WELCOME TO ISNAP ISAP Members, Our organization has been changing at the rapid rate in the 3 months since our Symposium in Norfolk. Over 70 new members have joined ISAP since then, primarily due to the outreach that you, our current members, have done in the months since.
As our ISnAP staff is all unpaid volunteers, we are subject to the whims of personal schedules and life events, so please be patient with us as we establish a rhythm for building and releasing the magazine that features the work of the best aviation photographers in the world, our members!
EAA Air Venture 2012 in Oshkosh proved to be a great opportunity for us to interact with potential members and some of our newest joined as a direct result of interaction with ISAP photographers along the flight line.
Our website is also undergoing a series of renovations, and Tony Granata has been at the forefront of this effort. Improving site navigation and adding fresh content are our first priorities, so please visit the website at: www.aviationphoto.com
As new members have joined ISAP, a number of others have volunteered to assist the organization by assuming staff positions. Jeff Welker has joined the ISAP team as our Social Media Coordinator, and I am sure each of you will attest that the time and effort he has spent with ISAP’s Facebook presence has been well worth it!
These members have stepped up to the challenges that we as a Board of Directors have handed them. There will be more challenges in the months ahead, and more burdens that we will have to shoulder together, but I am certain we are up to the task.
If you haven’t already, please visit our public Facebook Page at: https://www.facebook.com/ISAPorg If you think the content we provide there is worthwhile, please re-share it! Acquiring a large number of Facebook “Likes” may make us feel successful, but what is much more important is that the members of ISAP share our content and our stories with their friends viaFacebook, and get the word out about ISAP. Additionally, if you are not a member of our Facebook group for ISAP members, please join at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/83013491465/ If you haven’t joined the discussion, you have been missing out. I know some of our ISAP members are hesitant to join Facebook, but the near-instant communication between members via our Facebook group is invaluable. If you want feedback on your images, or if you want to quickly find out who is attending events in your area, I would encourage you to use the ISAP Facebook group to connect with other members. The editorship of this magazine, ISnAP, is still in the resolute hands of Kevin Hong, and a number of volunteer correspondents from around the world have pitched in to help by providing content.
As we look ahead to our upcoming Symposium, I hope that a number of you will step forward to help the Board of Directors with the setup and execution of the event, so that we can continue to build upon the successful events of this past May in Norfolk. Larry Grace ISAP President
ISAP XI 2 0 1 2
P H O T O R E C A P
Thank you to everyone for sending photos of ISAP Symposium 2012. Listed are the names of contributing photographers and comments from some of the ISAP members and people who helped make this symposium a success. Alex Hrapunov Andrew Zaback Brent Clark Bruce Moore Christopher Miller Dan Beauvais Daniel Soulaine Eddie Tapp Erik Simonsen Gary Daniels George McClure Greg Meland Hal Scott Isaac Lebowitz Jay Beckman James Firmin Jeff Diamond Jeff Krueger Jim Froneberger
Jim Wilson Jo Hunter John Lackey John Ringquist Kevin Grantham Kevin Hong Michael Malat Nick Candrella Paul Murray Philip Johnson Rob Edgcumbe Simon Fitall Steve Zimmermann Tony Granata
Thank you so much for allowing my son (Nakai) to take a picture with a great legend!! He told me that after taking the picture, he had to hold back his tears! He was honored because of his love of planes and just knowing he had the once in a life time opportunity to take a picture with one of the Tuskegee airmen…Nakai and I THANK YOU! Thank you and the ISAP organization again... Nakai has been reading the manual since he got home and was showing his dad his model. My other son is Darius Smith. Your organization is a wonderful group of people with wonderful hearts. Thank you again. Bernadette Williams I wanted to thank you again for such a pleasant visit! It was a privilege to have you and the rest of the group out to our flight line today. Hope the rest of your visit is great, and the weather holds up for everyone staying around in Pungo this weekend. Just wanted to drop a line to say thanks, and give you my contact info if anyone else had questions. Thanks again!! LTJG Carolyn Work VFA-31 PAO/Coffee Mess It was a pleasure meeting you this past week. I hope all the pictures come out great. Maybe some will get published. It was particularly rewarding to meet your resident Tuskegee Airmen. What a wonderful resource for the adventure of a great story! If you folks have any pictures that you think we might enjoy, we’d love to see them. Take care and best of luck with the photography. LCDR Lee “Malibu” McIlvain VFA-31 Operations Officer Sorry it took me so long to write. It was great meeting you at NAS Oceana for the big Photo-ex. I appreciate your leadership of ISAP. CAPT Bob “Goose” Geis NAS Oceana Commanding Officer It was nice meeting you today. I told you I would send you my contact information so that you can send me links to some of the imagery your group shot today. Here it is. Thanks, and again, I hope your group enjoyed the tour. Spencer Layne Assistant Public Affairs Officer Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story
