Jones Beach Air Show

moose135

We had the annual Jones Beach Air Show on Long Island over Memorial Day Weekend. I was back home for it, working with the American Airpower Museum, which hosts many of the show performers. This year, we had three jet teams, the Blue Angels, the Canadian Snowbirds, and the Breitling Jet Team. We also had the F-16 Demo, and a USAF Heritage Flight with the F-16, a P-51, and an F-35, the first visit to Jones Beach by an F-35. B-17 Yankee Lady, the museum's warbirds, and several aerobatic performers also were part of the show.

1 - Blue Angels diamond formation



2 - Breitling Jet Team member lands after their demonstration at the beach.



3 - USAF Heritage Flight



4 - Snowbirds in formation



5 - Blue Angels solo makes a low-level, high speed pass.



6 - F-35 Lightning II makes a low approach at Republic Airport after the Heritage Flight formation at the beach. I was in the old airport control tower, now part of the museum, for this shot.



7 - Sean D. Tucker and his Oracle biplane



8 - Snowbirds cross at show center.



9 - Snowbird advance pilots arrive at Republic at the start of show weekend



10 - It turned out to be a sad weekend - Friday evening, two of our museum warbirds departed with another plane for a photo flight over the Hudson River along the west side of Manhattan. During that flight, museum pilot Bill Gordon and the P-47 developed a mechanical problem. Gordon ditched the P-47 in the Hudson away from vessels and others on the ground, however he was unable to escape the aircraft and was lost. In over 15 years of operation, we had not had an aircraft accident or a serious injury to one of our members or visitors. The P-47 was a centerpiece of our collection - Republic Aviation did final assembly of P-47s in the hangar we now occupy during WWII. We flew the rest of the weekend's activities with heavy hearts but in tribute to Bill.

Stumblebum

Very nice!

black mamba

Excellent work as usual, John. I'm sure sorry to read of the museum's loss of its pilot and plane. Will there be an effort to retrieve the plane?

Take care,

Tom

CCoop

I always enjoy your plane photography!! In #8 i appreciate the blurring of the far plane compared to the near. Very cool--All the shots, and your narrative. --Carter


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willard3

Nice series and I particularly like the biplane.

denisegoldberg

moose135 wrote: »

5 - Blue Angels solo makes a low-level, high speed pass.



...
10 - It turned out to be a sad weekend - Friday evening, two of our museum warbirds departed with another plane for a photo flight over the Hudson River along the west side of Manhattan. During that flight, museum pilot Bill Gordon and the P-47 developed a mechanical problem. Gordon ditched the P-47 in the Hudson away from vessels and others on the ground, however he was unable to escape the aircraft and was lost. In over 15 years of operation, we had not had an aircraft accident or a serious injury to one of our members or visitors. The P-47 was a centerpiece of our collection - Republic Aviation did final assembly of P-47s in the hangar we now occupy during WWII. We flew the rest of the weekend's activities with heavy hearts but in tribute to Bill..

These are amazing. I especially the motion showing in #5.

I'm sorry to hear of the loss of Bill Gordon.

--- Denise

Eia

Awesome! Gives me chills and a heavy heart to read about Bill Gordon - God bless his family. (heard about it on the news) How do you get these shots?

moose135

Thanks, folks, I really appreciate it. Losing Bill was quite a shock - I was at the museum, and a couple of friends were in the photo plane, we were planning to do some night shots on the ramp when they returned. About an hour after they departed, we got a message saying the aircraft was down, and spent the rest of the evening trying to get word on what happened and Bill's status.

black mamba wrote: »

Excellent work as usual, John. I'm sure sorry to read of the museum's loss of its pilot and plane. Will there be an effort to retrieve the plane?

They recovered it from the Hudson the following day, and it was trucked to a facility (NTSB?) in Delaware for the investigation. From the photos, it looked very much intact - Bill had made a "textbook" ditching, and the P-47 was famous for its rugged construction. I don't know its ultimate fate after the investigation, but I don't know that it will get back to flight status after spending time in the river.

CCoop wrote: »

I always enjoy your plane photography!! In #8 i appreciate the blurring of the far plane compared to the near. Very cool--All the shots, and your narrative.

Thanks, Carter! Those are tough shots to get - the two are closing at 800+ knots, I'm panning along with one and start shooting as the approach - I try to keep both eyes open so I can judge when the second plane gets close. I have plenty of shots where both planes are blurry, or one (or both) are cut off, or I missed the second one completely...

denisegoldberg wrote: »

These are amazing. I especially the motion showing in #5.

I'm sorry to hear of the loss of Bill Gordon.

Thank you, Denise. On #5, he's making a "sneak pass" at 500+ knots while the crowd is watching the diamond head off to the right. That's another sequence where I have a couple of frames of cut off jets!

Eia wrote: »

Awesome! Gives me chills and a heavy heart to read about Bill Gordon - God bless his family. (heard about it on the news) How do you get these shots?

Thank you! How do I get these shots? Practice... Actually, for some of my shots (like 2 and 6) I'm shooting from the old control tower at the airport. It's part of the museum, and a couple of us get to go out on the walkway outside of the tower cab. It lets us shoot down on some of the stuff flying past. I've been a volunteer there for about 10 years, and offer use of my images to the museum, so I get to go "behind the rope line" to get some amazing access to some amazing people and aircraft. For the beach shots, I got there early (8 am) and staked out a spot near the high tide line so I was close to the action and didn't have to worry about crowds in front of me.