Category: Aviation

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Aviation Menlo Park Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II

The Tribute Flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour

Space Shuttle Endeavour - Menlo Park - 2012

On its final flight, NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour overfly’s Menlo Park onboard the 747-100 shuttle carrier aircraft N105NA. This was the last flight for both the shuttle orbiter and the 747.

This image was shot from one of the hills in Menlo Park’s Bedwell Bayfront Park – with me being among several hundred others who had gathered on the park’s hilltops for this tribute flight.

I was very lucky to get this shot. The 747 had begun a gentle turn to the right, just dropping its right wing – which gave the illusion that I was flying right alongside – instead of standing on a hill in a park! Beautiful!

Shot using a Canon 5D Mark II using a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens with a Canon 1.4x Tele-extender. Shot in Shutter Priority at 1/1000th of a second, ISO 100, f/5.6.

Post processed in Adobe Lightroom 4 where it was cropped to at 16:9 ratio and adjusted using a bit of clarity applied just to the aircraft with the adjustment brush with a bit of post-crop vignette.

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Aviation Black and White Monochrome Photography Nik Software Photography Photography - Black & White Photography - Canon 5D Mark II

The Solent Mark III Flying Boat

Short Bros. Solent MkIII - Oakland - 2009

Imagine boarding this flying boat in Southhampton, England for your journey to Johannesburg, South Africa in the late 1940’s! With several stops along the way for overnight rest – as the plane only flew during daylight hours.

According to the museum’s commentary, the flying boat made “overnight stops along the route in such exotic locales as Augusta, Sicily; Luxor, Egypt (landing on the Nile); Lake Victoria and at the head of Victoria Falls in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with the final stop at Vaal Dam outside Johannesburg.” I suspect you got to know your fellow travelers pretty well by the time you arrived in Africa!

This is a Short Brothers Solent Mark III Flying Boat on display at the Oakland Aviation Museum near the Oakland International Airport. The museum offers tours of the flying boat on Saturdays and Sundays – and is also offering a unique dining experience onboard the Solent on the second Saturday of each month.

The image was shot with my Canon 5D Mark II and post-processed using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2. A red filter was used to darken the sky and add contrast – and the image was tightly cropped to emphasize the body of the flying boat. I happened to stop at the museum on July 4, 2009 and captured this image as the foggy skies were beginning to breakup over the airport.

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Aviation Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II

Gene Soucy and Friend over Salinas

Gene Soucy and Friend by Scott Loftesnes

Among my many weaknesses are air shows. Since I’ve gotten back into photography, I find them even more fun – the sound and the sights just excite me!

This photo was taken at the California International Airshow in Salinas in 2009. I had the big lens (with tele-extender) deployed on my Canon 5D Mark II and caught this great shot of Gene Soucy and his wing walker zooming by the crowd. I just love the colors and attitude in this image – in my mind it’s a classic air show photograph! Hope you enjoy it!

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Aviation Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S95 Portland

Carlton F. Bond at the Pearson Air Museum

Carlton F. Bond - Pearson Air Museum - Fort Vancouver, WashingtonBefore leaving for home last night, I headed across the Columbia River from Portland for a quick visit to the Pearson Air Museum at Fort Vancouver.

The air museum is situated in a lovely spot for an airfield – in fact, there’s still an active general aviation airport just next door.

Inside, the museum has a number of museum quality aircraft on display but perhaps the most interesting exhibit was devoted to flight simulation. In a room with about 25 individual flight simulator computers, there was a very active group of youngsters – boys and girls – piloting their aircraft up into the wild blue yonder. Lots of fun to just observe! Let’s hope some of them become real pilots soon enough!

Screen Shot 2011 08 11 at 7 55 35 AM

This image of Carlton F. Bond comes from a shot I took with my tiny Canon PowerShot S95 of his statue outside as I was leaving the museum. Bond had been commanding officer of Pearson Field back in the 1930’s. I loved how his statue is placed relative to the front of the hanger and the apron out front. I post-processed this image – a single RAW – using Photomatix Pro and Photoshop. I used a series of Nik Software filters in Photoshop to create the antique effect for this image – see the filters on the right.

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Aviation Photography

Julie Clark’s T-34A Mentor

From Scott's Portfolio

If you ever have a chance to see Julie Clark fly her T-34A Mentor in an airshow, you have to go! She flies a beautiful and inspiring show!

This image is from a 2008 performance of hers at the California International Airshow in Salinas. Beautiful!

