USAF F-16 West Coast Demo Team salutes the crowd before takeoff
Captain Russ T. Piggott is the Commander and Demonstration Pilot
A special thank you to all of the uniformed men & women for their service to our country
F-16 taxis out in front of the crowd at Rocky Mountain Airport
Very fast/quick rotation provide serious pitch angle right after takeoff!!!
F-16 Viper going vertical on afterburners
Condensation is due to high angle of attack - this is even more impressive given Colorado's very low humidity
A high-G turn to the left with the burners lit
More Turnin' and Burnin'
Captain Piggott kept the burners lit for a good part of the show - yea!
I had noticed the overhead crescent moon earlier and hoped this shot might happen
The F-16 was wayyyy up there (0.16 & 0.32 seconds later) - next time a little lower please Captain Piggott! ;-)
USN F-18 Super Hornet West Coast Demo Team on takeoff
Passing over the Rocky Mountain Airport in front of the crowd
Backseater hanging out - just another day at the office! ;-)
F-18 Super Hornet going vertical
Pulling a hard right turn
Note only the left burner is lit plus right nozzle hasn't opened up. My brother (a former F-15 pilot) says sometimes they both don't light at the same time, although this persisted for several seconds which he said is a bit unusual.
3 seconds later - at least one stage of the right burner has lit & nozzle is starting to open
Taxiing in front of the crowd after landing
A great show - thanks WAPO & FLAMER
Lee Launderback's WWII P-51 takes off
Gear was coming up as prop spin captured by intentional slow shutter speed
Lee landing back at Rocky Mountain Airport after flyby with the F-16
I had filled my camera's memory card, so didn't get any pictures of that - D'OH!
US National Acrobatic Champion Patty Wagstaff taxis out
Which way is up?!? ;-)
I had switched to slow shutter speed and snapped this too early - D'OH!
Yaw'ing to the right - note rudder position
And then switch feet to yaw to the left
Patty's hair has a bit of yaw also
Patty lands and taxis by the crowd
And even gives 'em a wave as she passes in front of the F-16 Viper
We had arrived as the B-25 did its last flyover
Which then landed with the Colorado foothills in the background
Martha Jean passes in front of the crowd
B-17 fires up her rotary engines
Closeup of Sentimental Journey
Denver skyline behind the B-17
Zooming in with the 100-400 telephoto
The B-17 was actually back-taxiing on the main runway here
B-17's nickname was the Flying Fortress
When taking off, the B-17 just "floats" off the runway
I missed an earlier flying demo by Roy Halladay's T-33
My friend Dave and his son Jeffrey in front of the CU Buff Plane
Nice looking flight crew goes with that plane!
Full Moon rising over Rocky Mountain Airport Control Tower
There were quite a bit of clouds early in the evening, but it finally cleared up a bit on the horizon ... although still quite hazy. Then the wind picked up, so even after moving the car and positioning the tripod right next to it (with the door/window open so it was "tucked in") as a wind-break, there was still a ton of wind-inducted motion, even with the lens hood removed - image was bouncing all over the place using Live-View at x5/x10
I had staked out a spot based on the Photographer's Ephemeris which was dead on with the compass heading of the moonrise. But the vertical angle wasn't good for the Rocky Mountain Airport control tower ... so I moved to a lower position slightly to the South that was lined up with some remote water towers. I figured since the shooting conditions were so poor, I might as well get "that" and then consider a composite shot. And in hindsight, shooting the night before would have been even better as the sun would not have set yet and light would have been nicer on the landscape.
So I'm watching the horizon for the 7:56 moonrise ... and literally didn't even seen the moon until it had almost cleared the horizon - it was that hazy. I had originally planned to shoot at F/8, 1/500s, ISO200 using the "Moony F-11 rule" plus some test shots a previous night ... but that wasn't even close. Because of all the wind, I just gave up trying to get a sharp shot of the moon with a higher shutter speed, so ended up using F/5.6, 1/20s, ISO400.
The moon disappeared into gathering clouds about 15 minutes after coming up and as I drove off, quite a bit of lightning lit up the sky to the East. At 9:30PM that night, we were driving Eastbound from Boulder and pulled over at the Legion Hill lookout to watch the spectacular lightning (bolts and sheets through the clouds) over Denver.
Here's an example of the wind-based motion. Sure, I would have shot at higher shutter speed, but then would have been really noisy due to high ISO ... and man, was that moon dim on the horizon.
Composite image of the Full Moon rising over the Rocky Mountain Airport Control Tower
Yes, the moon really does look that big when you are shooting with an effective focal length of 1,120mm! ;-)
NOTE: The KBJC Control tower is about 7,000 feet away and the two water towers are about 40,000 feet away.
In order to get similar relative size, you need to know the ratio of the Moon's distance to its diameter ... which is pretty close to 100-1. Incidentally, the ratio of the Sun's distance/diameter is also about a 100-1 ... which is why a Solar eclipse "fits" just right. So running a 294.1° radial from the Control Tower, there was a spot where I could park 7,000 feet away (reachable with the car) so 70' at the Control Tower would be about the same "size" as the moon. Fortunately, that spot had an unobstructed view, but the vertical angle was a bit too high - and then it was very windy/hazy - math can't do it all for you! ;-)
Another "real world challenge" was that my primary idea was to try shooting the NREL windmills and I had a cool spot picked out party way up Fowler Road from Eldorado Canyon - the windmills are HUGE (but I had the right distance ratio) and probably would have been right on the horizon. But halfway up that road, there was a locked gate ... and I didn't want to hike with all my camera gear a mile up the road - D'OH! ;-)