I was at the Warbirds Over the Beach Air Show held this past weekend at the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, Va. I attended on Sunday(the day it rained unfortunately) with my 6 year old grandson Nathan. You took several pictures of Nathan as he and Les Baldwin took pictures of a plane that had just been rolled into one of the hangers. You provided me with your business card and indicated that if I contacted you, could provide me with several pictures you had taken of Nathan and Les. Despite the weather, we really enjoyed the day. Having any pictures you might have taken would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again and I look forward to hearing from you! Rick Pemberton Would be delighted to have you come back again at a future time, but next visit we will need to guarantee bright sunshine and gentle winds down the runway. Always will welcome any images that we can marvel over. Gerald Yagen Aviation Institute of Maintenance Thank you for some remarkable photos, are we okay to use some of them if the need arises for our own publications. If we use any photos for brochures or newsletters we will give credit to the photographer? Thank you for a great collection. David Hunt Director • Military Aviation Museum I had a wonderful time during last nights open forum. I am emailing you per your request because I was out of buisiness cards. Again Josh and I had a great time. I am reviewing your website further today as work permits and am seriously considering joining. I had a blast last night speaking with you and several other members and think this just might be a perfect fit. Below is some contact info so you can get in touch with me. Thanks again for a great time. Clarence Marshall It was a real pleasure talking to you today and doing that photo shoot with everyone. That was indeed a first for me and a real hoot! I certainly would love to see how your photos turned out. Kevin Shortell Great conference. You and the board should be proud of a good year. Thanks! George McClure The event was fantastic. You all did a wonderful job. I have done events in my past and I know that by the time the event starts there is a team of folks almost burnt down to the ground while everyone else just shows up and has fun. All the venues were awesome and the camaraderie was a blast. Can’t wait to see everyones photos. Gary Daniels Bonnie/Larry, Thank you for inviting me and for running an excellent symposium! It was a great success and it’s an honor to work with ISAP. Carolyn E. Wright Hi Larry and Jim, Thank you for all the effort you both put into making the Symposium such a success. I’m very proud to have passed the baton on to you two and the rest of the board. I always like to reflect on a Symposium and make suggestions (Larry knows I do this every year) for the following year. I only have one: Make the “first-timers’” badges a different color. Even though you had them stand up, no one would be able to remember who they were. And even though I’ve attended so many Symposiums, I still get some of the guys confused as to whether I’ve seen them at previous Symposiums or at airshows. One of our goals at ISAP is to make the new members feel welcome and involved and it would sure help me to do that if I could identify them easily. Aloha from Kansas, PB Great ISAP symposium in Norfolk! Jim Froneberger
Shooting
Rare Bear
by Tyson Rininger
Lighting up an aircraft does not have to be expensive. While many photographers appreciated the demonstration put on by Joe McNally at the ISAP X symposium, just as many were put off by the enormous expense such a shoot entails. To recap, Joe made use of multiple Nikon SB900 strobes to illuminate an aircraft, model and hangar wall. Approximately $5,000 was invested in strobes alone. And that’s not including brackets, radios, light stands and other miscellaneous gear. For Joe who specializes in unique lighting situations almost daily, this type of equipment makes perfect sense, but for the avid enthusiast or aspiring professional it’s just not practical. If you’re willing to give up TTL, or Through-The-Lens flash metering, there are many other more cost efficient options. A small number of age-old Vivitar 283 and 285 series of strobes can save thousands of dollars in equipment costs. Even purchasing costly radio slaves needed to trigger the strobes can be reduced by using basic slaves with line-of-sight strobes. Basic slaves can be found for $20 - $40 each while the new Vivitar model 283 and classic 285 each hover around the $90 mark. To fire these strobes, a combination of radio slaves and line of sight slaves can be used to reduce the overall cost of the shoot. Be forewarned, it’s not the best or most practical solution as any loss of sight with just one strobe can cause multiple slaves not to fire. Troubleshooting in the field with clients looking on, can be nerve racking and come off as unprofessional. The initial set up will require a radio transmitter on the camera with a receiver on the first strobe. Other strobes that are within line of sight can be equipped with a standard slave while hidden strobes, like flashes in the cockpit, engine bay, hiding behind landing gear, etc., need to be triggered with a radio slave. If the flash doesn’t have variable power, exposure can be controlled by increasing or decreasing the camera’s aperture in addition to adjusting the shutter for ambient light. When longer exposures are impractical, such as when people are included in the image, neutral density gels can be added to the strobe to decrease the intensity. As an example, a flash at 100% output may require stopping the camera down to F/8, 11 or even 16. This significantly reduces the amount of ambient light unless a longer exposure is used. Cutting down the power of the strobe by use of neutral density gels will enable a decreased aperture resulting in more ambient light being recorded with a shorter exposure. This is a excellent solution when people are being included in the shot. There are a multitude of other accessories that accompany flashes such as snoots, grids, soft boxes, gels and so much more. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep notes on how the Rare Bear photograph was literally created, but it shouldn’t be too hard to run down where the strobes were located and how they were fired. When nightfall came, the crew pulled Rare Bear out of the hangar and headed toward the run-up area at the end of RWY26. Although it took about an hour, we managed to get the old scissor lift next to the hangar out to the run-up area as well. This enabled me to get the camera onto a raised platform for a much better overview of the historic racer.
