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Hi folks - The Alliance Airshow in Ft. Worth (Oct. 24-25) will, for the first time in its two decade history, sell access to pre-gate opening ramp tours and a photopit during display flying. You can check their website for description and pricing. By posting this, I am in no way attacking the airshow or berating them for doing this - I simply want to inform those of you who have not been to Alliance before and who may be thinking of taking advantage of this offer, what you may expect.
Photo access is being sold for 2 hours before the gates open, from 7:00am to 9:00am - escorted access, on Saturday and Sunday. At this time of year, you will not see any sun on the ramp before 8:30am. From the description on the web site, it sounds as if a guide or two will take those who sign up around as a group - you will not be free to roam.
The photopit is an area on the centerline of the show, at the front of the crowd line. They are offering some amenities which will help out on a long day. Tere are areas on the crowd line to the north and south of the chalets that will get you just as close to the flying, if not right at centerline.
Military static display aircraft are usually a fairly good mix. It is nothing like it used to be, when we could count on 10-12 F-16s from different units attending, along with many other aircraft. I'd suggest those of you who are interested pull up a show report from the past couple of years to get an idea of what attends these days. Warbird static displays are few. This show has a high reliance on civilian aerobatic acts to fill the flying schedule.
The ramp area is completely surrounded by buildings (to the east), chalets/tents/seating/stands to the north and west, and fueling pits to the south. There is almost zero chance of getting a good, clean photo of an aircraft once it is on the ramp, even if there are no people around. The aircraft are packed in tightly, and usually in very chaotic order.
The only good static photography to be had is the flying display aircraft, which are usually lined up on taxiways to the north and south of the ramp. Unfortunately, these areas are off limits unless you are a show performer. Media even have a difficult time getting to these aircraft.
The runway is roughly north/south, with the crowd area on the east side. Given this, your photography of flying displays will be into the sun anytime after about 11:30am. With the Blues normal flight time of 3:00pm, getting good shots of those fellows in the air will be a challenge, to say the least.
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