Monday, November 11, 2013 at 07:31AM
This video found on youtube does a good job of saying what I'd like to say:
To those who have served the United States, Thank You.
(click for hi-res)
American power and freedom brought to us by the men and women who serve in all branches of the military of the United States of America.
Friday, October 18, 2013 at 07:46AM
Disclaimer: if you only want to see some great retro Blue Angels footage without a little political commentary, please just click play above and enjoy. More robust individuals can continue to the words that follow : )
The video above does a great job of showcasing the Blue Angels from back in the mid 80's when they were not far from the end of the A-4 Skyhawk era. Seeing the A-4 again reminds me of how much I liked that airplane as an airshow performer. Looking past the Skyhawk, it's hard to believe that they've been flying the F/A-18 since 1986! That's 27 years with the Hornet, and it still looks like a perfect aircraft after all these years... well, it would if you'd have had the chance to see it this year. Only the first two shows of the 2013 season were performed, the remaining 33 shows were cancelled as part of the sequestration.
Video screenshot of a tight 19080's Blue Angels formation in the A-4 Skyhawk
Don't get me wrong here, I'm all for the idea of reducing government spending, in fact I feel that the sequestration cuts didn't even begin to go far enough (see the U.S. debt clock), but the way the government chose to deal with the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds seems like a spiteful act against the heart of America rather than a smart spending cut. According to the wiki entry, the budget for the Blues is about $37 million. However, there's no way we saved $37 million by cancelling essentially the entire season... the entire Blues infrastructure is still in place and being maintained, so the actual savings was much smaller. But the real issues here is about how much it cost in terms of lost revenue by metropolitan areas all around the country. The cancelled performances led to most of the events they were to headline being cancelled as well. The financial impact to Americans (which IS America) certainly had to exceed the amount 'saved'. This leads me to the question of what the motivation really was from those supposedly leading the country.
It's here that I've come to the complete conclusion that the U.S. government is not interested in what's good for the people of the United States, but rather what's good for the people running the government. To some of you that's crazy talk. To me it's plain and simple fact. The events of the last several weeks only prove it more.
The mission of the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds isn't to give Americans something fun to do on a weekend, it's to promote the U.S. armed forces for the purpose of bolstering American pride and encouraging young people to consider a career in service to their country. The value to the nation right there vastly exceeds the Blues $37 million budget.
Given the views of the man who sits in the Oval Office, I guess there's no surprise that he would consider it a success to keep the Blues from being able to do their job.
Lastly, LCDR Mike Gershon, who was was featured in the video above as solo pilot in the #6 aircraft, was killed in a Blue Angels airshow accident not long after the video was made. A follow up video about Mike and the accident can be seen here. It does a great job of showing Mike's history and his strong wife, who lost her husband when their son was just over a month old. Both videos were produced for Evening Magazine broadcast on KPIX in San Francisco. The video about the accident, and the way it portrays Mike's family is extremely well done, especially when compared to today's style of sensational 'victim' exploitation.
The slippery slope gets ever steeper.
Thursday, September 26, 2013 at 09:57PM
This 4 minute 11 second video gives you just a small slice of what took place at Oshkosh 2013, and yet the avgeekery seen in this just-released FlyWithEAA video is crazy huge. Try to imagine the other 95% that you aren't seeing here. Oshkosh is simply incredible.
If you've been making excuses of why you shouldn't or can't be there, stop it. Stop it now. It's time to get serious about OSH14. You've got 10 months to get your plans in place, which translates to: there are no excuses. Rich or poor, near or far, there's always a way to make this trip work out if the desire is truly there. If you need help or have questions, send me an email. I'm here to help any way I can.
See you in Oshkosh... the World's Greatest Aviation Event!
(check out AirPigz OSH13 posts)
Video screenshot: one of about a million awesome Oshkosh 2013 moments!
