AFW | October 2009 | Fort Worth Alliance Air Show

Just a small preview, I shot about a gig worth of pics at Alliance today and have some serious sorting to do:

Downside, the sun in the afternoon by the time the Blues have the airspace is in your face. Damns if that doesn't make you try every damn shutter and aperture setting on your camera. This was the first time I shot full manual all day and I promised myself this AM I'd do it instead of shutter or aperture priority. And it was good, some shots I wished had come out better but now at least I have a better idea of some of the tweaks I have to make to adjust for certain lighting conditions.

We got to AFW about 1230pm and holy shit, this is the biggest turnout I've seen yet at this show. Damn near walked a mile to get from the family truckster to the show vantage point.

The static was good, some stuff I hadn't seen yet and some perennial favorites. Only a few aircraft were roped off, nearly all of them you could go up to and fondle, caress and grope. And oh did I. Some of the stuff there that I can recall:

T-39 Sabreliner (USN)
2 MV-22 Ospreys (I'd seen the USAF SOCOM ones up close, this was the first time go inside a USMC machine)
T-45 Goshawk (USN)
T-44 Pegasus (USN)
T-38 Talon (USAF)
T-1A Jayhawk (USAF)
E-3C Block 30/35 Sentry (very cool to a Block 30/35 for the first time)
B-52H (Barksdale bird)
KC-135R (Altus bird)
C-130H (Texas ANG)
KC-130 (USMC)
F/A-18E/F ("Pukin Dogs")
RC-12D Guardrail (my first time get to fondle one up close)
A-10 Warthogs
2 F-16s from the 144th FW California ANG, one of them was the new boss bird with the black tail. Very cool.
1 F-16 from the AFRC at Carswell
1 F-16 with the Royal Netherlands AF (very cool to have that on static)
Lots of helos- Bell Helicopter's customer flight instruction center is at AFW, so they had all of their stuff out for display. There were SH-60 Seahawk as well as the UH-60 Blackhawk and the CH-47 Chinook as well. They even had the engine and transmission covers open on the Blackhawk.
American Eagle ERJ-145
American 777-200ER
American DC-3 Flagship Detroit (parked next to the 777, what a contrast)
There was a privately owned T-38 in 1970s USAF Thunderbird colors, that was cool to see!
3 CAP birds to tickle Chuck's fancy (2 172s and the Gippsland)
Diamond DA20
Cessna 421
ATP had one of the Seminoles there
Ted Smith Aerostar
C-7A Caribou
P-3 Orion

The flying demos that I saw included the A-10, F/A-18E Super Hornet, F-16, F4F Wildcat, T-28 Trojan, OV-1 Mohawk (super cool to see that one flying as a warbird), A-1 Skyraider, C-17 (The way they hauled this fat bitch around was impressive). Sean D Tucker flew, that was neat to see him throw that biplane all over the sky. There were some other demos to, I think it was a Bonanza doing aerobatics. And that damn jet truck, Shockwave. Ugh.

I had my Pro-43 programmed to the Blues frequencies and it was damn sweet to hear all that stuff. It quite literally does sound like singing as the Boss (Blue Angel 1) cues the team "Uuuuup....weeeee......goooooo, more powerrrrrr...........and smoke........"

When one is to geek out, one should geek out 100%. Scanner with the Blues, telephoto lens, check. It was funny hearing Alliance Tower say stuff like "Negative Charlie Bravo Niner-Two, the Blue Angels have the airspace and you'll either have to hold outside the airspace or divert."

Then you'd hear "Blue Angels, Alliance Tower, the airspace is yours" followed by "Alliance Tower, the Blue Angels have the airspace!"

Stay tuned, more pics to appear in this blog as I get through them. As well as more shots from September and October from DFW and DAL!