With any subject being photographed light is everything. Well there isn’t much one can do about flight demos, either we shoot or not. In this case the plane was back lit but did have the mountains behind it. The mountains even had some good snow on them, which must have been from those big storms we had. Amazing that it lasted at such a low altitude.
We were hopeful that the T33 might be front lit if it took off to the south and made a left turn circle, for a brief moment it seemed like it would unfortunately all other aircraft were heading to the north so we knew it wasn’t going to cooperate. One lucky guy rode in the second seat during the demo, I wondered if he was nervous when they strapped the parachute on him.
Unlike the TBM Avenger and F86 Sabre that Dad and I photographed down at Chino’s Planes of Fame, the T33 flew low and close to the museum. It was something of a mystery whether or not he would considering it is a jet versus a prop plane. Before take off one of the speaker talked a little bit about the plane including how it was a trainer up to the 60’s when it was replaced with updated technology. Also how they were only allowed to fly at a max speed of 200 knots even though it can go up to 500 knots.
After 4 good laps around the museum it was time for him to come down to the ground. On last lap we had the best light and got a few good shots. All in all it was great demo totally worth the drive down for.
Images Captured with D3, Nikon Nikkor Vr 200-400, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film