TotL Week - Day 5

This is an F-18 doing a touch-and-go at Thunder on the Lakeshore in 2009.
This year the "fast mover" military jet will be the Air Force's F-16 "Viper".

TotL Week - Day 4

Dan Buchan is another regular at Thunder on the Lakeshore (although he isn't listed as a performer this year).
Dan flies an amazing routine in his hang-glider.

TotL Week - Day 3

In 2009 Micheal Goulian flew at Thunder on the Lakeshore. I've already posted another shot from an air-to-air session he was gracious enough to arrange, but I thought one more wouldn't hurt...

TotL Week - Day 2

Every year Manitowoc's Thunder on the Lakeshore airshow brings in one "headline" performer to compliment their exceptional set of "regulars". In 2009 Kyle Franklin brought his Super-Cub along with team-members Brandon Spain and Andy Roso. Add in a high-power motorcycle and there's a great act!
This photo made the cover of Midwest Flyer Magazine, accompanying my article about the show.

TotL Week - Day 1

One of the regulars at Thunder on the Lakeshore (TotL) is John Mohr who makes his stock Stearman biplane do absolutely amazing things. Check out how close he is to the runway in this pass! There is no optical-illusion here - you can see the shadow of the wingtip and tail-wheel on the tarmac.

Thunder on the Lakeshore Week!

The Thunder on the Lakeshore airshow (which I often abbreviate as "TotL") is coming up in a week. It is my favorite show of the season. While it's on the small side, they are going into their 19th year and have built up a set of strong relationships with the airshow community. There are a number of impressive "regulars" (many who have been with the show since it started) including: John Mohr, Fowler Cary, Jim "Fang" Maroney, and the Dacy Airshows crew (among others). The airboss is Wayne Boggs, who's "other" shows are Sun 'n Fun and EAA's Airventure.

I've already posted three photos from the airshow in this blog, yesterday, May 3rd, and May 5th, but for the next week there will be a new photo from previous year's shows and I'm hopeful that on Friday and Saturday next week I will be able to post at least one shot from each day's airshow (that may be tough, as the show runs from early morning until late night, without much free time...).

Check out their Facebook page for more photos and information about the show.

John Klatt at MTW

Here's a shot of John Klatt flying down the runway just before sunset at the 2008 Thunder on the Lakeshore airshow.

OSH Towers

2008 was the first year that Oshkosh's new control tower was in operation for the AirVenture convention. It was also the last year the old brick tower would be standing. Because of this unique situation, I spent some time taking photographs of both towers; there are more in a gallery devoted to those two buildings.

Proofs from Lake Ripley!

Last Sunday I spent an enjoyable day on the water photographing the CRAW Flashlight Regatta on Lake Ripley, near Cambridge, WI. It's a small lake, and the winds were pretty gusty, making for exciting time for the racers.
All I've had a chance to do is create an album of proofs using the "from camera" JPEGs.
You can see the entire sequence of shots for the photo below starting at here.

Raptor at OSH

2008 was the third year that the F-22 Raptor was a featured performer at EAA's AirVenture convention in Oshkosh, WI. Clear skies and humidity made for a dramatic show on Friday.
There are more photos in my 2008 Airventure gallery.

2006 NACRA NAs

After shooting some CRAW regattas in 2005, I was invited to the 2006 NACRA North-Americans. I got to spend much of the week out on-the-water, and one afternoon doing something I really enjoy: hanging out the door of a helicopter.
There are more photos in my 2006 NACRA NAs gallery.

Red Tail P-51 at OSH

Here's a photo of the Red Tail Project's P-51C being flown by Doug Rozendaal during the 2009 EAA AirVenture airshow. I really like how the lighting makes the plane pop off the darker background.

F-18 Week - Day 7

Wednesday, the windward mark was just outside the mouth of the Racine harbor:

F-18 Week - Day 6

... and some close finishes, too:

F-18 Week - Day 5

There was lots of close racing at the windward mark:

F-18 Week - Day 4

Here regatta winners Mischa Heemskerk and Carrie Howe show their upwind form.

