Caldwell Air Show

[QuietOne]

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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...

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[QuietOne]

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

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.
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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.
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[QuietOne]

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

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

A Reed Rocket stunt plane
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Or a Corvette
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It was awfully close (and if you believe that, I have this bridge :headslap:)
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The Corvette belongs to Mark. He seems to have a thing about shiny, fast toys. :evil2:

[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.

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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.

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[QuietOne]

And around the hangar (I went back there to eat lunch. It had chairs). Looking out.

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And just outside the big door. Mike says it's part of a landing gear. He's planning on asking JC or John what it's from. I say that if it's been half buried in gravel for a while it's actually scrap metal.

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[Bambi]

that alpha jet shot is amazing!

[QuietOne]

Mark actually had some of the more decorative sky for his routine with the Alpha jet. But dang, some of the maneuvers were high up!

Next up, three Texans. Here they are rolling out.

[QuietOne]

They did a very nice demonstration of formation flying.

[QuietOne]

Some view across a couple of the runways, and one of the lights.

[QuietOne]

And they'll let anyone in the front gate - Ike and Mike. Can you tell they were having a good time?

[QuietOne]

A trio of helicopters - an Apache, a Blackhawk, and whatever it is that St. Luke's Hospital uses. There was also another one for Life Flight, but I didn't get any pictures of it.

[QuietOne]

The Marines brought along a truck with a ma deuce on top, and a recruiting booth. They also supplied the color guard for the opening ceremonies. The kids loved the truck, especially since they were allowed to climb all over it.

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And one of two Warthogs that showed up. They're Air National Guard, stationed at Gowen Field, which is part of the Boise Airport.

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[QuietOne]

It isn't an airshow without these guys. This particular person was flying a record sized flag (according to the announcer. Don't know if it's actually the case).

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And during a bit of down time while waiting for the next act to fly by I took a few shots of grass, flowers, clouds, that sort of thing.

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[mbrager]

It's a fantastic chronicle of the airshow that almost makes me feel as if I was there. Very nicely done photo-journal.
Mike

[boardroomphoto]

This airshow photos are fabulous and they look very nice.You have shared very rare pics.I love to see such amazing pics.

[Mad Aussie]

Very cool! I can only dream of going to an airshow here that would half the variety of aircraft!

[QuietOne]

Glad you like them. I'm getting down to static shots. MA, I sort of got the idea that you go back to New Zealand every few years. If that's the case, you might want to time your next visit to coincide with this:
Warbirds Over Wanaka International Airshow - New Zealand (http://www.warbirdsoverwanaka.com/)
It's a good sized show. Another site of interest:
Welcome to the NZ Warbirds Association. (http://www.nzwarbirds.org.nz/)
And Mike said there's a Spitfire site for one there that you might be interested in. I'll get the URL from him.

On to pictures. Mike likes pictures of squirrels (yeah, I know). I couldn't find any at the airshow, so I took pictures of a chipmunk instead. :angel:
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The Chipmunk is a 50s era British trainer, now often used as an acrobatic plane at airshows. Everyone's pseudoLatin is good enough to translate the motto, right?

[Mad Aussie]

Glad you like them. I'm getting down to static shots. MA, I sort of got the idea that you go back to New Zealand every few years. If that's the case, you might want to time your next visit to coincide with this:
Warbirds Over Wanaka International Airshow - New Zealand (http://www.warbirdsoverwanaka.com/)
I don't get there very often, my wife goes every few years to see her father. However, we do have 2011 or 2012 down for a possible cycling/photo trip around the south island west coast area and Wanaka is within that plan also so it just might work out at that :)

[QuietOne]

This is an L-39 Albatross (no, it's not around someone's neck :)). This is a jet trainer from Eastern Europe. It's relatively inexpensive to own and operate (by jet warbird standards). It has become very popular in the United States and there is now a class to race these at the Reno National Air Races.

[QuietOne]

This is a BT-13 Vultee Valiant. This was a WWII basic trainer. A very pleasant airplane to fly with very good flying qualities. Unfortunately, many of these were scrapped for the engines and instruments to upgrade some of the biplane trainers as crop dusters.

[JAS_Photo]

Very nice captures, QuietOne! Very colourful and interesting "birds"!

[QuietOne]

Last of the "colorful birds", as JAS says. These are pieces and parts of a couple of N3Ns. The N3N was a biplane primary trainer designed by the Naval Aircraft Factory (United States Navy). Very similar to the Stearman biplane. The primary difference is the wing structure on the Stearman is wood and the wing structure on the N3N is aluminum.

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JC got back to us about the scrap metal in front of the hangar (earlier in this thread). He said it was the nose landing gear from a B-47 Stratojet.

Last picture - yep, it's an air show. :)
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[AntZ]

Some truly wonderful shots in this thread...too many to mention. Great work.