Nuuumannn's quick trip to Reno!

nuuumannn · Oct 24, 2023

Sisu said:
But no Dread Sled, which from a photographic point of view was a real shame. That airplane always photographed well...

I would'a loved to have seen Dreadnought fly, but I didn't arrive until Thursday, after it had its engine fail the day before. It remained at the races, though, so was great to see in person. As I mentioned in the post, until its incident, it was a two-horse race between it and Bardahl.

nuuumannn · Oct 24, 2023

Today we spotlight a special warbird in the heritage row, PV-2 Harpoon Bu No. 84062.

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Here is a relevant bit of the aircraft's history, there's a link on that page to the Warbird Information Exchange site that describes its restoration from a fire bomber back to its WW2 configuration:

PV-2 Harpoon Navy History

twinbeech.com

Owned and operated by the Stockton Field Aviation Museum, the PV-2 was flown to Reno by its 101-year-old veteran pilot Pat Pattesen, who was on hand to answer questions about the aircraft and its operational record. I got a good look around the aircraft. The payload bay was open for the duration.

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Flight deck and controls.

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Space behind the flight deck with the radio operator's seat to the left, the hydraulic reservoir in front of it and wobble pump for emergency hydraulic pressure to the right. The red handle on the console at centre is the emergency fuel pump, with fuel tank selector switches.

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Radio operator's desk.

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Navigator's fold up seat and avionics rack.

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Navigator's desk.

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Radar operator's console.

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Looking into the rear fuselage with the rear observer's position. In the PV-1 (Ventura), this was armed with a gun. Note the camera to the bottom right and mid upper turret at top.

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The dunny, right next to the radar operator's desk.

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Looking up into the Martin 250 CE-7 electric top turret, with its control unit in the foreground.

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Egress door with casing for a life raft fitted to it.

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Details of note...

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That's the Harpoon, the only example of its type maintained in flying condition. Next, we head out to the pylons for some action shots.

Wurger · Oct 24, 2023

Gnomey · Oct 25, 2023

Good shots Grant!

Snautzer01 · Oct 25, 2023

Its mint. What a treat.

nuuumannn · Oct 25, 2023

Thanks, everyone for continuing on my Reno journey with me. From here we reach the meat and potatoes of my photographic adventure, shooting out at the pylons. This was difficult as you'll see and despite the quality of some of my images, they were hard to get for various reasons. Approach speed and height are the main difficulties to overcome. These aircraft were at times within a couple of hundred feet from us doing between 200 and 500 miles an hour, gone past within seconds. You have to be good at panning, while staying very still, with your camera gear set up absolutely right, otherwise you're just gonna miss everything fiddling about changing settings, as I found myself doing.

My first shots were okay-ish, but gradually I got better. I could not hold the camera still enough at low shutter speeds to get good prop blur, so my Unlimited shots, although sharp, were taken at high shutter speeds (between 1/500 to 1/800). All my attempts at lower shutter speeds were failures. I normally shoot at around 1/250 to 1/320 at airshows, often going down to below 1/100 for aircraft on the ground. There was no way I could do that here. Photographing the jets was also made harder because of their proximity and velocity and at nominally high shutter speeds I use for shooting jets I found some of my shots were blurred. Initial results were discouraging, but I did manage to get some gems...

Pylon Two. We took a bus to get here and we were out for six hours, so we had to take provisions with us. I took a fold-up chair and plenty of refreshments and sunscreen, which was liberally shared with others as there was no shelter from the sun. Luckily on Saturday, there was a bit of overcast, as we'll see. The vehicles and portaloos were the judges' who had to sit out here for the duration. We weren't allowed to go beyond the concrete block to the right.

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The airfield from Pylon Two. The pylon is located on a plateau, which offers terrific views, but the heat haze made photographing distances difficult. You can make out the P4Y Privateer's big tail to the right of the control tower at left.

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My first attempt at photographing aircraft in proximity to the pylon to get that classic shot. It was virtually impossible, so I gave up. The aircraft is blurred; not a promising start...

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It was easier to photograph the aircraft speeding away from us... This was a Sport Class heat, with RV-Super 6 Race 49 "Rocket Six" flown by Bob Mills.

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A good angle on Lancair Legacy Race 92 "Top Shelf" flown by David Robinson.

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Slightly blurred Lancair Legacy Race 52 "Aquila" flown by Colleen Sterling.

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Group shots are exciting. Glasair III Race 23 "Reno Bear" flown by Bijan Maleki leads Lancair Legacy Race 6 "Ramp Rat's Ride" flown by Joseph Corragio.

