U.S. Air Force Museum

kygarden

I thought I'd come away with a bunch of bad photos since this was mainly a trip to take our boy (2.5 yrs old) to the Air Force museum. But I was surprised when I started reviewing the photos These are all simple snapshots with only a couple seconds to compose (then chase after son) and no tripod. Shot raw and did minor tweaking afterwards.
Here's a few I like best, and a link to the whole gallery I just uploaded.

Wright Patterson is about 1 hour from my house...so it's nice to have this photo-op nearby all the time

Nikon D200 with Sigma 10-20mm. Almost every photo was ISO 1600, handheld - no post-processing to reduce noise.

Gallery:
http://nikon-photog.smugmug.com/gallery/2593119#136666507







A-10 Tank Killer


AC-130 Gunship! I should have taken photos of the canons sticking out of the side of this plane. It circles counter-clockwise (left turns - since all the canons are on the left side of the plane) and rains down hell on the enemy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC-130



They also have "Bockscar". The bomber that dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki during WWII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bockscar

moose135

Those are some great shots - as is the rest of your gallery! It's been close to 20 years since I've been there, clearly a lot has changed!

ShepsMom

Those are awesome! Where is this museum again? I would love to see this, pretty neat. Thanks for sharing!! Love #2

moose135

ShepsMom wrote:

Where is this museum again? I would love to see this, pretty neat.

It's at Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio.

ShepsMom

Thank you! I've never been to Ohio, may be some day...

kygarden

Thanks

PetersCreek

Very good shots that bring back some memories. For the first 12 years of my USAF career, I maintained avionic sensors like the Pave Penny pod that appears just left of the nose gear in the A-10 photo. I also briefly trained on some of the gunship sensor systems.

I think my favorite shot is of the F-86D. Always thought it was a curious lookin' bird.

Skippy

kygarden wrote:

I thought I'd come away with a bunch of bad photos since this was mainly a trip to take our boy (2.5 yrs old) to the Air Force museum. But I was surprised when I started reviewing the photos These are all simple snapshots with only a couple seconds to compose (then chase after son) and no tripod. Shot raw and did minor tweaking afterwards.
Here's a few I like best, and a link to the whole gallery I just uploaded.
Wright Patterson is about 1 hour from my house...so it's nice to have this photo-op nearby all the time
Nikon D200 with Sigma 10-20mm. Almost every photo was ISO 1600, handheld - no post-processing to reduce noise.
Gallery:
http://nikon-photog.smugmug.com/gallery/2593119#136666507
A-10 Tank Killer
AC-130 Gunship! I should have taken photos of the canons sticking out of the side of this plane. It circles counter-clockwise (left turns - since all the canons are on the left side of the plane) and rains down hell on the enemy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC-130
They also have "Bockscar". The bomber that dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki during WWII
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bockscar

These look great, man they do an awesome job at restoring these planes.
Love the paint jobs too
Stawberry Bitch what a name for a plane
The big bomb looks like a huge yellow egg.
Got yourself some good shots there ..... Skippy
.

Mike Lane

WHAT???? No XB-70??? No SR-71??? No YF-12??? No M-21??? No YF-23??? Come on, you're hoarding the shots of the dream machines for yourself aren't you?

Man I haven't been there in years. They certainly didn't have the B-2 when I was last there last. I really love the place. I can almost smell it right now just thinking about it. mmmmm

Oh and nice shots. That's some tough shooting in a dark hangar crammed chock full of planes. You did well I think.

Marc Muench

Chasin your child and shootin at the same time - now that sounds like a test of your "second nature" composition skills, which I would say you passed with flying colors pun intended. Very fun images

moose135

Interesting story (well, to me at least) about the B-1 in the museum. Can't see the sign, but that's an A-model, right? That was the last flying A-model, used as a test airframe before the B-models (the production version) were built.

If you will indulge this old crew dog a little trip down memory lane...in my prior life flying KC-135s, my crew refueled that aircraft on it's trip to the museum. It was a last minute mission change, we were supposed to refuel a B-52 on a normal training hop, but were told the night before we were going to hit a B-1. Now, mind you, the B-1 wasn't in wide-spread unit service at the time, and the boom operators needed to be certified to refuel them - no one at our base was.

They were delivering it from Edwards AFB in California to the museum. The deal was, if the weather wouldn't let them land at the museum strip, they would have to return to Edwards, but they couldn't carry enough gas to return to Edwards and still be able to land on the museum runway. We rendevoused with them in the area, did a few practice contacts to ensure we could pass gas to them, and then orbited until they landed and released us. Once they were down, we went and hit the B-52 and flew a navigation training leg, then ended up making 2 weather diverts and spending the night in Minot, ND - but that's a whole 'nother story

Fortunately, we had an instructor pilot along for the ride, so I got to go back and shoot some photos during the refueling. Now, all I have to do is find those slides...

Mike Lane

moose135 wrote:

... flew a navigation training leg ...

I loved making the pilots spend an hour going where I told them to go for no other reason than because I needed to. Oh and if I needed to do grid even better! Pilot fly grid heading 300. No that's south you idiot!

Grid = confused copilots!