F/A-18 Speed

The crew made several high-speed passes during the air show making plenty of noise and entering complex maneuvers. Some of these passes were relatively close for the lens on the camera making keeping them in frame a challenge!

This first photo is just that - barely in-frame with a small clip off of the tail. This is the full frame of the photo and not cropped during processing. It is not an award-winning shot due to the cropped tail. However, it is one of my favorite shots of the air show due to the clarity of the shot made even more impressive knowing the jet is well over 500 mph right in front of me! You can clearly see the vapor clouds on the trailing edge of the wings in level flight. The jet was well over 95% of sonic at this point (my guess is more like 98%). I hope you appreciate the detail of the two pilots with a clear view of the weapons officer's hand on his front console.

This is another one of my favorite shots. The jet is making a low pass simulating a missed tail-hook carrier capture. The "attempted landing" was with communication between the pilot and the carrier deck person in charge of the ball (device to manage the difficult approach of a jet landing on a small carrier deck safely). If the tail-hook misses the capture cable, the pilot must pull up their landing gear and apply full thrust to fly around for another attempt. I am quite certain this pilot has not missed a capture in many years! The clear view of the jet in relation to the ground and Thunderbird F-16 jet makes this another favorite.

Stay in touch!

Doug White