Texan Flight

Although I certainly intend to share recent work on the blog, I thought I'd also share a few of my older photos... along with an interesting story.

Early last year, while down in Florida at my wife's parent's vacation condo, we just happened to catch part of the annual airshow in Stuart. Of course I had my camera with me, so I grabbed a shot of this team doing aerobatics.

Aside from commercial travel I've had no experience with flying...particularly in vintage aircraft. Little did I know at the time that this would change in the not too distant future.

A few months later, in the early summer, I received a call from a real nice guy, Jim, who was interested in having photos taken for his acting portfolio. Seems he'd recently won a flight in a WWII airplane and had this wild idea to rent an authentic era uniform to wear for the flight. Well that sounded like fun to me so we lined it all up!

While there at the airport (in Culpepper, VA) I spent time talking with the pilots and aircraft enthusiasts at the hanger. They are all part of a group called the Commemorative Air Force or CAF for short. These people acquire, restore and fly vintage military aircraft. The folks taking Jim up for his flight run Texan Flight, and offer rides in their beautifully restored 1943 North American SNJ-5 "Texan", a retired fighter/trainer from the US Navy. Here's a shot of Jim and #77.



































Well, as a result of the shoot with Jim, the Texan Flight folks had this wild idea to invite me back to fly with them! So, a few weeks later that's just what we did. As it turned out I went up with them during a formation practice session with several other Texans. Here are a few shots.






Needless to say it was quite a thrill! Who'd have guessed that less that a year after taking a picture of those planes in Florida I'd be up in one myself and photographing them in formation! What's also funny is that, until very recently, I'd never realized that the aircraft in that initial aerobatics photo were actually Texans!