What’s going on

I thought I’d write something about the current activities at So Many Aircraft. Summer is just about here and there will be air shows, so some serious photography is in our future. The plan is to visit at least the air shows in the New England area (Quonset and Westover) as well as various fly-ins. Also, visits to NH by the Collings Foundation aircraft as well as some other warbirds (e.g., “Fifi”) will be covered.

If at all possible, we plan to be in Beach City, OH (yep, no beach there and it is not a city) this summer when “Beach City Baby“, a C-53, will finally be flown to Washington, PA. Captain Jason Capra and his crew have done amazing work and the restoration is proceeding well; go visit their Web site to see what’s going on there.

On the publishing side, we are working on a Kindle version of the KMHT book. That should be available soon. Beyond that, the DC-3 book is still being worked on, and a book on Eurocopter Dauphin is being planned (and, we are interested in anyone who could arrange access to photograph these).

On the strictly bureaucratic side, the new EU privacy regulation (“GDPR”) came into effect, so we now have a privacy page. The blog has been updated as well, so if you are reading this within the EU, you should have seen some kind of notice).

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Front & Back

Boeing 737-7H4 (N795SW, c/n 30606), Southwest Airlines; KMHT, 2018-04-04

Lately, I have taken more pictures from what could be considered unusual angles. Since my general interest has been aviation history (the preservation thereof) and scale models, I mostly take pictures of aircraft from very “traditional” angles. In this blog post I will discuss and show some images that could be labeled as “front and back”.

Front

Front views of aircraft offer some dramatic visuals, but can also be helpful for scale modelers as they can reveal details that are otherwise hard to get right (dihedral angle, positioning of the landing gear, etc.). Here are some recent pictures (except for one, all pictures in this post were taken this year).

Bombardier CRJ900 (N181PQ, c/n 15181), Delta/ExpressJet; KMHT, 2018-05-03

Snow and aircraft photography

Bombardier CRJ200 (N248PS, c/n 7925) of American Airlines, operated by PSA Airlines, lands at KMHT on 2017-12-11.

Now that we (finally) have some snow in New England I thought I’d share some of my personal views and observations about the opportunities and challenges that snow presents to the aircraft photographer. Generally speaking, snow on the ground changes the lighting conditions as it reflects sunlight and often creates a wonderful environment of all-around diffuse light. Not only do we avoid sharp shadows (like on overcast days), but also the undersides of aircraft easily receive more light.

Southwest’s Boeing 737-7H4 (N205WN, c/n 34010) at KMHT on 2017-12-11.

Southwest’s Boeing 737-76N (N7846A, c/n 35218) at KMHT on 2017-05-12.

The picture of PSA’s CRJ200, above, is a good example of how the reflected light illuminates the undersides of a landing aircraft. Similarly, the landing Southwest 737s look quite different from one another: One was shot on an overcast spring day (with no snow), the other in bright sunlight but with snow underneath (note the reflection of the aircraft’s shadow in the snow, visible on the fuselage). On a snowy day, even when you have direct sunlight, you can often avoid sharp shadows that otherwise make photography in direct sunlight a challenge. Without snow, the diffuse lighting of the overcast day helps, but even with modest editing there is not as much light to illuminate the underside of the aircraft.

The KMHT book is done!

As I recently reported, UI have been working on a book titled “Aircraft at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport”. Now I am happy to report that the book is done and available to purchase! More information about the book is available here.

The 150-page book features almost 300 large color photographs (selected from about 7,000) depicting aircraft operating at, or visiting, the KMHT airport.

Bowman Field Fly-in

1964 Cessna 172E (N5561T, c/n 17251461)

The 31st Bowman Field Fly-in was held on August 26th and 27th, and just like last year I made a brief visit. This time I was there on the 2nd day. For those who don’t know, Bowman Field (B10) is a small grass strip in the town of Livermore Falls, ME. This has now become one of my favorite annual aviation events to visit, one I much prefer over bigger airshows.

Progress with my book project

I have been working on a photo book about the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. No, let me rephrase that, it is a book about the aircraft operating at this airport, whether those are planes based there, just visiting, regular airline flights, etc. I have just ordered a “proof copy”, the first physical copy of the book, so things are definitely getting very real now. The final book has 150 pages and about 300 large color photographs.

Cover and sample pages

Interesting about this project has been figuring out how to actually produce what we used to call the “camera-ready” version of the book; in practice, this is a PDF file from which the physical book is printed. 150 pages with 300 or so photographs is not exactly easy to put together. At first, my thought was to use Adobe InDesign page layout software, but this would have meant a lot of manual labor, making sure all the pages have a uniform look, all pictures placed correctly, etc. And what would I have to do if I in the middle of this process decided that I didn’t like the chosen “look and feel” and wanted to make changes across all the pages? Very quickly I ditched the idea of using InDesign and started looking for more “automated” solutions. As a software engineer, this is in my nature, I suppose…

Back to blogging…

I have been busy with “other stuff” and have completely neglected blogging lately. The good news is this: The book titled “Aircraft at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport” is nearing completion! Proof-reading is almost done, after that it should not take very long before the book is available.

More later.

Collings Aircraft Visit New England

“Witchcraft” fly-by at KMHT on 2016-09-20

Collings Foundation‘s “Wings of Freedom Tour” recently passed through a number of New England airports. The aircraft (B-17, B-24, B-25 and P-51) are always worth seeing. This time, their TP-51C “Betty Jane” had been replaced by the recently restored TF-51D “Toulouse Nuts”.

I saw the aircraft several times, at Beverly, MA (KBVY) on 2016-09-18, at Manchester, NH (KMHT) on 2016-09-20 and -21, and at Worcester, MA (KORH) on 2016-09-24. The Worcester stop featured additional aircraft; I was able to photograph their Corsair and Skyraider.

I also received the honor of being the Collings Foundation’s first “fan photographer of the week”. There will be a separate blog post about this.

TF-51D Mustang “Toulouse Nuts” being parked at KMHT on 2016-09-21

Bowman Field Fly-in

Resplendent Curtiss-Wright Travel Air 4000 (NC6005, c/n 534) from 1928.

The 30th annual Bowman Field Fly-in was held on August 27th and 28th. I visited the event on the first day. Bowman Field (B10) is a small grass strip in Central Maine in the town of Livermore Falls.

There were dozens of interesting aircraft visiting, from a 1928 Travel Air (see photo) through 1940s Aeroncas and Cubs to more modern variety. I am definitely visiting this event again next year.