One of the initial factors on this night was that there was a near full moon. At any other time, this would have been great. A timed exposure with a full moon present will bathe the subject in ambient light at a fairly controllable rate. Unfortunately, due to the direction we needed to shoot, the moon threatened to cast a huge complex shadow of the scissor lift over the tarmac and eventually the aircraft. When we initially set up the shot, this wasn’t going to be an issue, but as the moon moved across the sky, we came to the realization there was a time frame we needed to work within. If we took too long, the scissor lift’s shadow would ruin the image. The image had already been preconceived on a pad of paper. Space needed to be provided for the magazine cover’s masthead, contents and barcode. Angling the aircraft in such a way, and providing plenty of background would do the trick. Once the Bear was positioned, I went up in the lift to compose the shot, mount the camera to the scissor lift’s railing and attach all the necessary cables in order to remotely operate the camera from the ground. The lift was lowered, I exited and sent the lift back up with just the camera. Connected to my laptop, I could now see what the camera was seeing and began working on lighting the aircraft. When setting up the camera on the lift, I did a quick test of the radio slaves by firing the transmitter on the camera and ensuring the receiver fired at least one flash on the preselected channel. That initial strobe was placed off camera toward the lower left of the image and raised up on a light stand to prevent lighting up the immediate area in front of the strobe. A second flash triggered by a standard line-of-sight slave was placed behind the empennage aimed toward the tailwheel. A third strobe triggered by a standard slave was placed under the left wing aimed toward the left main gear. A fourth strobe was placed on the right side of the aircraft, also triggered by a standard slave aimed at the tool box. And finally, a fifth strobe was placed in the same vicinity as the fourth, but aimed in the opposite direction toward the spinner lying on the ground in front of the aircraft. Once the images had been captured, I made some minor tweaks and sent it off to the magazine. The next morning I got a call from Caroline Sheen critiquing the image. Although we were on the right track, it just wasn’t cover-worthy material, and I agreed. The image itself was strong and technically perfect, but it lacked the human element. It was just a plane. Caroline asked for what I thought was the impossible however, I didn’t realize the level of efficiency and dedication air racing teams posses. She asked, “How difficult would it be to make the aircraft appear as it should on race day?” There were no control surfaces, no canopy, no prop, missing panels, missing fairings, no spinner and a host of other things an aircraft must have in order to fly. I laughed a little, the team did not. They simply responded, “No problem, we’ll get right on that!” Team Lead, Alby Redick and chief mechanics, Keith Gary and Rob Grovesnor spent the day putting the aircraft back together. This would be the most complete Rare Bear had been since concluding last year’s races. While I did my best to stay out of the way and document their progress, I continuously racked my brain on how we were going to utilize the same lighting method, but with people. I hadn’t done that before with a long exposure lighting technique. Once nightfall came, everyone jumped into action repeating exactly as we had done the night before. Since we hadn’t planned on a remake, there were no markers or place cards denoting where every-
thing should go. We had to do our best to compare the existing photo with where everything had to be. And of course there was the moon. That constant nagging reminder that we had to remain on our toes and not waste any time. With everything in place, we briefed the shot once more. Since the guys had all been there the night prior, they were all familiar with the lighting technique and understood the fundamentals of what needed to be accomplished. Essentially, they needed to assume a comfortable pose and maintain that exact position for two to three minutes. If you’re wondering why the long exposure instead of a quick pop of portable strobes, certain elements such as the dimly lit taxi lights, distant mountain range and its separation from the sky, could only be accomplished with a long exposure using the moon’s ambient light. With more elements, i.e., people, more strobes were going to be needed. The following is my best recollection of what was used and where: 1. Transmitter on camera shoe. 2. Receiver on strobe #1 off camera bottom left on raised light stand. 3. Slave on strobe #2 behind rudder aimed at tailwheel. 4. Slave on strobe #3 behind rudder aimed at Alby Redick (foreground right). 5. Slave on strobe #4 behind rudder aimed at Rob Grovesnor (background right).