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Steady capture of Top shelf.

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Reno Bear overtakes Rocket Six against a dramatic cloud formation.

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Best of this lot so far, LEG-2 Race 21 "Blackjack" flown by Alan R. Crawford and F-1 Rocket Evo Race 96 "Sarah Smile" flown by William Christopher McMillan battle it out.

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Bear in mind, these are the best images I took. There are a lot I am not posting!

That Sport Class was a practise run. Now, my first taste of photographing the Unlimiteds. Cameras at the ready. This is Bunny heading straight at us, nice and low and real fast.

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Thunderbird. I missed quite a few shots fiddling with shutter speeds and this was done at the higher end. Dramatic clouds emphasise the speed factor.

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Sweet & Lovely looking, well, sweet and lovely...

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Man O'War.

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Lady Jo.

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Sweet & Lovely again.

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Rounding off this batch, a close-in shot of Bunny. My favourite shot taken on the whole of Saturday.

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Next up, T-6s and jets...

Sisu · Oct 25, 2023

Wonderful stuff, Grant -- I'm glad the unlimiteds are here at last.

I had to laugh at your take on the classic "raceplane with pylon in the picture" shot! For me these were always very low percentage shots that were not worth striving for. I have a few, but most were actually taken by chance and accident as I was following a racer across the sky.

You dealt very well with the shadow side of the airplane problem -- most people leave the shadows too dark -- your methods work great. I decided long ago not to worry too much about prop blur. In my later Renos I mostly shot at 1/320 or even faster and let the props do what they were gonna do. Serious sharpness was always more important to me that a pretty prop blur. Even at the higher shutter speeds my percentage of really sharp shots was not great.

You should try this stuff with ISO 64 film and a manual focus lens! I marvel at these modern tools...

Great work -- I hope more is coming.

rochie · Oct 26, 2023

those are fantastic Grant

Wayne Little · Oct 26, 2023

Wow...Spectacular shots.

Snautzer01 · Oct 26, 2023

Wonderfull stuff. Last on will be my new pc background.

Edit. Just noticed the nose art girl being black.
I find that very refreshing. Not for political correct reasons but just nice.

Wurger · Oct 26, 2023

nuuumannn · Oct 26, 2023

Sisu said:
Great work -- I hope more is coming.

Thanks sisu. There is, but Saturday's weather deteriorated so my shots didn't improve much and with the Unlimiteds not doing too much on Sunday, the best shots I got were on this day. I will be posting more.

Snautzer01 said:
I find that very refreshing.

Bunny was a black girl, so naturlich...

nuuumannn · Oct 26, 2023

Now for some T-6 action. For some reason I only got a couple of shots in this race. I must have been just watching the action rather than photographing it. The T-6s were quite visceral and with Reno being in a bowl their noise travelled a long way. The line up past the start tower. From L to R, Baron's Revenge, Six Cat, Radial Velocity, Midnight Miss III, Gunslinger, and Abracadabra. I get more photos of all these aircraft on Sunday.

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Taken around a second later, note how the aircraft have positioned themselves to do battle. That's British photographer Martin Willis out front lining up the shot.

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A couple of close-ups of Midnight Miss III.

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Radial Velocity catching the sun.

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Some jet action. Texas Fouga starting out front.

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Spirit of Freedom hugging the course.

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Miss Independance...

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Alpine Thunder and its Estonian colour scheme looking flash.

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Battle of the Slavs, Phoenix and its Slovak Republic markings.

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The Aussie battler again. Some of my shots were looking a lot like previous ones.

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Alpine Thunder rounding off this set.

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Next up, more Sport Class and Unlimited action.

special ed · Oct 26, 2023

With the Fouga, you got a tufur. Did you see the airliner?

Snautzer01 · Oct 27, 2023

nuuumannn said:
Bunny was a black girl, so naturlich...

I have 76 pages of nose art. I do not post by far every nose art i see. Guess how many black girls there are there.

Wurger · Oct 27, 2023

Gnomey · Oct 27, 2023

Lovely shots Grant!

nuuumannn · Oct 31, 2023

So, continuing on with Reno, We catch the second Sport Class heats for today. These guys were great. I didn't pay them any mind on the ground, but in the air they came alive and I was able to appreciate their pace and pizzaz. This was the best way to capture them as well. Getting them from the airport would have been hard because of their size. They were quick, too and got real close, enabling some great photographic opportunities.

SH-34 Race 34 White Lightning flown by John Flanagan.