F-18 Week - Day 3

Yee! Haw!

F-18 Week - Day 2

Dramatic Lighting off Racine.

F-18 Week - Day 1

Are we having fun?!!!
Welcome to the first day of "F-18 Week", featuring photos from the 2010 F-18 NAs.
There are more photos in the 2010 Racine Catamaran Challenge gallery, and lots of information about the class at their new website: naf18.com

Iceboat Week - Day 7

Ron Sherry powers through a drift coming into the leeward mark sailing with one of Matt Struble's sails at the 2008 Great Western Challenge Regatta:

Iceboat Week - Day 6

A DN iceboat sits in the sun waiting to go sailing:

Iceboat Week - Day 5

John "JD" Dennis shows his outstanding boat-handling skills as he flies a runner down the short front-straight at the 2009 Fire on Ice races.

Iceboat Week - Day 4

Jakob Schneider at the 2008 Great Western Challenge Regatta:

Iceboat Week - Day 3

Not really an iceboat, but close enough....
Daniel Hearn flys across a parking lot in his Blokart:

Iceboat Week - Day 2

Louis Austin throws up snow at the 2008 Ice-Optimist North-American Championship Regatta:

Iceboat Week - Day 1

Mike Miller gets ready to enter the corner on the short-track at the inaugural running of the "Johnson Cup" during the 2009 St. Paul Winter Carnival.

Gray Plane, Gray Day...

One of my other bad-habits is ice-boating; one day in Spring 2006 I was heading home from a day of sailing on Lake Winnebago at Oshkosh (WI) and I decided to stop by Basler Turbo Conversions. There were a number of old DC-3s and C-47s sitting in the field behind the hanger waiting to be converted into BT-67s.

I liked the juxtaposition of the plane and clouds in this shot. It took me a number of years to get the tone-mapping the way I wanted. This is the most recent version (and probably not the last one I'll make):

John Mohr over Lake Michigan near Manitowc (WI)

I hitched a ride in the front cockpit of John Mohr's Stearman on the practice-day at the Thunder on the Lakeshore airshow while another photographer was shooting some air-to-air photos. I only brought one camera with a normal/wide-angle lens so I was limited in what I could shoot, but I liked this shot of John concentrating on keeping in formation with the photo-plane.

Darrel Massman at the 2010 Baraboo-Dells Airshow

Here's another shot that makes it very clear that the plane isn't flying in any way that would remotely considered "normal". There's a great in-cockpit video from this same show (it may even be the same performance).

Mike Wiskus at JVL

Here's a shot I liked because it really captures how close to the runway Mike is flying. Normally I would crop in a bit tighter on the plane, but I really wanted to show the shadow on the runway. The lighting and background are almost perfect and make Mike's plane almost jump out of the frame.

Michael Goulian over MTW

Michael Goulian was the headline act at the 2009 Thunder on the Lakeshore airshow at Manitowoc (WI). He generously offered to fly an air-to-air session using his Cessna 182 support plane. It was an awesome shoot because Matt Chapman (an excellent airshow performer) was flying the photo-plane. There were a couple of times I had to ask Michael to move out a little bit because the shadow of the Cessna's wing was on his plane, or I needed to use such a wide-angle lens that I was getting part of the Cessna in the edge of the frame.

This is one of my favorite shots from that shoot. The Manitowoc Airport is in the background.

C-5M at OSH

In 2009 the Air-Force sent one of the first C-5M airplanes to Oshkosh for AirVenture.

The lighting was very dramatic when they pushed it out onto (and all the way down) the runway for departure.

Sean Tucker at AirVenture 2009

It's hard to capture the dynamics of an aerobatic routine in still photos. I like shots where it's really clear that the plane isn't flying "straight and level". This is a photo of Sean D. Tucker where it's very clear the plane isn't flying normally.