From The Co-Pilot Seat
The takeoff in a 1928 Ford Tri-Motor passenger airplane. Yesterday leaving the Palm Springs Air Museum. This is one of the very first passenger aircraft. Three engines and ten passengers. Cruising speed of 107mph and a range of 570 miles. A must see, it will be available at the Air Museum through this Sunday (March 19th) and available for rides all day each day.
Hawker Sea Fury
The Hawker Sea Fury heading out at the Palm Springs Air Museum yesterday to do a flight demonstration. This plane is fast and powerful! Top speed is 460mph and has a range of 700 miles. It was armed with 20mm cannons and could carry bombs or rockets. The pilot told me yesterday that he flew in at approximately 15,000 feet and a speed of 295 knots (340mph) for pretty much his entire flight from Ione California.
Pipes And Sea Fury
The Palm Springs Pipe Band for the Annual Canadian Military Tribute at the Palm Springs Air Museum. The aircraft is a Hawker Sea Fury. Outstanding! Turn your sound on!
Mustang And Zero
Not something you see everyday for sure! The P-51 Mustang “Bunny” and a Japanese Zero starting up and headed out for the El Centro Air Show. Leaving the Palm Springs Air Museum where “Bunny” calls home, dedicated to Tuskegee Airmen Lt. Col. Bob Friend.
EVF At JTNP
No that is not some term used when astronauts maneuver in outer space. I am talking about the electronic viewfinder on the Fujifilm X-T2 camera I used yesterday in Joshua Tree National Park. However through the viewfinder on this camera, outer space would look incredible!
As a photographer, viewfinders have always been one of my very big important factors I consider in cameras. I really do not like looking on the back of screens, you can’t see them in bright sun anyway. I do not like sub-frame tiny viewfinders. And I have not been enthusiastic about electronic viewfinders. Although I have two Fujifilm X-T1’s and an X30.
Well the viewfinder on this X-T2 just blows me away every time I look through it. Big and bright, color and contrast are breathtaking. There is no blackout or lag at all when you are shooting even in high speed at 11 frames per second. So for that alone, I am very sold on this Fujifilm X Series camera. Most important however is the image quality which is also just incredible. Thank You Fujifilm! In my personal “viewfinder” this is a really important camera.
MiG Trainer Starting Up
MIG L-29 Flug – Warsaw Pack Soviet era trainer starting up to head out and do a flight demonstration at the Palm Springs Air Museum yesterday. Turn your sound up!
MiG Invades Palm Springs
Yesterday, Friday, a day unlike any other! Because an airplane arrived that you really do not get to see, let alone see it fly. It is a MiG Flug L29, a Soviet era jet trainer that will be very spectacular to see fly today, Saturday, right after the 1:00 PM program. And the program is not to be missed…
The guys who flew the missions in the F-100 Super Sabre, the supersonic jet fighter aircraft that served with the United States Air Force from 1954 to 1971. Pilots Al Dempsey and Bob Lilac at 1:00 PM today. These men made history and have the tales to tell! Be there!
Fujifilm Flying A+
Testing out a Fujifilm X-T2 camera this week. I own Fujifilm X-T1’s along with my Hasselblad and Canon cameras. Each with their own purpose for my shooting. More often than not on a daily basis, you will see me with one of my Fujifilm cameras on hand for most uses.
The X-T2 is the latest version and with only a couple of days with it so far, I am truly impressed with the improvements. The camera loaned to me has the power booster which makes for three of the camera batteries for all day power and boosts the speed up to 11 frames per second. A much bigger viewfinder that keeps up with fast shooting for those fast movers and much faster focus tracking. I won’t go into it too much but I am seriously impressed. There are numerous other technical refinements from the prior version that someone like me who uses a camera all the time under all kinds of circumstances really appreciates.
The final results however are the photographs. This is a tight crop of a Gulfstream jet landing in Palm Springs on a flight from Portland Oregon. For you photographers, this is actually from a jpg shot in Velvia film emulation mode. No retouching etc. My opinion… WOW! Thanks Fujifilm!
MiG Lift
Perfect timing to lift a MiG-15 to it’s display location at the new hangar at the Palm Springs Air Museum. Well maybe not perfect timing because it turned into one of the very few days it rains here in Palm Springs. But neither crane nor rain stood in the way of progress! Certainly not the thing you see everyday. By the way, if you are asking, a MiG-15 without fuel weighs 8,000 pounds.
Taking Off In Bunny
Taking off in the P-51 Mustang “Bunny” from the Palm Springs Air Museum. On the way to do flyovers in honor of Tuskegee Airmen Lt. Col. Bob Friend, special guest in the President’s Day Parade at the Riverside County Fair in Indio California. Pilot Tom Nightingale. Always something going on at the Palm Springs Air Museum! More photos and video coming this way shortly!
Do Stripes Make Me Look Fat?
So what do you think he would be saying here…
“Do stripes makes me look fat?”
“Do you always have to be doing that?
