Last week I was hired to photograph a Gulfstream G-III for an aircraft broker and I really like this paint scheme. So different than the "normal" corporate paint scheme of Matterhorn White and various colors of stripes.
I have no idea what the aircraft is worth, but she photographs well.
BTW, hard to fathom, but that aforementioned Gulfstream is what’s known in the industry as “a throw away Gulfstream” depending upon engine time and a couple of other factors they bring between $700K and 1.5 M. They look good on the ramp though )
Unfortunately, given the image of the crash site, and that people on the ground reported there was no chute, I believe the assumption is that he went down with the plane.
Go4Long wrote:
Super hornet down in swc. Initial reports are 6 or 7 on the ground with minor injuries, and no update on pilot.
According to this report 6 of the 7 people on the ground were treated for minor injuries and released from a local hospital. The 7th had more serious injuries and was taken to a hospital in Los Angeles where he/she hadn't been released at the time of the report.
Unfortunately I gotta go with Steven, if no one saw him punch out and he hasn't been found yet, I'm not optimistic . Wonder what ramifications this will have for Star Wars canyon? Given it's rise in popularity in photographic circles it was probably just a matter of time before something like this happened. Too bad all around for sure.
The navy has now confirmed that the pilot did not survive. At this point still going with “it occurred during a low level training sortie”. I would not be surprised to see no flying in the canyon for a while...still being allowed to fly the sidewinder, just not the transition.
Anytime something like this becomes a contest between pilots and photographers, cool as it is, something is going to go south sooner or later. This just got to be too widely publicized. I’m surprised the military didn’t pull the plug on it a year ago. I love this stuff as much as anyone, but it sounds like another split second and the “injuries” could easily have been fatalities. Guessing the hammer will drop sooner rather than later.
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Anytime something like this becomes a contest between pilots and photographers, cool as it is, something is going to go south sooner or later. This just got to be too widely publicized. I’m surprised the military didn’t pull the plug on it a year ago. I love this stuff as much as anyone, but it sounds like another split second and the “injuries” could easily have been fatalities. Guessing the hammer will drop sooner rather than later.
It is where the needle at that specific time was pointing, whether it was on the "fun" side or the "fatality" side
Nowadays, any single "fatality" side will shut the whole thing down for good
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Anytime something like this becomes a contest between pilots and photographers, cool as it is, something is going to go south sooner or later. This just got to be too widely publicized. I’m surprised the military didn’t pull the plug on it a year ago. I love this stuff as much as anyone, but it sounds like another split second and the “injuries” could easily have been fatalities. Guessing the hammer will drop sooner rather than later.
I mean this with all due respect Jim, so please don't take it personally...but this statement requires a lot of speculation that there just isn't grounds for at this point. We don't have the details yet to know what went wrong, and to assume that it was due to a "contest between pilots and photographers" is mildly disrespectful at this point. The Navy guys run a very tight ship through there, let's let them do their job and see how it comes out at the end of the investigation.
What we know for sure is that a single seat F-18 crashed while on a low flight training mission through Death Valley National Park resulting in the loss of the pilot, and minor injuries to 7 french tourists on the ground who were not aware that the area was used by military aircraft. Everything else is basically a guess at this point, as the people that were there for the most part aren't saying anything.
Right you are Steven, and my post was meant as nothing more. We’ll watch and wait.Star Wars Canyon is not a very different scenario from El Centro in the spring, the passes get lower, the photographers get closer, the challenge and the game is obvious. Anytime you have that dynamic in play the odds of something going wrong go up exponentially. Deducing that doesn't involve any speculation, whether any of that played into the accident only time will tell. The resultant clamp down will come regardless, just because of the odds, if you render the canyon off limits then there can be no collateral damage if anything goes wrong.
hope the pilot is unharmed and alive
