Spitfire, or their Tigercat and Bearcat. I'm very excited, but I am also a bit apprehensive. The techniques involved are challenging, and I really have only one shot at this (it's not every day one gets to fly in a B-25 and photograph war birds in formation). 

Every year, dozens upon dozens of bizjets descend on Boeing Field for Bill Gates' annual CEO Summit, and this year was no exception. I completely forgot about it until I checked the flight trackers, which I do almost religiously each morning, to see what flights were heading for KBFI in the next few hours in case something interesting was enroute. On Wednesday, KBFI's tracker looked like an airport for a major city with a huge number of inbound flights. I thought I was looking at the wrong city:

For almost 5 years, my standard lens for aviation shooting has been my Canon 70-200mm F/4 L, which has been a trusty lens, very sharp, and a good length on the APS-C sensor on my 30D (112mm x 320mm equiv). However, switching to the 5D mark II has reduced the range. For a while now I've been contemplating the Canon 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6 IS L lens, which is very popular among planespotters for its range and sharpness. 

During the heroic, night-time raid on Osama's compound, some sort of malfunction or incident forced the infiltration team to scuttle one of the helicopters used on the mission. The tail section apparently fell outside the compound on the other side of the 12 foot walls and was left behind, relatively intact. The initial photos are intriguing and will no doubt lead to much speculation on the type of helicopter it was; a new type or a heavily modified H-60 type. 

No doubt foreign intelligence agencies (I'm looking in your direction, China) are en route to the Abbottabad area to attempt to secure those fragments like they did to downed F-117's in former Yugoslavia.

I don't think this is a modified H-60, as the tail rotor is on th eopposite side of the tail, which would be a considerable engineering rework. What I can't tell is if the tail elevator is canted to the front or back of the tail.

More pictures will be added as I find them.

More information at Aviation Week and DefenseTech.org.

[update] Probably an MH-60 varient: armytimes.com

This also looks pretty compelling:

I took a personal day yesterday becaue I wanted to take a short trip up to see Snoqualmie Falls at or near flood stage. I checked www.floodzilla.com and it said as of 7:15 AM, it was a mere 6 inches below flood stage, so plenty enough water for me.

 I finally got to take my new 5D for a spin!

A friend of my wife, who works for Boeing, graciously invited me to go with him to the Boeing Employee viewing area for the first flight of the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental. What an exciting opportunity to photograph this airplane from an amazing vantage point (from Paine Field's taxiway Alpha!) 

[Solved: it was a reflection of a light source inside the house, filtered through the flats of the blinds.]

One of the RSS feeds I follow is Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News blog which mentioned an observation from Tacoma of a North-South meteor sighting around 6pm on December 3. I figured this might be something my WeatherCam might have captured, as the time fit within the capture period of my daylight camera. Though the odds were slim, as my camera only captures a frame every 20 seconds.

While there is a faint contrail (aligned with north-to-south), there was no brilliant of obvious sign of a meteor streak, unfortunately. While some bolides are known for leaving a lingering trail, the contrail that visible falls within the standard YVR (Vancouver) approach, and lasted much too long to be a bolide contrail (which tend to disappate rather quickly). The contrail starts at around 5:45pm and passes overhead and out of view at 6:02pm.

However, while I'm watching my video, I notice a bright object appear, then disappear. I first thought this might be a lens flare from the lamp in front of my house, but it was on at full illumination before and after the object appears and disappears.

After a 24 hours, it became widely evident to most news outlets that the "mystery missile" of November 8, 2010 was caused by an airplane contrail. However, there was always a bit of vagueness as to what flight or what kind of airplane caused the contrail. The Pentagon didn't reveal anything other than the fact that it WAS a contrail of some sort, and the FAA never said anything at all other than it was a normal event.