“Is this art?”
Last night at the opening of Art Palm Springs 2017 for Modernism Week. Pablo Picasso by Jamie Salmon. The Anthony Brunelli Fine Arts Booth at the Palm Springs Convention Center.
More P-38 Fun
Starting up and rolling out, a P-38 Lightning fighter plane from World War II. One of perhaps fewer than six still flying in the entire world. You can see from my video that the Palm Springs Air Museum visitors get an up close experience like none other. Not as close as I am, but right there to get their hats blown off their heads and get a good whiff of the spray of motor oil. How fun is that!
Remember Where You Parked
Monday I went on a photo excursion around Palm Springs for weather related photographs. This is usually a dry river bed in the Araby Cove neighborhood. The rains have made an actual rushing river out of it and cutting off one of only two roads in and out of the area. And you wonder why it is needed to actually post “Road Closed” signs and barriers. I guess someone did’t get the memo.
So Much To See
A three day trip planned around specific places that were on my must see list. The Amargosa Opera House at Death Valley Junction. The created home and stage of ballet dancer, Marta Becket. Now 92 years old and once upon a time, her only audience was that which she herself painted upon the walls. Today also a hotel and cafe, an experience I wanted to see first hand and will now never forget. I will go back yet again.
Winter Light
The Winter skies over Palm Springs revealed wonderful contrasts of light yesterday. It was made for photography.
My Selfie
I haven’t shot a selfie since I was in Budapest. This time at the March Air Field Museum. Think I look good?
I Was Just Standing There
I was just standing there, taking this nice photograph of this little mountain when this airplane got right in my way! I have identified it as a C-17 Globemaster III departing March Air Reserve Base. Think I should complain?
Low Clouds
So many of you have been photographed in the pool in my backyard and seen nothing but bright hot sunny blue skies. Today is a very unusual day of rain and look how low the clouds are against the nearby mountains. I have friends over there who are probably completely fogged in. Very fun! Here in Palm Springs.
Shoes and Atomic Bombs
Shoe shopping in Rice California along Hwy 62. Rice was formerly named Blythe Junction. Now a ghost town, it was the home of Rice Army Airfield. It was the 2nd choice for the world’s first atomic bomb test in 1942. This is the somewhat famous Rice Shoe Tree. On a photo excursion and location scouting yesterday.
Wouldn’t you like to know who and why? I would.
That Way!
Sometimes these photo excursions and location scoutings are not much more planned than going ‘that way’. At Rice California with Arizona straight ahead.
Unseen
How often do you not see what you see? Driving along you look over and there is something over there in the distance. Driving up a road that seemingly does not take you to a destination. This is one of those. On a photo excursion and location scouting yesterday. What an amazing thing to see in the middle of nowhere.
The Metropolitan Water District Eagle Mountain Pumping Plant. Just look at that incredible building probably dating to around 1938. I do find it all fascinating.
“While water flows through much of Metropolitan’s service area powered by gravity, it takes five pumping plants along the Colorado River Aqueduct in the California Mojave Desert to ensure its final destination to Lake Mathews.
These pumping plants move water supplies from the Colorado River Aqueduct with a total lift of 1,614 feet. All pumping plants have nine pumps, and each of the nine units has a nominal rated capacity of at least 225 cubic feet per second. Each pump is driven by a vertical, three-phase, 60-cycle, 6,900-volt synchronous motor, which is totally enclosed and water-cooled. Each Intake motor develops 9,000 horsepower.” – MWD website
F-102 Restoration
The restoration crew at the Palm Springs Air Museum are nothing short of magicians. This F-102 “Delta Dagger” sat in a forest for 40 years. This entire rear section has been re-created from jigs and templates that were 3-D printed from a survey of an intact F-102. Standing next to it up close made me think two things… First, now it almost looks like it just rolled off the assembly line. Second, it is a much bigger aircraft than I had realized. Especially having seen it on a truck when it first arrived at the Museum some time back.
The Convair F-102 “Delta Dagger” was the Interceptor that served as the backbone of the United States Air Force. It entered service in 1956 and 1,000 were built, designed to intercept invading Soviet strategic bomber fleets during the Cold War. In various versions, it had a top speed of Mach 1.22 and a service ceiling of 56,000 ft. The F-102 served in Vietnam, flying fighter patrols and serving as bomber escorts, finally retiring from USAF service in 1976. There are no flying F-102s in existence today.
By the way, The first operational service of the F-102A was with the 327th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at George Air Force Base, near Victorville, right here in Southern California in April 1956. I am looking forward to seeing the completion of this F-102 and it making it’s permanent home not far from it’s beginnings. Very exciting!
Before Photo Courtesy of the Palm Springs Air Museum
Dos Palmas Preserve
The Dos Palmas 14,000 acre wildlife preserve and oasis near the Salton Sea. It has become one of my regular stops. It almost seems like these palms could come alive and be some kind of fairy tale creature wandering the landscape.
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