Brent & I were afforded an amazing opportunity to fly with the Texas Flying Legends Museum from their base at Ellington Field, TX to the Los Angeles County Airshow, Lancaster, CA. They were flying their six ship fleet across country over some amazing American landscapes and landing at some great airports all providing some target rich photographic opportunities. Adding to this unique opportunity was our ability to work out of different aircraft as photo platforms. That’s how for example I got this shot of TFLM’s B-25J “Betty’s Dream,” P-51D “Dakota Kid II,” Spitfire MkIXc, FM-2P Wildcat and P-40E “Aleutian Tiger.”
My perch for this photography was the belly of the TBM-3E piloted by the amazing Sam. You don’t see the TBM-3E in these photos because of that so I owe Sam a special shoot as he did an incredible job getting me in the right place safe and sound. Shots like this of the P-40E were really quite easy. Bernie drove the P-40E into place and in my perch with D4s / 70-200f4AFS I simply had to watch the backgrounds and make the click. Nope, not shooting through a window but a missing door. Best photo platform I’ve ever had.
The TBM platform has a very unique feature that makes for some amazing opportunities. The way the fuselage curves down where the door would be, permits you to shoot straight down without being in the airstream. This provides an unique view of the tops of aircraft while still seeing the landscape below. I used that a lot with the B-25 as it’s a typical way we think of bombers.
It allowed me to also take some unique pilot portraits. Alan & Mark are starring up watching the TBM as that is standard formation flying procedure. I posted many “live” videos from the air onto the Texas Flying Legends Museum FB page which provide even more visual information from my unique TBM perch.
Two thirds through our flight west, I switched over to the back seat of the P-51D Mustang with dear friend Casey Odegaard at the stick. I’ve wanted to ride cross country in a Mustang for a long time to get some idea what the boys went through during WWII on their escort duties. The thrill starts to wear off a little ways into the flight as your butt starts telling you its tired and the canopy soaked in the sunlight starts to bake your skin. You can see in the bottom photo just how sunburned I got in a short time during this flight. You might be thinking this is a pretty short and calm post for such an amazing adventure. There was/is no lack of excitement or thrill to this adventure I assure you. It’s just a matter of time cause just like I had no time this past week to post, I have no time this week. I’ll do my best to get more of the adventure posted, just wanted to catch you up. And I wanted to thank the Texas Flying Legends Museum and its pilots for the opportunity of a lifetime. I lived and learned a lot, lessons I won’t soon forget!
