Back at it...

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Well, what a crazy three weeks we've had over here in the Seattle area! Three weeks ago we hit 82 degrees on Saturday, the following week we had 6 inches of snow for the latest snow fall in western washington state history, and just a couple of days ago it was back up to 70 degrees. Craziness!

This last Saturday was really nice as there was a small airshow/BBQ at a local airport. In fact it's the airport I go flying out of regularly. The airshow consisted of my aerobatic instructor giving a 20 minute display in his airplane, followed by two friends of ours doing a sort of "tag team" display for a good 30 minutes.

Here is a photograph of my instructor taxiing out to the runway prior to his performance. As you can tell by the glider being towed aloft, it was a very busy day on Saturday!

The green and white Bellanca Decathlon is a great little aerobatic trainer and is capable of outside or negative-G maneuvers as it has an inverted fuel and oil system. This allows the aircraft to fly upside down for up to 2 minutes at a time. The aircraft is capable of positive 6 G's and negative 5 G's.

Here is my instructor taxiing back to the crowd after his performance. It was really amazing to sit and watch him fly this aircraft knowing that I practice all of the same maneuvers he was performing in front of the crowd in that exact same airplane. It really sunk in then that I was really living my dream! My friends are airshow performers, and I'm training to become one in a few years! It also sunk in that there truly is no greater sport than that of competition aerobatics.

This is the instrument panel to a Zlin 50 which is an unlimited aerobatic aircraft. It is capable of +9 and -6 G's.

Terry (owner and pilot of the airplane in the previous picture) and John shown above put on a really nice tag-team display. One person would fly an entire aerobatic sequence while the other rested, then they would take turns. The high-intensity aerobatic flying these guys were doing is extremely draining and after they landed they were pretty tired. This type of flying requires a lot of patience as you really need to build up your resistance to the maneuvers.

In fact you can see the sequence card for the first series of maneuvers on the front of the instrument panel. Aerobatics even has its own language! It's called Aresti Aerobatic Notation and is a rather complicated of symbols to easily draw out aerobatic maneuvers.

Here is a photograph of John taxiing this beautiful little Czech airplane after their show.

Lighting conditions were less than favorable while the pilots were performing as the sun was almost directly in front of me, as you may notice in this photograph. It also didn't help matters that I forgot to re-adjust my camera settings after some shots of the interior of another airplane. lol Oh well, I needed this event to practice! I haven't picked up my camera in about 2 months! Ooouuuuccchhh!!

I also recently attended judging school from the International Aeobatic Club and this was the first time I was able to put my newly acquired judging skills to the test as I graded each pilots performances. Just another fun way to enjoy the sport!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the photographs!

 

[MarkEvan]

Nice shots boss........but then i`ve come to expect that from you now.



Mark

 

[~Mrs. A2J~]

I always love your airplane photos

 

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Thank you, everyone, I'm really glad you like the pictures. Once school (work) is done for summer I'll have a lot more time to get out and keep taking more pictures. My goal is to expand my horizons to different, smaller airports. I also have several different events I'll be attending as both a participant and photographer.