Thursday, September 19, 2013 at 12:12PM 
(click pic for hi-res) Dennis Buehn and pylon 2 on the last lap of his T-6 Gold Race win
Way back in the late 60's my dad took me to the Reno Air Races (1967 thru 1970) when I was just a wee lad (born in 1961) and I still have memories of watching the Formula One racers, the Biplanes and the Unlimiteds... but when the T-6's raced in those days I mostly just thought hmmm, those guys are sure noisy and don't really go very fast! Well, now that I'm a lot older and a little wiser, I have more respect for the T-6's and their race efforts.
I'll still have to admit that I don't pay close attention to the details of the T-6 Class, but that's mostly because there's only so much me to go around. I really don't do a very good job of following the details of the other classes either. There's so many racers and six different classes these days, it's easy to just pay attention to the biggest news. Anyway, the big news last Sunday in the T-6 Class was that Midnight Miss III and Dennis Buehn won the Gold. Given that this T-6 has placed first, second, or third in each year since 2009, I guess maybe 'big news' isn't exactly the right term, but I'm sure the victory was great news for the whole team! Congratulations!
This CoolPix from the Gold Race on Sunday turned out pretty nice, tho I have so much room for improvement. I'd like to see a sharper image and a slower shutter speed for more prop blur. Those words are so easy to say but getting that done is sure a lot of work. However, the images I captured this year are a vast improvement over the last two years, so I feel pretty good overall. Getting the pylon in the picture adds to the image too, and that was my desire with where I chose to stand.
I hope you enjoy the pylon view of the 2013 T-6 Class winner, Midnight Miss III.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 10:38PM 
(click pic for hi-res) Rick Vandam and R2-D2 racing in the Gold Jet race on Sunday
Normally I should show you some of the great pix I captured of Pete Zaccagnino in the L-29 'Just Lucky' winning the Gold Jet Class race on last Sunday at Reno, and I will before long, but my goal for this race was to fetch up some good images of R2-D2 in the back seat with Rick Vandam in the L-39 'American Spirit'. Well, I think these two CoolPix here show I did a pretty good job! Plus, since I just drove 2,100 miles back from Reno (at a rather leisurely 47 hours total elapsed time compared to the 35 hours going west), I figure I can show you whatever pix I want!
(Jet Class Gold race results from Sunday)
Rick Vandam and R2-D2 are going a tad over 500mph in this pic and at somewhere around 100 feet off the ground! Wow, it's amazing stuff to see from this close to be sure. I was out at pylon 2 for the Sunday afternoon races which included the Gold race for the T-6 Class, the Sport Class, the Jets, and the Unlimiteds. Even better, I was using a demo camera and lens from Nikon who is both a sponsor of Reno and provides a support-team from Nikon Professional Services during the event, just like they do at Oshkosh these days. They take care of Nikon shooters thru the week as well as attempt to convert others... I'm one of the 'others' but after using a Nikon D7100 with an 80-400 zoom lens, I'm quickly re-thinking my camera equipment future. Thanx Nikon for the excellent gear to be able to get pix like these two and the one of Steven Hinton winning Gold Unlimited in Voodoo.
(click pic for hi-res) Cropped in on the same pix for a closer look at Rick and R2-D2!
I've got loads more Reno 2013 pix to share once I recover from white-line-fever, but I'll say right now that the 50th anniversary of the National Championship Air Races at Reno Stead Airport were safe, exciting, and fantastic... can't wait til next year!
CoolPix, Crazy Stuff, MustSee, Racing, Reno, military Email Article Saturday, August 10, 2013 at 10:32PM
We didn't get a video from 'Slick' for OSH12 with his involvement in the U.S. Navy, but this year he was able to get behind the camera at OSH13 and capture more awesome avgeek beauty from the world's greatest aviation event!