6. Receiver on strobe #5 behind Rob Grovesnor (background right). 7. Receiver on strobe #6 located in engine bay aimed at Keith Gary (backround left). 8. Slave on strobe #7 located in front of left wing aimed at prop blade 9. Slave on strobe #8 located in front of left wing aimed at main left gear. With the conclusion of each exposure, a giddiness looms over as the guys leave their respective positions and head for the computer to see what progress has been made. It reminds me of why I do what I do. Here are a group of guys I would trade anything for to experience a mere fraction of what they have, and yet a simple picture is enough to ignite a sense of genuine excitement. Just before 1am on July 9th, it was a wrap! The moon had moved too far to the west making the scissor lift’s shadow too dominant to continue. Not to mention we were all working to the point of exhaustion and still had to move everything back to the hangar. Special thanks to the Rare Bear team for their passion and dedication not only for the completion of this shoot, but for all the years of work they’ve poured into the Bear to keep her in the skies. Rare Bear Team Lead, Alby Redick; Crew Chief, Dave Cornell; Lead Mechanics, Keith Geary and Rob Grosvenor; Public Relations, Lisa Snow and aircraft owner, Rod Lewis. Of course the shoot would not have been possible without those at Air & Space Smithsonian Magazine, Linda Shiner and Caroline Sheen.
Overcoming Adversity Tuskegee Airmen Highlight ISAP XI
by Jim Froneberger
The story of the Tuskegee Airmen is one of the best-known stories of heroism to come out of World War II. In the face of blatant racial discrimination, a group of young men who were set-up to fail went on to become one of the most successful bomber escort units of the war. Known for the distinctive red tails and nacelles on their P-51 Mustangs, the 332nd Fighter Group became known as “Red Tail Angels” to bomber crews throughout Europe.
couldn’t hack it. But when the first class completed their training, not only did they succeed, they set the highest grade point average in the history of the support-training program, opening the way for pilot training to begin in earnest in Alabama. The first class of fighter pilots graduated in March 1942, and included Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., a graduate of West Point who would become the commanding officer of the 99th.
But what many people do not know is the “Tuskegee Experience” also included pilots who went on to fly B-25 Mitchell bombers and a variety of observation and liaison aircraft during the war. The International Society for Aviation Photography was honored to have two such former Tuskegee Airmen join us for ISAP XI in Norfolk, Virginia – Lawton “Wilk” Wilkerson and Hilton Joseph.
Over the next four years, almost 2,500 pilot trainees passed through Tuskegee Army Air Field and nearby Moton Field. Almost 1,000 pilots graduated from the program, with just fewer than 700 of them being designated for single engine fighters. The remaining pilots would wind up flying bombers or liaison aircraft.
The Tuskegee Experiment In 1941, under intense pressure from civil rights groups and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Army Air Corps agreed to accept black applicants into flight training. The military leaders of the time were convinced that black men could not be trained to fly combat aircraft, so they expected the “experiment” to fail. Ground support crews began training at Chanute Air Base in Rantoul, Illinois as the 99th Fighter Squadron in March 1941. Pilot training was slated to begin a few months later in Tuskegee, Alabama, but the military brass never intended to use black pilots. They expected the experiment to fail at Chanute and show that the black soldier
The 99th Fighter Squadron deployed to North Africa in April 1943 flying P-40s under the command of Colonel Davis and flew its first combat mission in June. The group performed in an exemplary fashion, on one mission shooting down 13 enemy fighters. With the 99th making its mark in combat, Col Davis assumed command of the 332nd Fighter Group, absorbing the 99th into an all-black group of four squadrons, which transitioned to the P-47 Thunderbolt, and finally to the famed P-51 Mustang. With fighter training going so well, the Air Corps had come under additional pressure to begin organizing a bomber unit. So in January 1944, after a false start the previous summer, the 477th Bombardment Group was finally established as an all-black bomber squadron flying the B-25.
Twin-engine pilot training began at Tuskegee and at Mather Field near Sacramento, California. Ground crews, gunners, navigators, and other crewmembers trained at a number of other bases all across the country. Once they were trained, they would all be melded into the 477th Bombardment Group at Selfridge Field outside of Detroit. The white commander of the 477th, Colonel Robert E. Selway, was a strict segregationist and assigned command of all four squadrons in the 477th to white officers. He also created an environment hostile to blacks, damaging both morale and training effectiveness. Training was further disrupted by a move to Godman Field near Ft. Knox, Kentucky in May 1944 and then another move to Seymour, Indiana in March 1945. The racial tensions exploded in Seymour when Selway set up separate officers clubs for black and white officers in violation of Army rules. In April 1945, a group of black officers mutinied by entering the white officers club. They later refused to sign an acknowledgement that they understood Selway’s policy of segregated clubs, resulting in 101 arrests. As a result of the mutiny, in the summer of 1945, General Hap Arnold designated the group as the 477th Composite Group with the addition of the all-black 99th Fighter Squadron. The commander of the 332nd Fighter Group, Tuskegee Airman Col Benjamin Davis, was given command of the new group and black officers replaced white officers in the command structure. Davis and his new team quickly improved morale and battle readiness, and the 477th was designated for action in the Pacific theater. But before the 477th could deploy, the war ended.
