Warbird Information Exchange

Hello All,

Here are some of the warbirds that made an appearence at the Punta Gorda, FL airshow on March 24th. It was also my first time out with my new DSLR the Pentax K100D. I went with the Pentax b/c I can make use of my lenses from my old film PZ-10 that I haven't used in a long time. The aerial shots were taken with the 75-300, everything else with the Sigma 18-55 that I picked up with the K100.

Pete

Hice pics -- looks like a good show. One thing I've always wondered is why every show seems to be set up with the audience looking into the sun and the aircraft backlit. Seems like airport and airbase designers all went to the same college, and the profs drilled into these guys to always have the hangars etc. to the NORTH of the runways if at all possible...

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

Thanks Neal,

The Charlotte County Airport apparently started out in WW2 as an AFB. It has the standard layout of many airfields from that time of 3 runways aligned as a triangle. (Wright field where the NMUSAF is comes to mind.)

One of the runways is now a taxiway, the other 2 have been improved. The North-South runway is the one that parallels the ramp which is on the west side and that was the show line. The other runway faces NE-SW and that was in use for takeoff landing as we had a 20kt x-wind on both days.

Yes we were facing east, but theres nothing you can do about the airport layout. By 2pm or so the sun was above and behind so that improved things alot.

The photog that was sitting next to me made the same comment you did, and happened to mention that TICO apparently is very well aligned to favor the best light. Just the luck of the draw I guess.

Pete