Attended today. Was there nearly six hours. Took nearly 400 photos. Sprung the extra $20 for the pit pass-- well worth it. Saw and photographed many Mustangs. Saw three of the four still-flying F7F Tigercats. Two raced today; all three flew in formation yesterday. Saw Glacier Girl, a P-38 that had been lifted for an icy grave 268 feet below Actric ice and restored. Saw the Thunderbirds perform. No pictures-- too small for the camera to focus and the action was too fast for this old goat.
The best part of the day for me was at the very end. I hung around this one Mustang until almost everybody was gone, then asked the owner if I could get up on the wing and photograph the cockpit. He said "No problem" and I got to get my face right up in that cockpit and right in front of those instruments. I took maybe half a dozen pictures, making sure they were all in focus. I was not going to ruin a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to haste. The only trouble may be that I was taking the pictures at a rather dubious angle to the sun, so I'm hoping not too much lens flare happened to keep us from seeing everything. I plan to put these photos up on photobucket for all to see. I was amazed at how really small the cockpit is in a Mustang. It looks like it will fit guys who are 23 and about 150 pounds quite well. Anybody any bigger than that is going to have some trouble squeezing into the seat...The weather was perfect. It was cool enough. Nobody got hurt so far, unlike last year when we had four fatalities. Let's hope it all goes off well...
I'll put it up in several places when I get the photos uploaded to photobucket. Until then...
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