Chandler and I spent the day over at Legend Aircraft yesterday. The project was to document the final inspection and first flight of a new Super Legend "MOAC". this aircraft was built under Legend's "Builder Assist" program where the owner does 51% of the work under close supervision and help from the factory. The program doesn't save a tremendous amount of money in the end, but it is a great way to custom build your own aircraft yet have the capable brain trust of the factory staff right there with you.
This particular "MOAC" is my personal favorite, just stunning. We waived off the sunset air to air just because what we accomplished in one afternoon was already pretty ambitious. We'll revise that part and some, hopefully unique, drone imagery in the very near future. I shot video yesterday and Chandler shot stills...................
Jim, you are correct, the folks that work on warbirds have their hands full. 80 year old technology and parts limitations all take their toll. They do yeomen's work keeping them flying for sure!
I went comet hunting last night. The city lights were quite bright just south east of Fort Worth on the Winscott Ranch.
I never could really see Neowise with my naked eye....one of those things that you sort of think you see when you're not looking directly at it...but it showed up fairly well in the camera.
I'm planning on going further afield tonight, see if it gets any better.
Great work Zane! I was thinking about going out north of McKinney this evening. What do you think the optimum time is , or does it make any difference?
While I have you Zane, is your primary aviation interest warbirds? If you have any interest I can set you up with my Buddy who owns Legend in Sulphur Springs. They are doing so much new and cool stuff with their cub airframes. No pressure but if it fits they are a really interesting story.
Man, I've been working on a video for Legend most of the day, started at 5 this morning. The piece is just a little over 12 minutes and I'm rendering the master copy in Apple Pro Res 422 HQ. Looks like the finished file size is going to be about 82GB, it's taking forever to render. I'll do the next version in H.265 which will be much smaller and hopefully transcode in a fraction of the time, my 2018 MacBook Pro is breathing hard. Ugh, it's a treadmill, higher res cameras, need larger memory cards, need faster computers, need larger RAID Arrays to store the final product, and on and on. I just read an article about Seagate, they claim they are going to produce 200TB single hard drives in the next couple of years, platter drives not SSD's. Amazing stuff huh? We can do that kind of impossible stuff, we just can't get along with each other...................
Primary is Warbirds. but...if you hadn't noticed WarbirdRadio is kaput.
Long story short, our site <along with hundreds of others, was shut down because of some criminal activity. Ten years worth of shows that were online are safely backed up off line but the task of starting over and reloading them and having anything close to what we had before is beyond the current time and monetary capacity of site owner.
I am working on a plan to carry on with the Texas Warbird Report as a stand alone podcast. There are some upfront start up costs that I am working on finding some sponsorship for... so...stand by for news. It may well evolve into a podcast on vintage aircraft and warbirds etc and maybe more than Texas.
As far as the Comet goes, I was on site about 15 minutes after sunset and took photos starting about an hour after sunset. The one with the fence and trees was @ 10:15.
Thanks for the info Zane! I'm so sorry to hear about Warbird Radio, you devoted so much time and talent to that, just a shame. Please let me know if there is anything that I can do to help you with your new venture.
The video I was working on crashed at about 73% and I couldn't recover it initially in FCPX so I stepped away from the computer and went to the hangar for a while. Last night I was miraculously able to recover the edited file and so I rendered it in several resolutions and sent it to the client and the owner. When I got up this morning I had replies from both saying they loved the video, unfortunately the aircraft flipped upside down on the grass strip yesterday and was demolished. Pilot is ok, just kicking himself I'm sure. A real shame, it was a beautiful aircraft and he worked so hard on it, less than 24 hours, just a shame.
Folks think these pretty little tailwheel Cubs are so cute, like Lockheed Test Pilot Tony LeViere once said to a bystander remarking at how "cute" a Cub was........"Yup, and they'll just barely kill you........" The truth is, even though they take off and land at 30 knots or less, you had better respect the hell out of anything with a tailwheel.
A visit to Buckeye Airport Arizona. I somewhat remembered Jeff W. posting some a while back. Yesterday i found a trip down memory land and a visit with some old friends. My first airplane ride was in a Ryan navion and it was a bit more air worthy than this one. While in Air Force ROTC i had a flight in a C-119 Boxcar from Peoria to MS, FL and back to Ill. I graduated from Air Force basic multi engine training in the B-25 in 1957. I flew the C-47 at Wright Field in 1957/1958. While flying the C-124 Globemasters, i had several air rescue intercepts with SA-16s near Kwajalein Atoll and Hawaii. Their crew members painted a cocktail glass under the pilots side window. That told everyone of t heir intercepts and also let us know we were to buy drinks at the Officers Club for them, enless they were Warrent Officers,which some were. Does anyone know or understand these add ons on both sides of the B-25 ?, as i do not.
PBV-1A Canso A, Canadian Vickers.
C-119 Flying Boxcar .
DC-3/C-47.
SA-16 Albatross (wonder whats under that fancy paint ? seaplane)
Until a couple years after the end of WWII, The Army Air Force was the aviation branch of the U.S. (land based) military. The USAAF had a B-26 (Marauder) medium bomber, and the A-26 (Invader), different aircraft from different manufacturers. The B-26 was retired from service shortly after WWII.
The Army Air Force was spun off into a separate service (US Air Force) in 1947. The Air Force retained the still operational A-26's. They later dropped the A (attack) designation for aircraft, and the A-26 Invader became the B-26 Invader.
If the aircraft has a fuselage with a "round" cross section (not the only visible difference) it's a B-26 Marauder. If it has a "squarish" cross section it is a A/B-26 Invader.
The B-26 (Marauder) was designed as a medium bomber. The A/B-26 (Invader) was designed as a ground attack/light bomber.
Both the B-26 (Marauder), and the A/B-26 (invader) have the engines "slung under the wings"..
