Tuna Ride

[QuietOne]

About 2 1/2 weeks ago JC brought Sneak Attack back in after the initial run up, saying it didn't feel right. A little investigation turned up a cold cylinder. They pulled the spark plug, and coolant came out. Time for an engine swap, even though the Reno air races are just around the corner. So Mike has been helping out, and twice when JC went out to put more time on the engine he stuffed Mike in the back seat. This is a mix of pictures from 2 flights about a week apart, mashed together into a semi-coherent narrative. Mike took the ones from the first flight with an Olympus SP-550. He did all the in the air shots

Sneak Attack has been flying continuously since 1971. It's probably the highest time P-40 in the world.



Mike gets artistic.


Put the passenger in the back seat


And the pilot in the front seat. It works a lot better that way.


Then get her started and roll out!

[QuietOne]

Why they call it a tuna ride. (JC took this picture and the next one)


The Great Tuna himself. Not to be confused with the play.


Taking off. Did I mention these things move fast?


Really fast?


On their way to do rolls over Lake Lowell.

[QuietOne]

Couple shots of suburbia




And coming back. You can see the runway in these two.

[QuietOne]

Obligatory shot of plane overhead.


Coming back in.


We're helping out all this week. I've got more photos worked up. More to do. JC did a cam inspection on the Mustang today. He'll fly that out to Reno Friday, catch a ride back with another pilot, and they'll take the P-40s to Reno Saturday. All of which will give me time to finish up more pictures and post (nope, I'm not going to Reno. Maybe another year)

[QuietOne]

Oh, yeah. Mike wanted to know how he did with his pictures. Especially his artistic shot.

[mbrager]

I checked this thread again to recall if you had gone to Reno and noticed you mentioned you weren't going. What a terrible tragedy.

[QuietOne]

The people from the museum who did go are fine. We got word on the museum's facebook page around 9:30pm. Early on for what happened we got most of our details from the WIX board. There are some indications that the pilot knew something was wrong and tried to get the plane away from the stands. I'm just glad it wasn't worse than it was.

[Marko]

I really enjoy seeing these Q.O. - Intimate views of a subject we'd likely never get to see.
I think my fave is is the artistic shot! and i also really dig the last image in post 3.

[QuietOne]

Glad you like them, Marko. Hopefully Mike will get more opportunities to try his hand at aerial photography. Mike really liked the last image in post 3, too, with the way the runway is framed. He also made sure I brought out the 'left' and 'right' stenciled on the harnesses. (yeah, I still do the post production. He's still trying to master using the zoom on the camera)

[asnow]

I really enjoy seeing these Q.O. - Intimate views of a subject we'd likely never get to see.
I think my fave is is the artistic shot! and i also really dig the last image in post 3.

I echo what Marko said. Interestingly I picked the exact same two images as he did as my favourites.