Warbird Information Exchange

My father invited me to take a semester off at college and fly with him for 6 weeks around South America in our Baron. I was chief interpreter and baggage handler, not co pilot (although I'd had ground school...). Somewhere between Santiago and Rio, I reloaded Dad's Pentax. I crawled all the way back to the baggage compartment to take a shot of Dad flying with the Andes in the foreground. That entire roll of film was dorked up, nothing came out. Fortunately we got it straightened out before spending a week at Ipanema beach. WHOA!

Standing on the bike trail at the approach end of the runway. Camera lens is backed all the way out. I get no warning and only one shot. Dang tree.

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What is red, furry and on your six?

You know Fritz, I kind of like that. It reminds me of what it would have looked like living on one of the islands watching the B-29's land after missions.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

emerging from an ice rink in ann arbor circa 1972, i hear the most ungodly noise ever, and out from extremely low and foggy clouds comes a huge lockheed constellation. i was 10 and....it blew my mind. i still see this in my mind's eye, with clarity. but photographic evidence would've been nice.

10 or 12 years later dad and i are at Scott AFB attending an airshow. we see a C-124 that was on its way to a museum. dad rode on one back in Korea. the next morning, monday, i am sleeping late. again i hear the ungodly noise. as low as the connie. i leap from my bed not terribly far from hog hollow airport and...too late. i never saw a thing. but i sure felt it. i've always suspected it was the same C-124 on it's last flight. whatever it was, was chewing a hole in the sky and it scared me to death.

in 1991 or so my girlfriend who works for a radio station intercepts an invite for members of the media to get a behind the scenes night at the USAFM. it was for real important people and we weren't that but we didn't tell them that. and we are so there. placed is closed. maybe 50 people milling about essentially unsupervised. i got to sit in the cockpits of several important ones, just me and my girl. the B-36 (a bit ravaged inside as i recall) and strawberry b*tch, and i believe it was the first one i stepped into, Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby, that i snapped off pic #1, and guess what? whirrrrrrrrrr as the film wound back. it was the last picture on the roll. i was so upset! couldn't believe how the B-17 looked like an old ford inside, the beautiful ornament on the control wheel. i had no more film. eeediot!

about a year later i had a chance ride on a T-28, and again, it was sans camera. that's ok as i remember it all pretty well, and after telling the pilot to please chill on the aerobatics i spent the remainder of the flight cycling thru many shades of green and praying i wouldn't hurl. if i'd had a camera i doubt i would have wanted to employ it.

i joined WIX just now to share my tales of woe with y'all. now i am always with camera. but you gotta be quick!

That is interesting. I wonder if the cockpit was recently gone over. Here is a link to the inside of it now.
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/shared ... 4S-009.jpg

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Back in 2006, we flew the B-17 from our base at Meacham Field in Fort Worth to the CAF D/FW Wing's annual fly-in at Lancaster. It was going to be a fun trip, especially since we'd be flying formation with B-25 "Pacific Prowler". When we were all aboard the '17 and ready to crank engines, I suddenly realized the last place I remembered seeing my camera bag was on the dining room table in my house. . . about an hour's drive (each way) from Meacham Field! AARRGGHH!! The mental images of looking out that cockpit window and seeing the B-25 tucked in on our left wingtip will be with me always. Too bad I can't share 'em with you. . .

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

nice! even if i had a camera that evening my shots would have been terrible as compared to this one. except for the fact that i would have made sure i was the star! faux cold war pilot in business attire. i saved a pic the other day that someone had posted of the cockpit of shoo shoo. 20 years ago in the peacemaker i think there were missing instruments, and it seems complete now. but did the columns once have ornate emblems like the B-17 does? seems empty there, a little ratty. missing on my night too. because i pryed them off with a pocketknife! just kidding. i recall looking back over my shoulder and seeing the left wing just go on for miles, towering above everything. we were so high up i got the fear of heights thing for a second. it was a memory for sure. i do remember that wheel on the left. looked like it belonged on a submarine more.

