The first airshow of 2022 is just a couple of weeks away, are you ready to get out, have fun and come back with them visual memories? I know I’m not which is why I’ve been out practicing my panning like crazy. This season I’ll be out with the Z 9 / 180-400VR, a new rig with a slightly better balance so I’m getting that muscle memory built and flexed. It starts by simply properly handholding about 30 minutes a day. The Z 9 is set to 1/20 and I keep practicing until I’m getting sharp images consistently. Then I’m building on that by following Maggie zipping about The Ranch shooting at my favorite shutter speed, 1/40. This is how I practice my panning when I’m at home. Yeah, my left arm was a little tired at first but after a week, my arm was not as tired and the number of images that were keepers was back up to where they should be. At this same time, I was also practicing with the new features in the Z 9, mainly 20fps and 3D Car subject detection (use Car with aircraft). I’m truly looking forward to getting back out with aircraft and I know by practicing now, I’ll be ready then!

I’m really fortunate to have not only found a very talented photo platform pilot, but having established a great creative relationship with him. I love flying with Ryan, in fact just flew acro with him a couple of weeks back, a little 3.2G fun. Well, I ping Ryan quite a bit looking for subjects at various times, the most are in the winter. I want that snowy background. Ryan knows everybody! In this case, the owner/pilot specifically wanted the snow-capped “Alps” in the background. Perfect! Ryan is always up for a cold flight, so am I but most are not but since the client wanted it, well he was up for it as well. That’s good because being in an open cockpit at Zero is hard! Well, we had a great flight but it was all possible because of my relationship with Ryan. The point, aircraft take people so more important than f/stop and shutter speed is your ability to form and keep those relationships!

Sharon & I were very fortunate to spend New Year’s weekend with both boys and a lot of friends on both ends of I-90. And with little surprise, planes managed to be a part of it as well. Out on the BZN ramp with a nice wind chill of 0, we had some sweet time with Jim’s new Great Lakes Biplane. New to him I should say, the second owner of this sweet ride. After moving some snow from the hangar door, we towed it down to a quieter part of the very busy BZN ramp (my how it has grown!) for a later afternoon shoot (the shot above).

As you can see, there was snow on the ground, and all around for that matter and that’s really why we pulled her out. It was also a great opportunity to get some more time in with the Z 9 and its fold-out monitor. That’s how I took this particular shot. I had the grid active and then bent over and lined up the shot with the monitor pulled out so I could easily see. Using the 3D Car mode, the focusing was a snap. And while that worked great, there was a point in the shoot the light was changing really fast and this method didn’t work for me. That’s because when I shoot with the monitor, I don’t trust my eyes to get everything perfectly level so I chimp a lot. With the fast-changing light, that doesn’t work. So after all that time staying off the tarmac, at the end of the shoot when it was the coldest, I was lying down on my belly shooting. The final photo was worth it though.

Shooting statics in winter is in many ways a slam dunk. It’s time to get out with your camera! The biggie is the mellow light with the sun so close to the horizon. Shadows under the wings this time of year are at a minimum bringing out more detail. It begs us to get down lower, the angle of view bringing out more drama in the airframe. And the moisture winter brings adds to our photographs. Having the tarmac nice and black from being wet is a biggie. And if you can catch the puddles before they drain off (ramps are constructed to drain fast) you can use the puddles as a great reflection. Finally, the background can grab the imagination and provide that static aircraft a place to fly. Clouds also bring a romance to the shot while mellowing the light even more. Shooting statics in winter are the very definition of, bad weather can make the best photography. This makes winter storms great for ramp shoots!

It ’tis the season but how to say that with a photograph of an aircraft? Snow-covered aircraft usually indicates a derelict, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s not the best visual message for this time of year. I’ve been on the hunt and traveling to locations to get an aircraft in current operation in snow. I’ve had some luck doing air-to-air missions with a snowy background but to date, I’ve only photographed two static aircraft in snow, this is one of them. Does it really matter, I mean, having snow in the photograph? If you want to tell the story of winter, I kinda think so. I’m on the hunt here in MT for the opportunity and looking / talking with folks in AK for them as well. And as you might imagine, I don’t want any old plane but one with a character like this one, a one a of kind Stearman converted to a “crop duster.” I will find the perfect “Christmas” aviation photo at some point, cause I love a challenge and snow is a challenge!

They were high school juniors and seniors when they heard on the radio the attack on Pearl Harbor. Without hesitation, they enlisted to serve their country. The “Greatest Generation” came together making the USA a life priority with many making the ultimate sacrifice. We owe all who served and paid the ultimate price for our freedoms, especially that day in Dec 1941. They shall never be forgotten!

Years back we wanted to understand that Sunday morning so we traveled to Pearl Harbor to fly the routes of that morning. This is the story of that flight. We’d been planning it for months, paperwork filed with official channels asking for permission, route and mission decided on, all was good to go! The time had come to put the flight in the air. It was a beautiful clear morning 15 March as we meet the team at the gate of the airport. The day before we’d all meet in Rob’s hangar and went over the flight we’d been planning for months. The maps were pulled out and spread on the table, historic photographs of the day laid about, the route was selected and timed with my shot list making sure we can accomplish all that we had planned. Our flight path wasn’t one we came up with but one that followed from the morning attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7^th, 1941.

The sun hadn’t graced the skies yet but there was a glow over Diamond Head outlining its very distinctive shape on the horizon. The first thing we had to do was get the screw out of the window of the photo platform I was going to shoot out of. The Cessna 172 is a very common photo platform for air to air work. The windows though normally only open a short way, too small an aperture to get the lens out to shoot. Because of the airspeed, you fly, you can safely and easily with the screw removed, let the window open fully (the airflow actually holds the window up for you) making shooting possible.

