In early September, Vintage Wings in Ottawa has its annual airshow. They
have a excellent collection of flying warbirds, including a Swordfish
and a Canadair Sabre. As a member, I got to go to a private airshow the
evening before the public show. A few of the planes didn't fly - as I
remember, the Spitfire, Mustang, Kittyhawk, Hurricane and Lysander. We
were also treated to night ground engine runs from the FG-1D Corsair and
the P51D.
Held on a wonderful evening, it turned out to be a humbling experience
for me, the photographer (OM 4T loaded with Portra). To say nothing of
being surrounded by heavy digital artillery. The only challenge was
rapidly fading light. The ground engine runs ended being largely an
exercise in photographic futility.
This is my only recent attempt at photographing aircraft displays. I
made all sorts of beginner errors: wrong lens (180 Tamron rather than
300), should have used the tripod, missed focus, and some strangely
unsharp photos at night, especially with the 28/2 (e.g., Corsair ground
run) although tripod mounted (those taken with the 21mm and 50mm were
better). I don't know if this was due to focus or halation, or both.
I've put up some photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14675507@N08/sets/72157627782752199/
For the big show, the weather was superb but as I was working, photos
were verboten. I worked crowd control right by the recovery area, so all
planes passed by. 20-30 feet from running Merlins and P&W radials is nice.
All the planes flew, including the Snowbirds and a visiting A26 Invader.
Highlight of the day was the arrival of the Lancaster, escorted by the
Spit, Mustang, P51 and Hurricane. Eight Merlins all singing
together...... Delightful and evocative. When the public went home, I
got to have a good look around (but not inside) the Lanc.
Most of the scans are low res from Walmart, though several are high-res
from my Coolscan.
For Chris Barker, I've included a photo from one of my first attempts at
airshow photography - EE Lightnings at Farnborough, likely 1965, taken
with an Ilford 35mm. Don't know which squadron, but doesn't seem to be
either 56 (Firebirds) or 74 (Tigers) squadrons, the acrobatic squadrons
at that time.
Martin
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