Caldwell Air Show

[QuietOne]

So we went to this air show last Saturday (can you tell? ). There were airplanes. Mike says he's been to a lot of these, and this one was very well run.

The plane is a Pitts Special S-1T. It's an aerobatic biplane; owner/pilot is Bob Finer.

[QuietOne]

Bob also went for a personal record - total number of inverted spins. He managed about 31 turns. Makes you want to do the technicolor yawn just thinking about it...

[QuietOne]

The Warhawk's P-40E and P-40N were both there. Here they are rolling out for their show.

[QuietOne]

Not all of the planes were pretty. This is an Antonov AN-2. It's a Russian general utility aircraft, along the lines of the Lysander. This example has been sitting for a while. The owner said the plane was currently out of annual.

[QuietOne]

The P-40s in the air. I had mixed luck getting shots of anything in flight. You could snap a pic, turn a couple of degrees, and you were shooting into an entirely different sky. Even after editing, some were hopeless, some were okay, a few were good. In the second photo, the planes are actually a little blurry. But I liked the clouds too much to let it go. I've got more photos basically edited, I'll add more over the next couple of days.

[Bambi]

very nice series. I can see how difficult that could be. the spin shot is amazing.

[QuietOne]

Thanks, Bambi. The fun part with stunt planes like this is getting the smoke without the screaming white spots.

Next up: Diamondback was there and was supposed to fly.


But her canopy cable broke, so Mark ran home and got Hell-er Bust, another Mustang. First I (and most of the audience) knew about it was when he came screaming down the runway and went into a stunt routine. The officials knew, of course.

[QuietOne]

Mark also flew this fast little number - an Alpha jet.

[QuietOne]

Later in the day there was a race to see which was faster:

A Reed Rocket stunt plane


Or a Corvette


It was awfully close (and if you believe that, I have this bridge )


The Corvette belongs to Mark. He seems to have a thing about shiny, fast toys.

[QuietOne]

A few random bits. As is usual for an air show, there was a small area for showing off cars. They're close together, so getting a shot of an entire car really isn't easy to do, unless it's one of the end ones. So you go for bits and pieces instead. There's always a nice hood ornament or two.



And I can't imagine this was comfortable. It's the back seat of an Austin Healey. The front driver and passenger seats were wicker, too.