My home base has been undergoing a renovation. The airport has been closed for a month or so. we're all chomping at the bit to be the first to land on the new runway. Opening time is still a bit uncertain, sometime in the next 3 or 4 days. The Great Dobransky has been a gracious host for all my birds, but I imagine he'll be glad to have some space back! I'll be glad to have them all home again, but Dobransky International is a pretty neat place to base from. My short field skills are all polished up!
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Wow! That's not good news for Airbus!! Better dump their stock if you're holding any!!
JW
It's not really a new development; FedEx and UPS canceled their orders a while back, around the time when all the plane's delays and setbacks were in the news. This was probably almost a year ago now. The first plane is actually flying now, with Singapore Airlines.
I saw it when it made a trip to JFK back in March. It's big, it's ugly, but at least it's not another RJ!
JW,
You're new nest seems to coming along nicely. Betcha dollars to donuts you're gonna be happy to have your flock home in such a nice place. Thanks for the updates picture-wise!
Just to catch everyone up on our runway at TKI Mckinney,. Jim "Mr Shrinkage" Wilson, was the first to land on the new runway. After 2 + long hours of circling ovhd in the cold, waiting for management to ensure everything was done and all equipment and personel were clear, Jim settled his cub on our virgin strip of concrete. The Great Dobransky quickly followed in the 182, reuniting Jim's herd of aluminum, wood and cloth at home. I suppose the next milestone will be the completion and then move into the new hanger. Sorry there arent any pictures, it was dark and no way to get out there and snap any.
Bryan
Edited by Bryan Martin on Dec 01, 2007 at 05:41 PM GMT
Wow, that was a long time to circle the airport! I've flown the Cub in a lot of "almost dark" and "pretty dark", but last night was a good hour of "really dark"! I was afraid it was going to start raining or go IFR on us before they opened up. Then, as George Costanza would say, there was a substantial "shrinkage" factor as the damp cold began to soak in! I guess one of these days I should try closing the doors and windows on the Cub, if for no other reason than to see if they fit. I think 877PC now holds several records at TKI, shortest pattern, most touch and go's in an hour, most touch and go's in one pass down the runway, shortest take-off and landing roll of a non-rotor craft and most orbits of the airport.
We missed you at dinner last night. We ended up at Chili's and the wait was longer than the one to land at McKinney. Have a great weekend!
JW
Edited by JWilsonphoto on Dec 01, 2007 at 11:28 AM GMT
Oh, Bryan, in his usual humble character, failed to mention that he was number three in the parade last night, landing a King Air 350! I'll bet you looked good! Couldn't have orchestrated that whole thing better if I'd tried, unless we could have gotten Butch in there, me and two of my best Buds, one two, three on our new runway. Thanks for the company up there last night.
JW
P.S. Excuse the quality of this shot, handheld at 1/6th doesn't work all that well from the air. The red beacon in the upper right is Joe in the 182.
The move to my new hangar looks like it'll be sometime in February. I'm having a 700 square foot office (350 up 350 down) built in it, so that might delay move in a bit, but it will be a wonderful place to host clients and friends. My friends at Canon are going to demo one of their large format printers in the next week or so, and if it passes muster it'll be a perfect match for the hangar office set up.
Gracie had a swim meet today so I took a few shots of her gathering her usual ribbons. This image was shot with the 1D MkIII this afternoon, in horrible light at ISO 1600. On a bit of a sad note for the current state of society, one of the YMCA staff came over to me and said a number of parents were concerned that I was taking photographs. I guess some bone head was a a meet a few weeks ago shooting pictures of the kids and posted them on some unsavory child oriented site. I'm not exactly sure how they found out that quickly, but they were very concerned. Because it is such a serious issue, I fought the urge to tell her that those parents "wished" I was capturing images of their kids in their events. Once I explained that I go to every meet and shoot my Granddaughter, the women was very apologetic and asked if I would consider photographing her daughter's event. Sheesh! You hate to think the world has come to this point, don't ya?!
Anyway, the III really performed well under very poor conditions and high ISO settings. Word is, my 1Ds MkIII will be in early next week. Bye-Bye 4x5!
Kevin Raulie of The Cavanaugh Flight Museum is ably piloting Lewis Shaw's beautiful Mustang. Kevin's passenger is the brother of the Raptor demo pilot.
Thanks! The platform for all of these was the Pacific Prowler B-25. I believe we'll do the next Mooney ad campaign from that platform, both in still media and Hi-Def Video.