Wilk is also active in the Chicago “DODO” Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. “You probably know about the dodo bird,“ he says, explaining the Chapter’s name. “The dodo lost its ability to fly and became extinct. Well the Tuskegee guys were the same way, and that’s why our chapter chose the name the Dodo chapter. When they flew over there and came back here, they couldn’t find a job in aviation, so they thought they would become extinct.” Hilton Joseph While Wilkerson entered the service near the end of World War II, Hilton Joseph joined even before Pearl Harbor. “High school ROTC gave me the gung ho feeling and I ended up joining the National Guard even before I graduated from high school,” remembers Joseph. “The Guard was activated and we were taken into the regular service in 1941. We only had to serve a year and I only had 28 days to go until discharge. Then Pearl Harbor came along.” With the country now at war, Hilton decided he wanted to try for one of the new pilot slots being made available for black soldiers, but he didn’t
O. Lawton “Wilk” Wilkerson One of the Tuskegee graduates designated for bombers was O. Lawton “Wilk” Wilkerson, a native of Chicago Heights, Illinois. By the time Wilk graduated from Bloom Township High School, the war was already raging in Europe and the Pacific. “A friend and I went to Biloxi, Mississippi a week after graduation and we both wanted to be pursuit pilots,” Wilkerson told the attendees at ISAP XI. “They had a test that was supposed to separate you into areas that you were most suited for. We were split up and he went on to become a navigator/bombardier/crew chief and I was lucky enough to get into flight training at Tuskegee.” At Tuskegee, Wilk wound up in the bomber-training track and was designated to serve with the 477th Bombardment Group as a B-25 pilot. But he would never see battle. “The war was over about three months before I got my wings,” he recalls. “Then they didn’t know what to do with us. We were expendable, but they didn’t know how to expend us.” The 477th Composite Group was downsized when the war ended and relocated to Lockbourne Field (now Rickenbacker International Airport) near Columbus, Ohio. “I became a lifeguard at the officers club pool at Lockbourne and then a little later I became the officers club manager,” says Wilkerson. “We then flew a bunch of B-25s out to Kingman, Arizona to be mothballed. I understand the remains of them are still out there.” After leaving the service, Wilk held a number of jobs before becoming an on-air radio personality at WBEE Radio, which led to a long career in the broadcast industry. After his retirement, he served as president of the Multi Media Ministry at New Faith Baptist Church in Matteson, Illinois.
apply until the later part of 1942. Hilton passed the exam with flying colors, but at 163 pounds, he was three pounds over the maximum weight. “I told them I could lose that weight tomorrow,” he recalls. “But they said they had already purged the records and they didn’t need me.” The following year, he had the chance to take the exam again and this time, there were no more weight or height requirements and he was soon on his way to Tuskegee for pilot training. “Unfortunately, I did not make it all the way through to fighter training, but I did learn how to fly,” explains Joseph. “So they sent me back to my original field artillery outfit which used airplanes for observation. They were flying Piper L-4 Cubs and Stinson L-5s.” After being reassigned to an artillery outfit training in Arizona, Joseph was told that as a sergeant, he was not supposed to be flying. All the pilots were second lieutenants. “But because of my flying ability and my ability to get along with everybody, I would still fly occasionally even
though I wasn’t an official pilot,” he remembers. “Then when I went overseas to Italy, I got a lot of time in those Cubs again. Some of the regular pilots were not always available when a fire mission came up, and since they knew I could fly, they would say, ‘Hey, Joe, you’ve got it. You take this one.’ We got fired on quite a bit and we came back often with bullet holes in the wings and fuselage from ground fire. That went on until I finished my tour when the war was over and I came home. So I wasn’t a fighter pilot, but I was still flying.” Changing Attitudes The success of the Tuskegee Experiment helped change attitudes in the military and led directly to President Harry Truman’s 1948 executive order banning racial discrimination in the armed forces. But despite these advances, the Tuskegee Airmen still faced racial discrimination when they left the Army and tried to find jobs in the booming post-war aviation business. “I don’t know any of us who were able to get jobs flying for the airlines,” says Wilkerson. “All that talent was wasted. By the time we were accepted, I was too old to apply for a job.” As a result, the Tuskegee Airmen found other lines of work, and very few black children in the post-war era grew up in aviation-oriented households – a fact that probably still contributes to the small numbers of African-American pilots in aviation today. But had the original Tuskegee Experiment failed as it was designed to, the face of American history would look much different than it does today. While discrimination remained in the America of the late 1940s, the success of the Tuskegee Airmen helped pave the way for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. And when Rosa Parks took her seat on that bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, she was just continuing the process begun over a decade before in the skies over Europe. “We’ve come a long way – a long way,” said a misty-eyed Wilk Wilkerson at the conclusion of his speech at ISAP XI. “But we’ve still got a long way to go. Our group in Chicago says as a motto, ‘Set your standards on excellence, and with courage and determination, we can overcome adversity.’ That they did.”
