Monday, June 22, 2015 at 07:23AM Mind your head!
Video screenshot: Red Bull 2-man formation about to blast right thru an open hangar!
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Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 08:41AM 
(click pic to enlarge)
It's no surprise that mixing a large gathering of the iconic Pitts Special, at Oshkosh, along with a fabulous retro graphic to promote it all is exactly the kind of hard-hitting triple play it takes to snap this Pig out of his hibernation. I'm back (at least at some level) to talk airplane-airplanes-airplanes.
Wow, over 70 examples of one of the greatest airplanes ever made, the revolutionary aerobatic biplane from the late great Curtis Pitts, his incredible little Pitts Special. First flown by Curtis himself in 1945, the Pitts Special is arguably the most important aerobatic aircraft the world has ever seen.
The IAC will be celebrating with the 70th Anniversary Pitts Exhibit at the IAC Pavilion. There will also be a wide range of Pitts forums to expand the minds of anyone interested in building, buying, flying or maintaining this amazing aircraft.
You can be sure I'll be spending quite a bit of time breathing in the Pitts exhibition at OSH... my avgeek heart was forever changed after spending 45 minutes with Billy Werth in his Pitts S2C doing aerobatics, followed by an hour of takeoffs and landings in the 260hp two-holer. It was the absolute most perfect flying experience of my life! This 70th celebration will certainly fuel my Pitts dreams for a long time to come!
Please Note: I plan to be at OSH all week, but I will NOT be running CampBacon. It's a long story and I won't go into any details, but if there's a Camp Bacon at OSH this year, you won't find me there, and I won't be doing any bacon parties. I will however, be somewhere in the campground.
Monday, August 25, 2014 at 09:03AM
I was looking for something simple and fun to post this morning since I'm just barely back up and running on my primary laptop after a HDD crash the same day I returned from OSH14. I've been limping along this last 3 weeks with the geezer laptop gasping for air running Vista and overheating most of the time. Anyway, GoPro to the rescue with a fun South American crop dusting video.
I'm usually not a fan of music backgrounds with aircraft videos, but I like this one. A lot. Seems to go very well with the pilot wearing the filtration mask : )
Video screenshot: GoPro takes you crop dusting in South America
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Wednesday, July 16, 2014 at 05:57AM
You've probably already seen the Boeing video of the practice flight for the Farnborough aerial display of the new -9 version of the 787 (20' stretch, 40 more pax plus 350 mile range increase) - it's been a very popular video around the internets the last few days with already over 1 million views. Since it was so readily available by the time I had a chance to do anything with it, I never got around to posting it. I have however added it at the bottom of the page tho in case you are one of the 12 avgeeks who hasn't seen it.
The video above is from PlanesTV Live and shows the actual Farnborough -9 display flight. It's all the same maneuvers as the practice flight but from a ground-based perspective. Great video. Great flight. Great airplane. (I'm prepared to declare the 787 the most beautiful and the most graceful jet airliner ever!)
The video above is from TopFelya and shows the same flight from a different perspective. There's always something new to observe from a different point of view.
This video is another from Boeing of the actual demonstration flight... it's not the full demo but still has some views of the -9 that are simply amazing to see.
And here's that 'practice' flight video released by Boeing several days ago. The airborne views are simply stunning, which is no surprise since they were done by Wolfe Air (check this out). It's also interesting that lots of people thought this whole video was CGI instead of real. I admit that at times it has that look, but c'mon, this is the real deal. And wow, so is the 787-9... this is gonna be one popular airliner - Bravo Boeing!
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787, Boeing, Crazy Stuff, MustSee, NicePaint, aerobatics, airshow, video Email Article Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 08:08AM
This recently uploaded gem of a video is an old-school professionally produced film that chronicled the wide variety of aviation related activities taking place during the 1965 Reno Air Races. It's 21 minutes long but very well worth your time if you have any interest in the era that defined so much of what modern aviation is all about today.
A young Bob Hoover talks about how the 23 year old P-51 design still flies beautifully
National air racing had just returned the year before in 1964 when the first Reno Air Races took place at the Sky Ranch airport just north of Sparks Nevada. Bill Stead was the driving force behind the rebirth of national air racing and it's great to see him in this video.
Lots of dirt and a short runway were pretty much all they had, but the event included aerobatics, parachuting, hot air ballooning, the US Air Force Thunderbirds in the F-100D Super Sabre, and of course various classes of air racing. Those first two years of the Reno Air Races were an amazing celebration of a love for flight no matter the machine used to accomplish it.
Before the Red Devils, before the Eagles Aerobatic Team... a young Charlie Hillard
I was fortunate as a young kid to experience Reno from 1967 thru 1970, and much of what is seen at the Sky Ranch in this video reminds me of the early years at Stead Airfield. It's interesting to note several things about the Stead name as it relates to these early Reno years. Bill Stead, a late 1950's world speed boat champion, pulled the first two events together after retiring from boats and moving on to racing airplanes. The location for these first two years was the Sky Ranch, but the airport was barely up to the task of handling the larger aircraft. Tragically, Bill Stead was killed a short time later in 1966 in a Florida crash of his midget racer in preparation for the St Petersburg races. The airplane was the newly acquired Deer Fly racer that had been the winner in the 1965 races at Sky ranch, as seen in the video.
A fascinating look at the early days of the modern hot air balloon movement
For 1966, the National Air Races moved from Sky Ranch to what had been Stead Air Force base, named in honor of Bill Stead's brother Croston Stead who had been killed in a P-51 training accident at the base in 1951. When the base was deactivated in 1966 and turned over to the city of Reno, it was renamed Stead Airfield. Today it's known as Reno Stead Airport. The excellent facilities of Reno Stead have served the races well for nearly all of the 50 year history of the modern National Championship Air Races, known simply as the Reno Air Races... and the memory of two Reno brothers lives on.