Well done Slick, you've definitely still got it : )
Check out the OSH10 video and the OSH11 video from Slick
Screenshot from Slick's fabulous video of Oshkosh 2013
Friday, August 2, 2013 at 09:58AM 
(click pic to enlarge) North American FJ-4B in the beautiful morning sun
Getting up early and heading out about 5am to get sunrise pictures of fabulous airplanes is one of the most satisfying things to do at Oshkosh. My first Dawn Patrol experience at OSH13 was yesterday morning with three other CampBacon avgeeks. It was the Warbird area that we wondered thru looking for just the right combination of aircraft and rising sun. The warm glow of the sun and sometimes stunning cloud formations can sure produce some wonderful images. And if things go well with weather, and my desire to get up early, then I'm hoping to join a Dawn Patrol tomorrow morning thru the antiques!
(click pic to enlarge) A little different view of the FJ-4B - great clouds above!
(click pix to enlarge) Fabulous Curtiss P-40 Warhawk in the morning sun
(click pic to enlarge) A line of T-28's as the sun gets another day at OSH13 under way
more pix coming soon!
Wednesday, July 31, 2013 at 10:43AM 
(click pic for hi-res) Fascinating contrast of the Sea Harrier and Lockheed Electra
You'll notice that my OSH13 coverage this year is scaled back from previous years... 18 hour days for a week straight just doesn't fit my life at the moment. So I'm sharing thinner slices of the activities taking place at the world's greatest aviation event, but hopefully they are still quite compelling. Today I've got three hi-res CoolPix images that come from the airshow on Tuesday.
The contrast of the Sea Harrier in hover with the classic lines of the Lockheed Electra creates an amazing look at the diversity of aviation over the ages. Then I've got Sean Tucker making a ribbon cut pass as well as Skip Stewart doing knife-edge on takeoff. Biplanes are awesome and these two examples are two of the most incredible double wingers ever built! Be sure to click the px to see them fill your screen, and enjoy : )
(click pic for hi-res) Sean Tucker on a triple ribbon cut (I wanna be that guy on the right!)
(click pic for hi-res) Skip Stewart looking down the runway on his knife edge takeoff!
more pix coming soon!
Sunday, July 21, 2013 at 10:13PM 
Check out my June 2011 post on this amazing B-52 story! (with video)
It's true, I'm feeling a lot like this B-52 from 1964... I've got some problems (kinda big ones) but I'm gonna make it! I won't go into details about my issues at the moment, but as they have for the last 4 years, they center around money. I'm about 6 months away from surviving the financial collapse of 2008 (it's been a long, slow, and painful recovery) and as they say, it's often darkest just before the dawn. It's pretty dark right now.
So as I set my sights on getting thru the next few weeks (and Oshkosh) with not enough of everything, I'd like to ask for your patience as I try to keep up with AirPigz posting in general as well as putting up another post with some really nice aviation books to sell. If you're in a position to buy a book to help me thru this tough time, please do. It would be very much appreciated. The books are all in great shape and they're from the collection my dad had. They are special to me, but the current need is great, so they must go.
And of course a big thank you goes out to those who bought about 10 books a couple weeks back! There's still some books in that post available, plus, my rather rare, like-new copy of the book Sled Driver (SR-71) is still available for someone looking for a great collector piece. A new post with more books will be up in a day or so.
I'm confident that I'll survive this current income crisis, just like that B-52 survived... seriously, it really did! Check out the amazing story and video of how that B-52 made it back home with that much of the vertical tail missing. I find the story to be very encouraging : )
Wednesday, July 10, 2013 at 09:32PM
On May 14, 2013 the unmanned Northrop Grumman X-47B made its first ever launch from an aircraft carrier... and today, less than two months later, the pilotless test aircraft has made its first carrier landing! The Northrop Grumman video above is the best one to really experience the excitement of the event, and the two below from the US Navy give some additional views well worth seeing.
A huge congratulations go out to all of the many people involved in making this remarkable achievement so impressively successful!
Screenshot of the first ever unmanned carrier touchdown! Bravo X-47B team!
