Welcome home Zim. Hope you're feeling much better. This is certainly the season for a variety of crud, and the airlines are just tubular petrie dishes.

Slightly more cramped shooting space than my usual venue.................

Fog, I love it when fog greets a dawn shoot..............

G 36..............................

Always a great angle, especially in this kind of light...............

View from "first class".................

Walt Pierce............

The late, great Leo at Willie.............

Beautiful Stearman....ditto on the prop line, along with the angle of bank (or crop), perfectly framed.

Sublime early morning light on the Mooney images Jim. #1 and the fog shot are just terrific.

Mad Dog departing PHX into one of our infrequent weather fronts.

Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
Headed out to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center with the family for this long weekend, starting Friday. We're also hoping to do some walking around the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge and other places around there.

Since I know several of you have "been around" the area extensively, what would you suggest as far as places to stay and things to do? Also, how much time should we budget for the KSC with a rocket-loving 10-year-old and a 4-year-old? One full day? More? Less?

Thanks for any advice.

I did this trip your doing a couple of years ago - shooting Merritt Is NWR every other day ...... did a day at Merritt then the next at Universal for the Blue Man Concert in Orlando - then Merritt and the next at Cape Canaveral ( took the $$ bus tour - thought it was worth it - never in my life dreamed I'd open and close that place, but we did -- it was wonderful !! ) did Merritt again and then Cypress Gardens the next day which I understand now is like Leggo Land or some crazy thing like that ........ when I was at Cypress, do any of you folks remember sitting down to TV in the evening and those skiers would come on your television screen standing on top of each other pulled by a boat holding the American Flag ...... They were still presenting that 20 minute ski routine free in the grand stands when I was there in 2011 or something like that ...... it was GREAT !!!!!

So you have the Merritt Is where everybody goes on the known commercial Wildlife Drive, and THEN YOU HAVE the other WD / wilderness drive ..... If you go to the visitor center, when your leaving, turn right and go up like an 1/8 of a mile ( Peacock Lane ) I believe it is called - they don't advertise it at the visitor center, but it was open to the public in 2011, and you can ask them about it too. It is a right turn onto a gravel road that leads to the maintenance buildings .. but goes right past them out into the wild .. the large 8 foot fence gate opens at 8am ..... The morning I turned onto the road an 8' alligator high on it's legs was crossing the road in front of me ... being from ND now in MD, that was a 1st for me !! So the road takes you way back in the back country on road and trail -- giving you up close !! 5 feet away alligators from 3 feet to 15 feet in length, Wood Storks, Ibis, Herons, Rosettes, Anhingas, mud hens, white pelican and coots -- THAT MARSH IS ALIVE !!!!! 14 times better than the regular WD when I was there .. and when you come out a couple of hours later if your shooting at all -- your right back on that highway that if you make a right turn and go up a 1/4 mile, is the entrance to the normal WD and a bit farther the refuge office.

I've been under the weather so am catching up, so your trip might of already of happened, but I really enjoyed it !!

I hope you folks do too !!

curt

NightOwl Cat wrote:
If I read this right, it's a reproduction

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=324



Thanks, that's how I read it too. Maybe they just had a spare SPAD prop laying around. I don't remember reading at the museum that it wasn't original, and it certainly isn't in the book I bought.

Erich

Nice work with the Mooney Shooter! I think Leo may be the first aerobatic pilot I ever heard of.

Just Warming Up

Storm Bringer

cbrandt wrote:
I did this trip your doing a couple of years ago - shooting Merritt Is NWR every other day [...]

Thanks a bunch for the pointers, Curt. I've filed it for another day, because planning changed quickly and radically when I mentioned the word "alligator" to Daniela. We are now spending tomorrow at the KSC and then heading over to Orlando for Sunday and Monday. Looks like Merritt Island is going to be a future outing with Anya.

JWilsonphoto wrote:
Just ran across this live depiction of air traffic as of a few minutes ago.....uh, I am not sure that I want to know this is going on...............

One of them was me. Up to NYC and back a few hours ago

Rob

Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
cbrandt wrote:
I did this trip your doing a couple of years ago - shooting Merritt Is NWR every other day [...]

Thanks a bunch for the pointers, Curt. I've filed it for another day, because planning changed quickly and radically when I mentioned the word "alligator" to Daniela. We are now spending tomorrow at the KSC and then heading over to Orlando for Sunday and Monday. Looks like Merritt Island is going to be a future outing with Anya.

Rodolfo,

I think you need to purchase these in advance (ie online) - but the tour you want to take at KSC out of all the bus tours is the one that goes to the VAB. When I went on it in October they let us off the bus and have a wander around inside the VAB.

Mark

FlyingPhotog wrote:
@ Mark: It was pointed out elsewhere on the web "that one can not polish a 787" and that's probably where the decision to paint came from.


Yeah I knew that, was just using that sentence as a way of highlighting the new livery.

Not too sure on the tail, but the rest of it I think looks ok. The logo and text on the front goes well.

While most of the UK was under snow today, where I stay had a remarkably nice day weather wise.



BTW, you gotta love the blades on the engines of the 777 - especially when the light hits them right.

I thought I recognized you Rob!