Mira Slovak trying to win again, but Darryl Greenamyer started his win streak instead
This is definitely a must see video if you're interested in sport aviation history!
The Thunderbirds after replacing the short run F-105's with the F-100D Super Sabre
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Monday, June 16, 2014 at 07:26AM
Once in a while a perfect mix of airplanes, pilots and filmaking all come together to achieve as close to perfection as we'll ever get. This video from the MikeL vimeo page is a pixelworkers production that pushes avgeek videos to the highest level. I'm not usually a fan of music mixed with airplanes in videos, but here it's done to great benefit. And the communication value of the details in this video are off the scale. #perfection
Video screenshot: Kyle Franklin being chased by Skip Stewart!
You might have noticed that MikeL is also where the recent video of Skip flying UNDER a jumping motorcycle came from. This video work is simply as good as it gets. And high-fives to Skip Stewart and Kyle Franklin for being world-class airshow entertainers!
Video screenshot: perfect view of Skip Stewart and Kyle Franklin in formation
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Wednesday, June 11, 2014 at 06:14AM The alternate view video below is from Cody Elkins' Instagram page - YeeHaw! It's always great to see two highly trained professionals put on a perfect performance - Bravo!
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Friday, May 23, 2014 at 12:19PM
Texas native Kirby Chambliss gets some promotional love from the Texas Police as they help us all remember that the Red Bull Air Race will be at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth on September 6-7, 2014.
Kirby Chambliss flying under a Texas highway overpass!
Three of the eight 2014 races are now done after last weekend's event in Malaysia which saw UK pilot Nigel Lamb come out on top, Hannes Arch from Austria took second and Australia's Matt Hall came in third. This leaves Hannes Arch at the top of the list in the overall rankings so far this season. Watch the video below for a great recap of the Malaysia event.
There's a break in the action now until July 26-27 when the racing picks up again in Poland. Two races will take place in the USA, the Fort Worth event on September 6-7 and then in Las Vegas on October 11-12. Get the full schedule and loads more info at RedBullAirRace.com.
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Tuesday, May 13, 2014 at 08:56AM
I listened to Sean Tucker talk at an event in the Theater in the Woods at Oshkosh last year and I went from being a guy impressed with Sean's flying to being a guy impressed with Sean as a person.
This short but extremely well done video on vimeo shows why you should be impressed with his flying... and if you haven't already, hopefully you'll get to hear him talk or even have a chat with him yourself someday to see what an interesting man he really is.
And he gets extra points from me since his extreme machine has two wings. Enjoy!
Sean Tucker pushing it hard and lovin' every minute of it
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Sunday, May 11, 2014 at 10:03AM 
(click pic for hi-res) Pensacola Beach airshow pic from 2012 #awesome
The Blue Angels mega-post comes to an end today, but I hope it has served to drive you to their airshow schedule to see when and where you can experience them live and in person. I see several dates that will potentially work for me this summer and look forward to it!
You might remember that when the Navy released the image above from the 2012 Pensacola Beach airshow, it was flipped over with the world upside-down, which is the way it was captured... and while that was very impressive to view, I had a feeling that it might be more powerful when flipped over with the world right-side-up. So I flipped it over in photoshop and it came alive for me. Then I decided to see if I was just a weirdo or if more of you agreed with me. The poll I put up showed over 70% agreed that it was a more powerful image when flipped over as seen above, so that's how I made it available as a desktop pic. Here it is again in four popular desktop sizes in case you didn't snag it before:
Pensacola Beach 2012 Blue Angels inverted pass:
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Here's a very nice compilation video from a few years back that shows the Blue Angels in some truly beautiful views. It can be watched in HD and it has a non-offensive soundtrack... go full screen and enjoy!
This excellent video from the KPIX (San Francisco) Evening Magazine is from back in 1985 and gives some background into the Blue Angels A4 Skyhawk training camp. It's fascinating to hear Blue Angels pilot Mike Gershon say that after his year with the team as narrator he assumed he understood the level of effort required to be one of the guys inside the cockpit... yet he realized when he made that transition to the cockpit that he had no idea of the physical and mental effort required to put a show on. Imagine how unaware you and I are.
It's important to note that shortly after this program was recorded, Mike Gershon was killed when he and the other solo A4 flown by Andy Caputi collided at the crossover on the top of a loop. Andy Caputi ejected safely but Mike lost his life in the accident. You can learn more in a very respectful follow up video here.
The risks are real for the Blue Angels, but then life is full of risk at every turn for each and every one of us. The challenge for us all is to seek wisdom and knowledge, making the best decisions we can in every situation. The Blue Angels serve as one of the greatest examples of this way of life.
If you think about it, the extreme skill displayed by the Blue Angels is meant to represent a willingness and capability in defending the United States of America... and ultimately, the USA is only defended when men and women join the military (any branch) and prepare to fight if needed. So when you see the Blue Angels (or the USAF Thunderbirds) please remember that Americans (you and me) owe a lot to all the people willing to fight for this nation.
This last video is from the Blue Angels era before the A4 Skyhawk. It's an old Super 8mm film shot in 1970 of the Blues in F-4 Phantom's at Suffolk County AFB in Long Island New York. There's an honest nostalgia in it that makes a guy like me, who lived as a kid thru that time frame, ache with a desire for the good ole days. But even if you weren't alive back then, I'm guessing you'll have no trouble agreeing with me that the F-4's look fantastic in that great paint.
An alternate way to experience the video above is to first mute the audio (simply click the speaker icon next to the start button)... then click this link which will open a new tab and start an audio-only video... then come back to this tab and hit the play button as soon as you can. It's a beautiful experience.
Thank you Blue Angels... past, present, and future.
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