After that, there was the preflighting of the 172. I’m always comforted when I see the pilot have the POH in hand and running down the list as we get ready to go. Stab the wing tanks, plug-in headsets, seat belts fastened and with a yell out the window, “Clear!,” the prop turns and the engine kicks over. Then there is the warm-up and initial systems check. Then there is talking to the tower so you can taxi. Then there is taxing over to the run-up area and doing the last engine run-up for oil pressure. An hour has passed before at 07:15 its wheels up and in the air heading for our rendezvous.

Our subject plane, a gorgeous SNJ painted in the scheme of the USS Saratoga, is hangared at historic Barbers Point. As part of our briefing the day before we had arranged where we would meet once in the air. While you can plan everything well in advance and go through the preflight with flying colors there seems to be one thing that tends to come up way too often for me. And that’s radio problems most often from loose or dirty connections. And as you might guess, while working perfectly the day before, the first depress of the button and a scratchy, static voice rang through the headset. We flew north towards our hook up point southeast of Wheeler Field. It was an amazing feeling flying the path of that historic morning!

Right on queue, we find Bruce and his SNJ visually but radio communications are anything but clear. As long as we fly the brief, there should be no problems. We are a little early for our scheduled time over Wheeler Field. Wheeler Field is still active so clearance was obtained to do a couple of flyovers to photograph the SNJ with the Field in the background. We flew a little north and came down the shoot the same as the Japanese did that morning in 1941. In the background were the same rice fields and agriculture that were present on that day.

The radio came to life, a flight of Black Hawks was on their way into Wheeler. They were calling the tower. We heard no response and then the radio crackled to life clearing them. Rob waited for a second and called the tower. The sweetest came across the radio answering back. “Ah good, I know her,” Rob said to us and he answered back. The two of them talked pleasantries and then got down to clearing our filed flight plan. With everything cleared, we had the next ten minutes to buzz the field and get the shots. That’s when the challenge began.

Radio communications with the SNJ were challenging, the connection was sketchy at best. While we flew the brief, being able to talk on the radio to fine-tune the photograph is essential. We flew the strafing runs the Japanese flew that fateful morning down Wheeler Field. Bruce is a Pearl Harbor historian and had told us much of the facts leading up to that morning. The P-40s had been lined up in a perfect row to prevent saboteurs from attacking the aircraft (an attack by sea wasn’t believed possible by some of the brass). Needless to say, this made it really easy for the Japanese to cause a great amount of destruction with little effort.

One thing that is very hard to do in a briefing is to explain angles. The angle of the photographer, the subject and the background so they all line up in the viewfinder is hard to prevision. That’s why the radio was so important. Despite the brief, getting the SNJ in the perfect position just wasn’t happening. After a couple of passes the radio crackled, “Photo flight, airspace is now closed. Thanks for coming!” And with that, we headed south.

Bruce took us south on the same path the Japanese took to Pearl. The landscape below us now is nothing like what it was on that day. Oahu urban sprawl has grown up to Wheeler Field. We fly south checking the time. Bruce had managed to get flight clearance over Ford Island and the Pearl Harbor Memorial. A photo mission over these historic areas hadn’t been granted for quite some time because of some military installations in the area that the military didn’t want to be photographed. At the appointed time, Bruce starts calling the tower to get our clearance to start our run. “Sorry, we don’t have that paperwork, clearance denied.” The PAO hadn’t got the paperwork to the tower! Unlike Wheeler Field, we couldn’t just circle while we tried to clear up the problem. So off we went.

For the next ten to fifteen minutes, Bruce tried to run down the PAO. Finally, the PAO made the call to the tower and we were cleared for just two passes. That’s not what was originally arranged but the clock had been eaten up trying to reach the PAO. With months in the planning, it all came down to these two passes. The radio issues hadn’t cleared up and the same problems we had at Wheeler Field rose again. The goal was to get photos of the Memorial, Ford Island and other historic locations in the background of the SNJ. Lining up those items with just two passes and poor radio communications just wasn’t happening. After two passes without a word from the tower, we flew out of that pattern.

After leaving Ford Island, the flight split with us heading back to Honolulu and the SNJ back to Barbers Point. After landing and buttoning up the 172, we hopped into the van and drove over to Barbers Point where Bruce was waiting for us. We spent the rest of the day with Bruce having the most amazing, historic ground tour of December 7, 1941. With Bruce’s military clearance, we were able to tour Wheeler Field and see the OC where the card game was going during the attack in which Taylor & Welch left, got into their P-40s (parked at the remote strip) and got in the air to bring down some attackers. We saw the secret, underground plane assembly plant, and runway. It’s a tour that if you’re into history is absolutely amazing!

We even went back to Pearl, visiting both sides of the channel. Late in the afternoon found us at the hangars on Ford Island. There and at the seaplane port just down the ramp, we could see the remnants of the bombs and bullets of that morning. We were at that infamous place where all the B&W photos of the PBYs and Ducks burning was taken, the pot marks still in the cement. We then went up to where the Arizona and other battleships were moored, next to the officers’ quarters and got out and stood where the explosion did so much destruction. Very powerful!

At the end of the day, we ended up back at Barbers Point. Barbers Point construction was well underway on Dec 7^th but not active. While a bomb did fall nearby, many think it was not intentional. In the last waning light of the day, we wheeled out the SNJ on the deactivated base for our last couple of portraits for the day. Our flight occurred from 07:15-08:11, not too much different than that morning. Despite not going 100% as planned, it was an incredible flight and an amazing day. It’s our history to honor, remember and pass on so it is never forgotten!