As i said already we had five planes on Sunday to photograph. The last two in the roundup was the Bamboo Bomber and The Stinson. The Bomber was awesome. The whole time it seemed like we were shooting a plane out of Indiana Jones. At one point the plane lined up with the Sky Van giving us all a great opportunity for nose shots. We actually had to tell the pilot to fly down and away so that we weren’t getting just nose just. He did like to keep the planes tight.
The left turn orbit both days incorporated Red Mountain which made for a great background. The B17 was great in this scenario but the Bamboo Bomber was even better. The yellow just popped against the rock. Amazing how important the background is doing air to air. It didn’t seem so at first but with all the nearby towns, buildings and roads, getting clean shots got harder.
After a while the Stinson lined up in the orbit behind the bomber. We didn’t have much time with the two planes together so i fired off as many shots as i could. I missed the peal away shot when the bamboo left but the shots in between the arrival of the Stinson and its disappearance were great.
The Stinson is a great looking plane, inside and out. The inside is red leather and wood paneling. Bob, the owner and pilot that day, did an amazing job with the restoration as he does with all his planes. He flew it quite well also. He spent a lot of time down and some away to the side but not much close up like the bomber. The Stinson also doesn’t have that “flare” as the bomber did, but than it’s hard to cpomete with bright yellow.
The Stinson proved to have that classic early flight look. The wing design was something else. It was a pattern that i hadn’t seen before, which isn’t saying much considering my small repertoire of aircraft. It was pretty unbelievable that in two the whole group was able to photograph 8 different types of aircraft, and there’s still more to come!
Images captured with D3, AF-S Nikkor 70-200 VRII, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film