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As usual the
Experimental
Aircraft Associations Annual Convention was spectacular.
My emphasis for this years photography was gargantuan
aircraft. Only at Oshkosh can you observe planes up close in flying
demonstrations. The flight line is only a couple hundred feet at most from
the runway. Very cool for your vintage and aerobatic plane. But that
adjacency really adds to the overwhelming size and visceral experience of
being dwarfed by some of the largest flying contraptions man has made.
One curious side note. All of these giant planes
were also the quietest planes at the air show. The ultra lights made more
noise than the A380. Very weird.
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Can You Say
GINORMOUS |
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Here is a nice shot I took from a chase
plane. WRONG!
I took this from the ground next to
100,000 of my intimate friends. Only at EAA can you get this kind of
shot by oh sort of looking up and clicking. Utterly crazy.
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If you like the sensation of really big
heavy stuff buzzing overhead doing things with planes that just don't seem
natural then this is the place for you |
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In the above shot this guy was doing
something like 120 knots. There is no way anything that big can stay in
the air going that slow.
This is a full power nose up sort of
slosh thru the air pass. Very peculiar thing. The noises of all the flaps
and aerodynamic draggy kind of things made more sound the the engines.
Strange. |
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But then looking at that
wing and all of those flaps maybe there is enough lift.
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During the demo I was
amazed at the handling on this giant aircraft. Great fun to watch. |
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One of the highlights of the week was the
presence and demo flights of Virgin Galactic's new launch vehicle for
commercial space travel. A Scaled Composites Design.
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This is White Knight 2.
Spaceship 2. will be mounted in the center raised area of the wing then
launched into space from 50,000 feet or so . Who thinks of this stuff?
Well they were at EAA again this year.narrating during the flight. Burt
Rutan was in good form and got everybody going.
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| The radical design needed
cool graphics and they had em. |
The handling on the lightly
loaded plane is insane. |
This shot gives you an idea
of how close you can get to the actual flight line. How cool is that. I
have been going here for nearly 20 years and it still blows me away. |
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Have you every wanted to go
to the airport and just watch really big jets land?
Well generally there is no place to get a good view and you
probably would get snagged by security anyway.
Ah EAA. Now here you can get a really good view. |
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| Lots of wheels. |
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Nice go around. |
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New engines are very quiet. |
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The Airshow |
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This year the air shows
mascot parachutists were called the Misty Blues. an all women team. |
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| One of my most favorite
aircraft the DC-3 usually starts the airshow by dropping the parachutists. |
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Aeroshell caught my eye.
But for a change I did not shoot pictures of the air show aerobatics. I
just enjoyed. To see some very nice pictures of previous years check out
EAA 2005 |
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Zippy zoomy and really loud. F-15's win
for noise, especially with after burners. After all smoke and noise is
usually the theme of air shows. |
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Heritage Formation Every year
there is always and unusual grouping of past and present military
aircraft. I found this year especially cool.
F-86 A-10 P-51 |
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| I went
to EAA to visit some friends recuperate and just relax. I camped at Camp
Scholler for 3 days and really did not even plan on taking any pictures.
Taking pictures requires more focus than I had this weekend. But I am glad
I brought my equipment. The weather was fabulous and the excitement is
contagious.
So after another 600 frames to clog my hard drive here are the most
memorable shots.
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