JDW Photos and Life

I don't know why, but I like seeing the altitude perspective in these formations. I'm pretty sure these jets are stacked but when the turn, they look like they are all in the same "plane" (geometry plane!). As they continue the turn shown in the previous photo, they now show their underside formation to the crowd. Stay in touch! Doug White

I'll finish up the Snowbirds with the next three e-mails tonight. I send two photos per e-mail to avoid getting bounced for file size for some people. More precision spacing and formation. These two were performing a slow roll with their canopies facing each other. Stay in touch! Doug White

Another tight formation with perfect spacing. This is the bottom of a large heart smoke trail laid out by these 4 jets. It was perfectly symmetrical and consumed most of the sky. I did not have a wide-angle lens to capture the full photo. Stay in touch! Doug White

This team put on a great show with several opposite approach passes. The skill to line up and time their rolls, etc. is still impressive. It's always fun to try and catch the photo just as they pass because you can't see both planes in the camera until it is too late! They gave us several opportunities to capture the action and you see this photo hit the timing nicely. You can also see that I am tracking the plane in the back moving left to right as it is in clear focus. The combination of me moving the camera with that plane plus the opposing speed of the other jet doubles up its apparent speed and even 1/1600 sec can't freeze the movement of the second plane. Stay in touch! Doug White

I'm doubling up today as I have been busy with grading and other challenges and haven't sent many photos lately. In this first photo, the jets are at the bottom of a loop flying straight at us and you can see the altitude perspective of the formation. As they approach, they continue their loop, we get to see their perfect spacing and alignment once more. Stay in touch! Doug White

  The Snowbirds are the air show team of the Canadian Air Force. Their jets are not the loud supersonic beasts of the Thunderbirds but the pilot skill is still impressive. This is the second time I've seen them perform and I loved them both times. We will get to enjoy their flying formations over the next few days and I think you may agree with me. They took off in groups of three and I just like the vantage point of the Thunderbird jets in the foreground. Pretty close to flawless spacing and form.

After landing, the F/A-18 officers waved to the crowd as they taxied their aircraft. Man, they look young! Livin' the life! The next demonstration was the C-5M Galaxy. What a beast of a plane! They used this flight as a joint forces training mission having loaded two Apache helicopters in the cargo bay. They flew out to the gulf, circled a bit, and then returned later in the show to land. Stay in touch! Doug White

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-hoo...

This first shot is a high speed banking turn. Again, the vapor flash on the low pressure side of the wings is a great indication of the G-forces the crew must endure. The engines are lit bright with heat waves clearly visible. Even the wing tips get into the vapor flash action. You can see the tornado swirl in the top wing flash. Inverted flight is not all that exciting to some but inverted and low altitude is still impressive to me. I flew RC planes for many years and you have to tell yourself to give down elevator when inverted. It just feels odd and is even more odd at low altitude where there is no margin for error. Stay in touch! Doug White

As the pilot took off, he left the landing gear down and performed a roll giving us a good view of the landing gear. He then retracts the gear and gets to the business of showing the capabilities of the jet and his flying skills. Here he is turning the jet into a high rate climb and experiencing some serious G-forces. The vapor cloud on top of the wing is due to the very low pressure on that side of the wing. Look closely and you can see the afterburner flame out the exhaust. Stay in touch! Doug White

The true stars of these shows (in my opinion anyway!) are the military aircraft and their amazing crews (ground and in-air). The F/A-18 is an amazing aircraft and I would never want to be on the enemy side of this beast. It is flown by the Navy/Marines and obviously carrier-capable. It is 32,000 lbs of pure mean attached to 34,000 lbs of thrust capable of Mach 1.6. They have to keep speeds below Mach 1.0 but these guys pushed it as close as they dared! Keeping this plane in the view of the camera at those speeds can be a challenge but I was fortunate to get a lot of quality shots. I share two photos per message due to size limits from some on my distribution list. I'll try to keep the shots coming and may violate my "1 message a day" self-imposed rule. These two airmen are casually moving their jet down the taxiway with hardly a care in the world as they prepare to give us a show. I'm sure they turn all-business once that canopy is closed. The subsequent take-off is q...

The air show started with a couple of demonstrations by local Houston teams. Given these pilots are likely flying on their own dime, they gave some nice performances. It may be of interest that many of these pilots were introduced as former military and/or commercial pilots. This photo is of 7 planes demonstrating formation flying. Sure, they are not as close together as the big military jets but they still gave a great show. The second team is a father/son combination. Again, a solid demonstration of excellent flying skills. The next round of photos get into the big-kid toys! Stay in touch! Doug White

There is something appealing about aircraft nose art! Stay in touch! Doug White

Pedro invited me to the Wings Over Houston Sunrise Photo event and how can I tell Pedro no? Getting to Ellington Field at 5:30 - 6:00 in the morning required a 3:45 departure for this old soul. That part was OK, it was navigating the parking area to find where I was supposed to park that just about killed me..... at least so I thought until we spent the entire day in the hot sun! Pedro and I came to the conclusion that we are getting a little old for this endurance challenge! I'll be sharing a few of the highlights over the next few days. The horizon glow of sunrise provided a little color even with very few clouds to help. Once the sun was up a little, I decided to play with capturing a starburst. Stay in touch! Doug White

Our plane landing to pick us up. It was bigger inside than I thought! It was a 45 minute flight to Katmai. Taking off! We never went above 500-700 feet flying between mountains as we left Kodiak. A beautiful plane. Look at the details on its nameplate! 1952 (older than me) de Havilland Beaver. We were blessed with a skilled, smooth pilot. A small island where someone lives - rugged. Streams of clear water everywhere. A stream with a salmon counting station. No words.... Leaving Kodiak and heading over to the mainland and Katmai National Park. Altitude was about 1000 feet for this portion of the flight. Did I mention perfect weather? Blessed.