One summer in the late 90s I had a due diligence trip for a merger in Minneapolis. The deal cratered and left us with a spare afternoon. The other lawyers all headed for the golf course and I looked up Wally Fisk's collection in nearby Anoka. When I phoned, it was closed but I wheedled someone into letting me in for a private tour. Fisk's hangar at that time contained the P-38 that was destined for the Bong memorial up north, Seafire XV PR503 under restoration, the Shackelton, Strikemaster, Skyraider, A-26, many other planes I can't recall as I sit here, and for good measure a couple of racing hydroplanes and a Lamborghini Miura.

I had no camera. I bought a couple of disposable ones in a drugstore on the way up there. It had a flash, but was far too weak to light the planes in the hangar, except for a few close-up shots. The Seafire was in a smaller hangar with the door open so I got some marginally okay shots of that. I got pretty much nothing of that P-38 which I got to crawl all around and am not likely to see again.

I never travel without a decent camera now.

August

So we are even outsourcing our jokes now?

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S.

Looks AWESOME

Could be any Marianas island 60+ years ago!

Cool shot!

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S.

I was on my way into the office in lower manhattan on 01 Sep 2001. I had just gotten off of my subway car and was heading to the Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop in the mall at the WTC. I heard a jet noise. Very loud and very close. I looked up in the direction and just saw the flash of an aircraft disappear into the Tower One.., you all unfortunately know the rest.

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S.

I've got a few.

The ones that I know exist but I can't get my hands on are the ones I took of a Volga-Dnper AN-124 landing at Denver International from just inside the parallel taxiway. I used my company's camera (although I had my own) because they wanted some newsletter photos to highlight ASIG's fueling of the AN-124 and the 4 fuelers (including me) who were typically responsible for the job. I got the pics, but never got the copies I'd asked for. The pics came out great though with the lumbering beast really just gliding in and kissing the runway. I had the utmost respect for those crews because they really did care about the very delicate rockets they carried in and out of Denver for Lockheed. They never taxiied above walking speed, they always had extremely smooth landings, and it was just amazing to watch such a big beast be so graceful. Unfortunately, ASIG doesn't have the newsletters available online back to 2003.

Ones I don't have - my first trip to Maxwell with my Great Uncle which included a trip to the flightline and sitting in on a briefing, the SR-71 when it was at Buckley AFB for the A-10 search (but there's a good reason for that). I also lost a set of pictures I took of Joe Thibodeau's P-51 "Cruisader" with Sentimental Journey and the Ca-2111 at Centennial Airport when the Mile High squadron was just getting started and them returning from doing a flyover at the USAF Academy for a football game.

I'm sure there's others I missed, but most likely I was too young to realize the real significance and forgot them.

Over 45 years of airshows and trips to airports I've missed as many shots as I've gotten, Bought an expensive digital camera a few years ago that I've put in a box because of it's disappointing results. I lost a lot of photos to a flooding downpour in New Orleans years ago, I'm looking @ an 18x18x18 box full of loose slides (hundreds and hundreds)that my second former (hereafter known as the ankle because what she did to us makes her two feet lower than that other physical attribute) who was kind enough to dump out every slide holder, threw away the indexing pages that matched box # to event and shook the box so all the slides are mixed up. I occasionally open the box, determined to sort them out, but it's pretty daunting and darned depressing so, I just put the lid back on and put the box away.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Hey Chunks
is a Comical plant where they make Comic Books??

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All I did was press this red button here...

OK - so the "Stunt Plane" ( I forget which) is going to fly down the flight line at OSH while they set off some bombs on the runway. You line up the shot, get the auto focus to find the plane, and push the button, but the #$@&!! camera decides it's smarter than you and says "there's no picture here". This is what you get when it finally capitulates...



The other one was my very first airshow; Trans-air '74 at Mitchell Field In MKE. The first Harrier I ever saw is hovering in front of the crowd when all the red lights come on and the engines fail. The pilot (Marine Cap't Torrent if I remember right) punches out and the Harrier explodes in a huge ball of fire. I capture the fireball on frame 1 of a fresh roll of 36. I advance the film (which feels kind of strange as I actually stripped out the holes in the film) and I shoot the next 35 frames over the top of the first shot.

I can only say this because the pilot survived and no one on the ground was hurt. The next act was Joey Chitwood and his Camaros on one of the taxiways (yawn).

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Chris