AKROVILLE by Gary Daniels
Julia and Tony Woods have it figured out. They are both pilots for major airlines. They are both accomplished aerobatic flyers and perform at air shows throughout the season. They bought a few hundred acres north of Krum, Texas and built a hangar home to house themselves, their two dogs, and their aircraft. They cut a north-south and a east-west grass airstrip out of the north Texas prairie and they call this wonderous place Akroville. It was there that the March meeting of the Lone Star Aerobatic Club IAC Chapter 24 took place. ISAP member Lynn Cromer is the president of the chapter. He put the word out to Texas ISAPer’s to come out for a day of shooting the IAC members practicing in the box at Akroville. March 24 was a stunning spring day in north Texas. Recent rains had greened up the grasslands and the sky was a special blue that only happens when the humidity is low and the breeze is from the north. Several IAC members landed on the grass strips in a variety of aircraft. ISAP members Glenn Watson and Jo Hunter arrived from Austin in Glenn’s Cessna 172. Lynn and I arrived by car…we were in the minority. I asked Jo why she wanted to come up all the way from Austin. She said, “Who can resist a grass strip full of sport aircraft!” I said, “My wife.” I have to admit, I was envious to see Glenn arrive in his 172. He told me he has always loved aircraft and got serious about taking pictures of them only about three years ago.
Safety and fun were the order of the day as the pilots took turns flying the box and making photo passes. And, as a bonus, Chet Kuhn (Pitts owner) brought his parachute and went up in Eric Shell’s beautiful Stearman and made a jump over Arkoville, touching down ever so lightly in front of the hangar. What a special day of exceptional weather and flying and close action shooting that four Texas ISAPer’s will not soon forget.
CALL 911! by Jay Beckman
T911 awaits the next mission on a retardant-stained ramp at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport It’s June in Arizona. It’s only 8:30 in the morning and it’s already hot. But it’s nothing compared to the heat the men and women of 10 Tanker Air Carrier operations face on a daily basis because summer in Arizona also means wildfire season and 2012 is already heating up.
Normally configured for up to 380 seats in charter use, Tanker 911 was converted to its current role with only two major areas of modification. Some half bulkheads were added to reinforce the “keel” in the area normally used for baggage and the center main landing gear was removed to accommodate the three-tank hopper system slung beneath I recently had a chance to meet and speak with Captain Kevin Hopf the belly. who flies this unique McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 to find out more about the machine and the mission. The tanks and control systems are identical to those used on the Erickson Sky Crane. In fact, T911’s first installed tank actually did come directly from Erickson. Mounting to a DC-10 offers a bonus of slightly more capacity because the electronics and hydraulics are on pallets in the baggage area and do not have to hang as one unit with the hopper as is the case on the Sky Crane. T911 wears the burnt orange and white because the orange matches the color of the tank that came over from Erickson.
Captain Kevin Hopf in the left seat
The United States Forest Service has four permanent firefighting bases in Arizona. They’re located at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport (the former Williams AFB), Prescott’s Love Field in the north, Winslow in the northeast and Sierra Vista in the south. Mesa Gateway is a prime location because it’s centrally located in Arizona and offers three nine thousand foot plus runways which saves wear and tear on aircraft. Captain Hopf says “Mesa Gateway is ideal for us. Because we come home 108,000 lbs lighter after a drop, we don’t even have to use thrust reversers and can just let the jet roll long using minimal braking. Staying off the brakes allows us to turn around in the minimum amount of time because we don’t have to wait for the brakes to cool off before the next flight.”
Convenient seating for six (Meals are extra) Turnaround time is surprisingly short for such a large aircraft. At home base in Victorville, California, where they have a triple-feed system, the retardant tanks can be refilled in as little as ten minutes. Re-fueling is generally accomplished in the same amount of time. At Mesa Gateway, with only two retardant feed hoses, Captain Hopf says “our best recorded turnaround time from parking brake set to parking brake release was 18 minutes!” Given that they can cover an area the size of the four corners region with only an hour’s flying time in any direction, that’s the potential for a lot of ongoing support.
“Steam Gauge Freaks Rejoice!”
Despite the size of the DC-10 and the added bulk of 12,000 gallons of PHOS-CHeK loaded in the belly tanks, performance is stout. Takeoff weight runs around 390,000lbs full up but despite the mid-day heat of an Arizona June, the jet has been observed rotating relatively early and displaying the ability to climb quickly. Depending on winds and terrain, a typical drop profile is an approach at 200 to 500 feet AGL, an indicated airspeed of about 140kts, 35 degrees of flaps and the gear up. Fortunately for the pilots, they have been allowed to adjust the gear-warning horn so that it does not sound constantly while they are in what is normally a landing configuration. The belly tank sets up quite a bow wave moving through the air and it can slightly affect the Static Air inlets mounted on the sides of the nose. Because of this anomaly, maximum service ceiling is limited to 28,000. T911’s air data is simply not accurate enough to operate at the flight levels were reduced vertical separation is used. Maximum airspeed in cruise is around 350 knots indicated.