Julie’s appearing this weekend at the Travis AFB Air Power Expo – along with the US Air Force Thunderbirds.

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Aviation HDR Photography Photography

Douglas C-47 Skytrain at Castle Air Museum

Douglas C-47 Skytrain at Castle Air Museum

Here’s another photo from almost four years ago taken at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California. This time, it’s a C-47 Skytrain, the workhorse transport aircraft of WW II, the Berlin Airlift, etc.

This shot was taken using my first digital SLR, a Canon 30D, as a single RAW image. Postprocessing was done using Lightroom 3, Photoshop CS5 (to remove power lines, etc) along with Nik’s HDR Efex Pro and Color Efex Pro.

Hope you enjoy it!

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Aviation HDR Photography Photography Photography - Black & White

The SR-71A Blackbird at Castle Air Museum

SR-71 Blackbird - Castle Air Museum, California

I’ve been playing around a bit more with black and white photography – including going back and looking through my collection of earlier images for candidates for conversion to black and white.

Here’s an example from the Castle Air Museum from four years ago that I recently converted to black and white. Castle has one of the few remaining SR-71’s – specifically SR-71A 61-7960.

In terms of process, I first did a single image RAW HDR conversion following by the black and white conversion. This is a particularly challenging image – because of how the SR-71 is positioned in front of all of that tree foliage. Still, I thought the conversion turned out OK.

Many years ago when I worked for IBM I spent a day at Beale Air Force Base – home of the SR-71’s. What a treat! Years later, I was at Oshkosh when the first SR-71 flew in for the airshow – took about 45 minutes for the SR-71 to travel from Beale to Oshkosh! I remember the rope line around the SR-71 while it was on display with the signs that read “Use of Deadly Force is Authorized” – in other words, stay away!

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Aviation iPhone 4 Photography

Fun at Hiller Aviation Museum!

This morning I went to the Hiller Aviation Museum at San Carlos Airport to hear Richard Luehring talk about his experiences as an RSO (Reconnaissance Systems Officer) on the SR-71. He accumulated over 2,100 flying in the SR-71.

I enjoyed hearing him talk about his incredible confidence in the team at Lockheed responsible for designing and building this amazing aircraft – including Kelly Johnson of Lockheed’s Skunk Works. The Pratt & Whitney J-58 engines were equally amazing (“In Thrust We Trust” was P&W’s motto!).

While waiting for the lecture to begin, I shot the photo below just using my iPhone 4. The model was hanging in the ceiling above the audience. I loved the peaceful nature of the image and the lighting.

Across

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Aviation Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II

Harriers!

Oh So Close!

I had fun yesterday shooting the Marine Corps Harriers as they made several low passes over the Vertical Challenge Airshow sponsored by the Hiller Aviation Museum. The two Harriers were from Marine Attack Squadron 513 (VMA-513) known as the Flying Nightmares. I was using my Canon 5D Mark II with the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and a 1.4x teleconverter.

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Aviation Living

Memories

Sometimes you think back to those high points in your life and the memories flood in. One of those times for me was the trip to Oshkosh that my Dad and I made in the late 1980’s.

As it turned out, this trip with my Dad was my second trip to the annual EAA fly-in – but it was the first time by air (I’d joined some friends in an RV for my first visit). It was Dad’s first time flying with me for any distance – and what a great trip we had! We flew my Cherokee 235 out from California to Wisconsin – stopping to visit relatives along the way in Spearfish, South Dakota.

I’ll never forget us departing Spearfish and making a couple of low orbits over my Dad’s sister’s farm in eastern South Dakota as we made the final leg into Oshkosh that day. We had called ahead (those were the days before cell phones in every pocket!) and gave them our estimated time of arrival overhead – it was such fun to see my Dad’s sister and her husband outside waving us on – a big, big treat for my Dad!

Arrival in Oshkosh is truly something to behold. As an in-bound pilot, you’re on your tiptoes as the air traffic controllers walk you down the approach and onto the runway. “Red and white Cherokee, rock your wings – you’re number 3 for landing…” Truly amazing how many airplanes they handle. Fortunately, we arrived safely!

We stayed in the dorms at the local university while we took in the airshow grounds and sights every day. I think we were there for the first airshow demonstration ever flown by an SR-71 Blackbird – which took off from Beale Air Force Base in California something like 40 minutes before arriving overhead at Oshkosh!

This trip was truly one of those trips of a lifetime – for both my Dad and me. We had great fun together and really enjoyed ourselves. He was a great co-pilot along the way! The memory of this special trip will stay with both of us forever.