Today was the day! In eager anticipation last night I got all of my gear ready and nervously watched the weather report. Up early this morning and car packed. Off to my friends place and then on to the airshow. The weather report wasn't looking good and as we left Altona the clouds were getting blacker and blacker as we got closer...
It started raining before we got there and continued to rain, heavily, until well after we had squelched our way from the carpark to the exhibition area. The area was packed, not just busy but packed to the eyeballs with people who were sitting in the walkways, sitting in the displays, walking around trying to maintain some semblance of calm. The message went out that the show was about to start and people gradually moved out into the rain to have a look. My feet were wet, my bag was wet, my clothes were wet and my camera stayed dry (you can read into this that I didn't get it out) and the show started. It was so muddy that I really didn't want to put my camera bag down to get the camera out. Eventually I worked it out and managed a few reasonable photos - but not a lot. This one was the sharpest I got of the military jets, I'm pretty sure it was an F16 but I will be happy to be corrected? Unfortunately in the process of panning I managed to get the tail right at the edge of the image... Oh well, let's put that down to "needs more practice"...
As the day wore on the weather did improve, it was even sunny when we left.
I've not been to an airshow with military jets before and they certainly are very, very impressive... One of the last displays I saw was the FA-18 Hornet doing a fast run at full thrust. He (why "he"? I don't know?) was going about 800 knots (that's about 900mph or 1440kmh) down the runway and then did a ninety degree turn within about 100 metres. I cannot describe it in any other way than it looked like he did a powerslide and then took off... 36000 pounds of thrust allows you to do some amazing stuff.
The B1 bomber was sheer awesomeness (I may have made that word up?) and shook up your innards every time it went past...
It started raining before we got there and continued to rain, heavily, until well after we had squelched our way from the carpark to the exhibition area. The area was packed, not just busy but packed to the eyeballs with people who were sitting in the walkways, sitting in the displays, walking around trying to maintain some semblance of calm. The message went out that the show was about to start and people gradually moved out into the rain to have a look. My feet were wet, my bag was wet, my clothes were wet and my camera stayed dry (you can read into this that I didn't get it out) and the show started. It was so muddy that I really didn't want to put my camera bag down to get the camera out. Eventually I worked it out and managed a few reasonable photos - but not a lot. This one was the sharpest I got of the military jets, I'm pretty sure it was an F16 but I will be happy to be corrected? Unfortunately in the process of panning I managed to get the tail right at the edge of the image... Oh well, let's put that down to "needs more practice"...
As the day wore on the weather did improve, it was even sunny when we left.
I've not been to an airshow with military jets before and they certainly are very, very impressive... One of the last displays I saw was the FA-18 Hornet doing a fast run at full thrust. He (why "he"? I don't know?) was going about 800 knots (that's about 900mph or 1440kmh) down the runway and then did a ninety degree turn within about 100 metres. I cannot describe it in any other way than it looked like he did a powerslide and then took off... 36000 pounds of thrust allows you to do some amazing stuff.
The B1 bomber was sheer awesomeness (I may have made that word up?) and shook up your innards every time it went past...
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