Instead of baggage below deck, you find the electronics and hydraulics for controlling the hopper doors. Each is mounted on a bolt-in pallet.
Only the forward and aft tanks are physically attached to the jet. The center tank attaches to tanks one and three because it lies under the spar where drilling for mounts would be problematical. The tanks empty via gravity and can dump in any order required to do the job. There
are manual release controls as well in case the entire load needs to be jettisoned. Captain Hopf tells me that in 500 flights, they’ve only had to drop off target, twice. “We can do one 12,000lb drop or set it up to do 12 1,000lb drops if need be” says Captain Hopf. “We can dump front to back, back to front, one-three-two, three-one-two, whatever. There are no aircraft- or flight-specific limitations on our system beyond the need to proactively trim nose down during a drop.” Of the mission itself, Captain Hopf says, “We’re not a flying fire extinguisher. We can only retard fire. We can only slow it down. We’ve never extinguished a fire and I doubt we ever will. Retardant is meant to help keep the flames down to a relatively safe height, three to five feet, so the firefighters on the ground can actually attack the fire before it burns through a drop zone. Our two greatest assets are our 12,000 gallon capacity and our speed. We can put down the most, the fastest and being turbine-powered, we can do so reliably and have a wider safety margin as well. We always have the option to go around.” 10 Tanker Air Carriers is currently on a spot contract with the USFS but has served Cal Fire and has even traveled to Australia to fight fires “down under.” It was on the Australia excursion where T911 got the often used name “Vicky.” Captain Hopf told me “The Australians like to name things so when T911 arrived, we were asked, “What’s her name?” After some deliberation, we realized that A) T911 was from Victorville and B) We were now in Victoria… “Vicky” was born!”
The permanent PHOS-CHeK storage and pumping area at Mesa Gateway.
T911 climbs out into a clear Arizona afternoon.
The unofficial name was, to the dismay of fans, removed last winter. Captain Hopf told me that apparently, the flight engineer on the Australia trip has an ex-wife named Vicky and I guess he was fine with removing the name. 10 Tanker Air Carriers is the “bigger bucket” of choice and is a welcome asset in controlling and managing wildfires in Arizona where, as of this writing, there are at least four significant fires burning in the southeast and northeast corners of the state.
The unique, three-bay hopper mounted below T911. Note the static ports at upper right and how close they are to the bow of the hoppers.
T911 on short final to Mesa Gateway Airport
HOW I GOT THE SHOT by Terry Moore
Back in Iraq I had plenty of opportunities to get out to the flight line to create some great images. It wasn’t easy at first because I was in a war zone and opsec was a big thing, not to mention I was practically a nobody. So getting close to these weapons heavy, war birds took a little time, as I had to earn the trust of the pilots and their command elements. Thankfully for me this didn’t take too long, or much convincing when they started to see some very cool images come their way from this complete stranger with a camera. During the day I had a reasonable amount or free time to sit and conceptualize a variety of images I wanted to take and in the evenings after work I would grab a vehicle and head off to the flight line to see what if I can employ the concept with the right gear to see and make the image happen. One of my first concepts was to shoot a OH-58D Kiowa nose on at night pre mission. This image provided enough technical exposure issues that it took me about 3 separate nights of studying each night’s imagery and coming up with ways to eliminate my exposure problems. If the exposure was too long, the concrete under the helicopter would be washed out of detail. If I shortened the exposure the pilots in the
cabin would be barely visible and lack detail. Lastly since I am not connected in with comm’s with the pilots communication issues needed addressed. So the first thing I did, was sit in with the pilots and brief them on some basic hand signals. This would be paramount to my success in capturing a great image. The OH-58 has a couple of large screens in the cockpit that glowed green. The best thing is that the gain can be adjusted on these screens so they could dim or increase the light out put to assist me in achieving a balanced internal and external exposure. Once hand signals where established all I had to do was get my camera setup on the tripod about 7ft from the nose and under the disc. Attach the shutter release and wait for the pilots to do their start up pre mission procedures to give me their attention. When ready, they would do this by giving me the thumbs up. I then set the camera to manual mode and set my aperture to f8, shutter speed to 8 seconds and ISO to 800 and I was good to go. After my first exposure I check to see if my highlights are not blown out and check the pilots and see that they are bright and visible. If not I would use hand signals to get them to increase or decrease the gain till I got the image I wanted.
