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My fiancée & I went plane watching on the lake shore today. For some reason they're flying the planes further out on the lake this year, so getting decent photos was a pain in the ass. I really need a DSLR with a big telephoto lens to get good pictures.


Boeing Stearman



The Stearman being flown sideways



F22 Raptor on afterburners



Raptor almost breaking the sound barrier



Raptor, F16, and P51 in formation






F18 Hornet and some unidentified airplane. I think it's a T6 Texan



Patty Wagstaff doing corkscrews with her plane



C17



Snowbirds in formation

Raptor, F16, and P51 in formation

That has GOT to be the best pic of the lot. Or the one below it, showing the bellies.

Wow... I have to wonder how fast they were flying, and if the P51 had trouble keeping up... or if the other two had trouble staying slow enough to remain in formation.

Edit: That's also kinda a War Generations photo, if you think about it. WWII/Korea for the P51, Vietnam/ColdWar for the F16, and Present Day Raptor.

Uhh, how low was that Stearman flying when it was sideways? It looks awfully close to those rocks.

Cool pictures. I'm curious how long the Raptor, F16, and P51 were able to maintain formation. I've heard it's tricky to keep formation with different types of aircraft.

LadyTevar wrote:Wow... I have to wonder how fast they were flying, and if the P51 had trouble keeping up... or if the other two had trouble staying slow enough to remain in formation.

They seemed to stay in formation just fine, they stayed together for a long time while flying racetrack circles over the city & lake.

Spin Echo wrote:Uhh, how low was that Stearman flying when it was sideways? It looks awfully close to those rocks.

It's actually behind the breakwater, but it's not exactly that high off the water either, I'd say maybe 20-30' or so above the water at that point.


Here's a picture of his first pass, which was a fair bit higher than the other one and more sideways.


The pilot of the Stearman was crazy though, there were several points where he was literally a couple feet above the water, I could see the wind from the wheels leaving lines in the lake. Another time he was doing a dive with the engine off and everyone thought he was headed for the drink, then he restarts the engine and it backfires and shoots flames out the exhaust. The audience thought he was taking a swim for sure, but somehow he managed to keep the plane up and get the engine spinning again.

Nice pictures. I haven't been to the CNE Airshow since 2002, and this year I certainly didn't have time, since my project car (which I must get in sound working order before winter) is eating up all my free time. Though the Snowbirds pic does remind me that they will be doing a flyby over Whitby on Tuesday (as they do this time every year), specifically over the Michael VandenBos public school (named in honour of a Snowbird pilot native to Whitby, who was killed in a training accident in 1998), which is not 2km from where I live, giving me a good view of the show from my own back yard. I'll have my camera ready and post whatever shots I can get.

aerius wrote:My fiancée & I went plane watching on the lake shore today. For some reason they're flying the planes further out on the lake this year, so getting decent photos was a pain in the ass. I really need a DSLR with a big telephoto lens to get good pictures.

From what I've read, apparently a 400mm (equivalent) focal length is pretty much mandatory for this kind of work. Luckily, you don't need some crazy-fast f/2.8 lens since it's usually bright during an airshow

LadyTevar wrote:Edit: That's also kinda a War Generations photo, if you think about it. WWII/Korea for the P51, Vietnam/ColdWar for the F16, and Present Day Raptor.

The USAF likes to do "Heritage Flights" with a number of birds in formation. If you search for 'em, you'll see any number of configurations. One of my favorites has an F-22, F-15, F-4 and P-51 (with another having an F-15, F-16, F-86 and P-51)

Spin Echo wrote: Cool pictures. I'm curious how long the Raptor, F16, and P51 were able to maintain formation. I've heard it's tricky to keep formation with different types of aircraft.

Some quick googling gives the P51 top speed at somehwere over 400mph, and an F-16 stall speed as 250mph. That gives a decent overlap. Can't find anything on the Raptor, though.

More pictures...


Opening starburst from the Snowbirds



Snowbirds flying facing each other



Snowbirds doing a 4 plane head-on pass



More formation flying by the Snowbirds




Gratuitous hot babe picture.
She didn't mind me making a smart-ass comment about her top.

The last Snowbird pic is of very good quality (And you have some pretty cool other pictures as well).

If you really are serious about needing a DSLR or a good Zoom lense I could give you some (limited) advice as well, a lot of these pictures would have been really spectacular with a little more muscle power behind them.

Your unidentified aircraft is indeed a T-6.

aerius wrote:Gratuitous hot babe picture.
She didn't mind me making a smart-ass comment about her top.

I can't believe she didn't knee you in the groin...

Great pictures. Looks like it was a good show.

phongn wrote:The USAF likes to do "Heritage Flights" with a number of birds in formation. If you search for 'em, you'll see any number of configurations. One of my favorites has an F-22, F-15, F-4 and P-51 (with another having an F-15, F-16, F-86 and P-51)

A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to get a distant shot of an A-10 and P-51 together, as you can see.

<--

An A-10 and P-47 together would be perfect.

phongn wrote:

aerius wrote:My fiancée & I went plane watching on the lake shore today. For some reason they're flying the planes further out on the lake this year, so getting decent photos was a pain in the ass. I really need a DSLR with a big telephoto lens to get good pictures.

From what I've read, apparently a 400mm (equivalent) focal length is pretty much mandatory for this kind of work. Luckily, you don't need some crazy-fast f/2.8 lens since it's usually bright during an airshow

Not to mention the 1.5x (Nikon DX) or 1.6x (Canon APS-C) focal length-equivalent bonus you can get from most under $3k DSLRs. My 75mm-300mm lens gets 420mm-equivalent on my Canon Digital Rebel.

It really sucks if you want to go to the other end and do wide-angle work. That 18mm starts to work like a 29mm.

lukexcom wrote:Not to mention the 1.5x (Nikon DX) or 1.6x (Canon APS-C) focal length-equivalent bonus you can get from most under $3k DSLRs. My 75mm-300mm lens gets 420mm-equivalent on my Canon Digital Rebel.

Yeah, the crop factor is a nice bonus for tele shots. I have a 70-200 f/4 that magically turns into a 112-320 ... with the 1.4 teleconverter I'd get a 448mm f/5.6 ... which should be quite sufficient for an airshow O'course, the problem then is stabilizing the damn thing.

It really sucks if you want to go to the other end and do wide-angle work. That 18mm starts to work like a 29mm.

Well, Canon has an EF-S 10-22 and Nikon has a DX 12-24. The usual third-party suspects have their own APS-C wide lenses, too. Now, what I'm really dreaming of is the Canon 24 f/1.4 ... too bad it costs so much

Gotta love the Snowbirds


That F-22/F-16/P-51 shot is interesting, I didn't realize the -22 was that big

I was there on Labour Day, and I must say the entire show was spectacular. I'm still waiting on a friend of mine to send me the pictures she took that day. The Snowbirds really put on a fabulous display that day. And the C-17 was certainly an impressive sight to hold. That thing is HUUUGE!

i remember hearing somewhere that the 22 has a stall speed of 140 knots. i went through some of my old videos and found one that had a clip of a YF-22 taking off from 1994, wasn't it still classified then?

Marko Dash wrote:i remember hearing somewhere that the 22 has a stall speed of 140 knots. i went through some of my old videos and found one that had a clip of a YF-22 taking off from 1994, wasn't it still classified then?

Only in the details, IIRC.