Departure day - Spitfire

[Hagar]

OK, here they are. John Romain doing his pre-flight. He wasn't in the mood for talking today.


Started up & ready to go.





No farewell beatup. I missed that last night & he gave us a super display on Friday. He went straight on today without a backward glance, presumably heading for Duxford.

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

Finally, some beautiful Spit pics!! Those are some fines shots Doug, very fine indeed. The owner sounds like he wasn't having the best of days :-/ :-/

[ozzy72]

Great shots Doug. Probably John had a rough night sleeping under a bush or something to make him grumpy

[Hagar]

Thanks. I did my best as promised.

. The owner sounds like he wasn't having the best of days.

He wasn't exactly grumpy. He had that purposeful look about him. I suspect he might have hoped to fly back home last night after the show. He's a busy man & probably had things to attend to. The chap I felt sorry for was the Tucano display pilot. He was all ready to go when plans were changed at the last moment. Charlie might have heard about it by now but there are two sick Tucanos still sitting at Shoreham.

[C]

The chap I felt sorry for was the Tucano display pilot. He was all ready to go when plans were changed at the last moment. Charlie might have heard about it by now but there are two sick Tucanos still sitting at Shoreham.

? Bizarre, although on of the chaps in your arrival photos was back at work this morning...

My Tin-can worked fine today!

[Hagar]

? Bizarre, although on of the chaps in your arrival photos was back at work this morning...

Bizarre indeed. There were 4 Tucanos here at one point. The original pair plus 2 more that turned up on Friday. Three were still sitting on the tarmac when I arrived this morning. I heard 2 had gone "tech" so asked Ben Mark himself for the gen. He was returning in the serviceable one & the spare pilot was hanging on to await another one from Linton bringing an engineer to fix the others. Then, just as he was ready to go, plans were changed with the engineer now coming by road. Both pilots eventually departed in the serviceable aircraft. Ben Mark was sitting in the back looking a tad pissed off by this time.

My Tin-can worked fine today!

Glad to hear it.

PS. Anything I should know?

[beaky]

Okay; those are lovely (I'm a big VTOL fan; like that shot w/the verical-thrust heat shimmer, there,
yessir- and that Spitfire!! Wow!!).    But your new mission, as I see it, is for you to capture one of
these  "beat-ups" (which is actually called "buzzing the tower", but you can use whatever phrase
you like ).  We're counting on you, son... make us proud! Too bad about the Harriers, tsk, tsk.
If only you'd set the camera on top of your head....
Meanwhile, next airshow (which I hope doesn't occur with me as PIC!:o) I get to, I will try to get something
like that, although "buzzing the tower" has fallen out of favor around here... I've never seen that.  

[HawkerTempest5]

I know I go on about it, but RN201 is without doubt the finest Spitfire anywhere in the World. What a superb looking machine. Thanks for some stunning photos of my favourite Spitfire Doug old chap

[Hagar]

[quote]Okay; those are lovely (I'm a big VTOL fan; like that shot w/the verical-thrust heat shimmer, there,
yessir- and that Spitfire!! Wow!!).

[beaky]

Thanks Rotty. Glad you liked them. I don't know the technical term but we always called thewm beatups in my part of the world.  They were so close I couldn't have taken a decent shot even at full wide angle. At least I was in the perfect place to get the full effect.

Just kidding about the terminology; "beatups" is a new one on me, but then, I don't speak english, I speak 'merican...

My next expenditure with this hobby will definitely be for a wide-angle lens; apparently there are adaptors and lenses that will work with my camera. Doubt it'd be easy to switch back and forth, though.

[Hagar]

I got this on Friday during John Romain's superb display in the Spit. Starting with a fast run straight up the runway from the south. I was in the wrong place (again) but you can just see the top of the hangar I'm talking about at bottom right.

[Hagar]

My next expenditure with this hobby will definitely be for a wide-angle lens; apparently there are adaptors and lenses that will work with my camera. Doubt it'd be easy to switch back and forth, though.

By "wide angle" I meant zero zoom. You can get an extra zoom lens for mine but it's relatively expensive. It screws onto the lens hood & looks like a lot of messing around. Swapping lenses might be fine when you have time to set up the shot but in the hustle & bustle of an air display I get confused enough already. Not sure my hands are steady enough for more zoom without some sort of tripod/monopod. I would rather put the money towards a proper DSLR camera. This one's not 1 year old yet & I still haven't figured out how to use it properly.

[HawkerTempest5]

I have the same camera as you Doug (as you already know ) and I have the tele-converter lense for it. For me it seems to make quite a difference but one thing that is annoying is the telescope effect you get if you zoom out too far. You don't always see it whilst shooting but when you come to upload the shots you have a curved black edges on the photo. For shooting things close to you need to take the lense off and as you say, this gets a bit fiddly. If my budget goes to it next year I may look out for a decent DSLR, but I'm happy with the Fuji for now.

[C]

Glad to hear it.

PS. Anything I should know?

Thanks Doug

All has been revealed in the "Real Aviation" section, although technically it could have gone into "Flight School", but it includes a photo (which is no my own!) so could go here.

But as it is news, I think I put it in the right place!