This Month’s photoshop tips Courtesy of www.planetphotoshop.com Stroke It When preparing an image for printing, as the final step add a 3-pixel black hairline around the perimeter to define the edge. Here are a couple of easy ways to do this: - Select the entire image (Command-A [PC: Ctrl-A]). Then, go to Edit>Stroke and set the Width to 3 px, the color to black, and the Location to Inside. - With the image layer unlocked (if it’s the Background layer, doubleclick it), add a Layer>Layer Style>Stroke. Set the Size to 3 px, Position to Inside, and color to black. by John Shaw Deleting A Layer This one is short and sweet: Instead of dragging a layer to the Delete Layer icon (trash can) to delete it, you can quickly delete a layer by pressing the Delete (PC: Backspace) key. by Matt Kloskowski Create A Layer Below A Layer Sometimes, you need a new layer to appear below the layer you’re working on. If you Command-click (PC: Ctrl-click) on the Create a New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, a new layer will appear below your active layer, unless you’re on the Background layer, as nothing can go below the locked Background layer. by Raphael “RC” Concepcion See And Change The Selection Area While using the Magnetic Lasso tool, if you turn on Caps Lock, the cursor will change to the brush-size indicator. This lets you see more precisely the area that the tool is selecting from, and you can use the Bracket keys to change its size. by Pete Collins Use PNG For Transparency In the past, the only way to get transparent graphics on the Web was to use a GIF image. Unfortunately, GIF only allowed transparency in an “it either is or isn’t” way. With the PNG file format, you can save varying degrees of opacity, called Alpha transparency. by Raphael “RC” Concepcion Cycle Through Fonts Double-click on a text layer’s thumbnail to select the text, then in the Options Bar, highlight the font name. Press the Up and Down Arrow keys to cycle through your available fonts and see exactly what your text will look like. by Corey Barker
SEE WHAT’S NEW IN CS5. LITERALLY! So you’re in Photoshop and you want to know what’s new in CS5 and where it is located. Simply go under the Window menu to Workspace and choose New in CS5. This will highlight all the new features in all the menus. CONTENT AWARE: AWESOME! That is perhaps the best way to describe this new feature. This feature easily does 50-90% percent of the work right away. Simply select an area you want to remove then press Shift-Delete {PC:Shift-Backspace} and choose Content Aware from the Use menu and watch the magic. Now it’s not perfect but if it does 75% percent of the work only requiring you to do some minor tweaks, then it’s well worth it. I guarantee you will try this on every image you have. Even if they don’t need it. It’s that cool to see in action. Vintage photo look Wanna get a really old and vintage styled look to your photos? The new Grain feature in the effects panel works great. However, try this tip. First go to the Hue/Saturation panel and covert the photo to a black and white. Then go to the Effects panel and start adding grain. The black and white look to the photo really brings home that classic style in a photo. Getting back to the Default colors To get Photoshop back to its default Foreground and Background colors of black and white, press the D key. Cropping to a Specific Size If you would like to crop to a specific size with the Crop tool (C), enter the dimensions and resolution you would like in the tool options up in the Options Bar. When you click-and-drag out your crop border, you will automatically constrain the crop handles to the size that you have set. Create a “Rule-of-Thirds” Grid Don’t use the grid view very often? Then turn it into a rule-of-thirds grid. In Photo-shop, press Command – K (PC: Ctrl-K) to open your Preferences. Click on Guides, Grid & Slices from the list on the left and change the settings for the Grid section as follows: Gridline every(1) 100 percent, Subdivisions(4) 3, and click OK. This creates a grid that divides the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. When you turn on the grid by pressing Command – ’ (PC: Ctrl – ’(apostrophe)), a rule-ofthirds grid will be superimposed over the image. Photoshop CS / CS2-6 http://www.planetphotoshop.com/category/tips
ISAP Chairman
Larry Grace
ISAP Vice Chairman
Jim Wilson
ISAP Secretary Jim Koepnick ISAP Treasurer Bonnie Kratz ISAP Lawyer Albert Ross
ISAP Board Member
Jessica Ambats
ISAP Board Member
Mike Collins
ISAP Board Member
George Kounis
ISAP Board Member Richard VanderMeulen
ISAP Chairman Emeritus
Jay Miller
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ISAP Forum Matt Miles
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ISnAP International Editor
Mike Green
ISnAP International Editor
Mark Mansfield
ISnAP International Editor
Justin de Reuck
ISnAP Staff John Ringquist
ISnAP Staff
Lyle Jansma
The ISnAP is a periodic publication of the International Society for Aviation Photography and is used to communicate news, functions,convention information, and other information of interest on the local, regional, and national scenes. The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors and should not be construed as the views or opinions of the International Society for Aviation Photography. Please submit photos as a jpg file, sized at 4x6 or 5x7 (200 dpi minimum), and text as a Microsoft Word file as attachments via email to ISnAP@aviationphoto.org
Photos by © Jim Koepnick, ISAP’s 2012 George Hall Lifetime Achievement Award recipient